Knowledge Management and the real world

As Asad Uz Zaman points out, KM is “a very huge area to discuss”, which according to Sébastien Kouassi it depends on “social, political, economical, cultural,...realities”. To add to this, I have not yet come across examples where organisations have implemented an integrated KM strategy as put forward in the Weggeman model (see http://www.irc.nl/page/8371).

Some cynics view KM as nothing more than a marketing concept thought up by management consultants and ICT companies (http://informationr.net/ir/8-1/paper144.html). Indeed, two of the most widely applied and acclaimed KM applications – the Intranet and Communities of Practices (CoPs) – use ICT tools to support existing working procedures/systems. An Intranet is an ICT-enhanced office communication and archiving system and CoPs are generally seen as groups of professionals with a common interest who use ICT-tools to enhance information sharing.

A KM model like that of Weggeman can be used as a checklist to see where KM processes are likely to fail. But where are the practical solutions?

A promising new angle to KM can be seen in Learning Alliances (http://www.irc.nl/page/14957). Many difficulties occur when knowledge has to be shared between different stakeholders. Researchers find it difficult to influence policy-makers, project implementers often do not take the experiences of end-users into consideration. KM could play a role in facilitating communication and knowledge sharing (learning) between these different stakeholders. A good way to start would be to let representatives of each stakeholder group inform each other about the information they rely on and how they use it for decision-making.

Cor Dietvorst, IRC