One of my peers in the badly-named discipline of Knowledge Management is IBM's complexity guru, Dave Snowden. Last year Dave wrote a paper entitled Managing for Serendipity,
which I really enjoyed. Dave appears to share my disdain for the
context-free capture and 'codification' of people's business knowledge
in massive 'knowledge bases' just in case someone else might be able to
benefit from that knowledge sometime in the future (assuming they can
find it).
Dave's paper explains how senseless this expensive exercise is. I have outlined in my Personal Knowledge Management articles why I think Knowledge Management energies would be much more effectively spent (1) developing social networking applications and competencies, and (2) developing personal content management
applications and competencies, focused on the specific, individual
needs of the organization's front-line knowledge workers (illustrated
above).
In the above-mentioned article, Dave asks the question: If
capturing 'best practices' and similar context-deficient knowledge in
central repositories is, except in limited cases*, ill-advised, what if
anything should organizations
be collecting in centralized 'knowledge bases' and what
centrally-coordinated programs should be used to encourage learning and
knowledge transfer? He suggests three possibilities:
Narrative Databases:
Unfiltered repositories in which people can record stories about events
that they learned from personally. Dave warns against imposing
interpretations and rigid taxonomy on such stories, stressing the
importance of serendipitous reading of them. He also sees these as a
significant opportunity for recently retired employees to contribute to
others' learning. Dave offers a highly-regarded course in the craft of story-telling.
Social Network Stimulation:
Databases, tools and programs that encourage and enable employees to
improve the breadth, depth and effectiveness of their personal
networks. In a recent article in Sloan Management Review, Rob Cross,
Tom Davenport and Susan Cantrell entitled The Social Side of High Performance
(available only by subscription) the authors show that effective
development and use of social networks correlates more than anything
else with high performance rating of knowledge workers.
Disruptive Pattern Breaking:
Providing fresh thinking, ideas from unusual sources, and challenges to
accepted ideas and procedures are healthy in any organization. By
broadening employees' exposure to such material, organizations can
stimulate innovation and provide new perspectives that can sharpen
critical skills and hence improve work effectiveness and
decision-making.
Although many people find Dave's writing dense, even intimidating, I
find his arguments to be well-supported, pragmatic and eminently
practicable. These three initiatives, in tandem with programs to
develop social networking and personal content management applications
and competencies, offer the promise of finally realizing the 'Knowledge
Advantage' that those of us in KM have been striving for, for a decade.
* Dave acknowledges the value of 'best practices' in
internet payment systems and safety procedures in a nuclear power
plant, for example.
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
