ConFigures

Introduction to Knowledge Management: KM in Business

Review:  Introduction to Knowledge Management : KM in Business, Todd R. Groff and Thomas P. Jones

I read this book in the fall.  I wanted to get a better grip on ideas in and application of the discipline, for my group’s use of collaborative software. This book turned out to have some of that, but was less academic than I was expecting (this may be a plus to many readers). Instead, it introduces concepts of knowledge management (including controversy over using the term at all, and fallacies), suggests getting started with personal knowledge management, broadens into team approaches and change management, and addresses issues that come up in practicing KM (management v. leadership, and strategies). There’s even a Careers in KM chapter at the end.

A selection of key concepts and points in the book:

• Data v. information v. knowledge, tacit v. explicit
• abstract thinking, narrative thinking, systems thinking
• Danger of overfocus on gadgetry v. culture
• Information triage
• The better-organized, better-connected (associative memory!) and more easily retrieved knowledge is, the easier it is to come up to speed. The addition of metadata to a document vastly increases your ability to retrieve it for future use when you need it.
• Different people have different layers of abstraction. We can capitalize on this by working together to discover hidden assumptions and develop richer solutions. … collaboration often uncovers ideas that we find alien or threatening … We need those ideas!
• KM must establish or further forums for dialogue (e.g., on best practices). Developing a culture of KM involves tasks such as encouraging trust building, collaboration, connectivity, and dynamic communication paths.
• Consider every document as a potential template.
• Use documentation work as an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to make the solution to an issue reproducible.
• Maximizing your knowledge exchange requires that you carefully examine all of your points of information exchange and search for improvements.
• Attention is the currency of the Information Age, and trust is the bandwidth.

There were some points at which I disagreed with the book (noted in the margins). The worst was when, like our book club’s Applied Software Project Management selection, it seemed to advocate lying at one point, if not as egregiously (it suggests “developing” stories to spread at the water cooler to change corporate culture).

There are discussion questions and pointers to further reading at the end of each chapter, which might make it good book club material.