KNOWLEDGE Knowledge is a familiarity with something, that can include information, facts, descriptions, and skills acquired through

experience or education. It can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.Knowledge is intangible, dynamic, and difficult to measure, but without it no organization can survive. Two types of Knowledge Tacit: or unarticulated knowledge is more personal, experiential, context specific, and hard to formalize; is difficult to communicate or share with others; and is generally in the heads of individuals and teams. Explicit: explicit knowledge can easily be written down and codified.

MANAGEMENT Management in all business and organizational activities is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives using available resources efficiently and effectively. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling an organization for the purpose of accomplishing a goal. management can also be defined as human action, including design, to facilitate the production of useful outcomes from a system

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT The 21st Century demands a top-notch knowledge management system to secure a competitive edge and a capacity for learning. In simpler terms, Knowledge Management seeks to make the best use of the knowledge that is available to an organization, creating new knowledge in the process. Km is a concept in which an enterprise gathers, organizes, shares, and analyzes the knowledge of individuals and groups across the organization in ways that directly affect performance ------By Robert S. Seiner Knowledge Management (KM) comprises a range of strategies and practices used in an organization to identify, create, represent, distribute, and enable adoption of insights and experiences. Such insights and experiences comprise knowledge, Knowledge Management efforts typically focus on organizational objectives such as improved

performance, competitive advantage, innovation, the sharing of lessons learned, integration and continuous improvement of the organization.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TYPES Competency Management Knowledge Sharing Competitive Knowledge Management

Competency Management Systems CMS is usually associated with, and may include, a Learning Management System (LMS). The LMS is typically a web-based tool that allows access to learning resources. Competency Management Systems tend to have a more multidimensional and comprehensive approach and include tools such as competency management, skills-gap analysis, succession planning, as well as competency analysis and profiling. The CompMS tends to focus more on creating an environment of sustainable competency in addition to entering and tracking learning resources in software. Knowledge Sharing Knowledge sharing is an activity through which knowledge (i.e. information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among people, friends, or members of a family, a community (e.g. Wikipedia) or anorganization. Knowledge sharing activities are generally supported byknowledge management systems. However, technology constitutes only one of the many factors that affect the sharing of knowledge in organizations, such as organizational culture, trust, andincentives.The sharing of knowledge constitutes a major challenge in the field of knowledge management because some employees tend to resist sharing their knowledge with the rest of the organization.

"Competitive Knowledge Management describes in how the creation, sharing and management of knowledge has enabled the world's leading companies to beat the competition through the use of an intelligent management style - the knowledge-based view of the firm."

Knowledge Management Example A company that knows it sold 20 units of a product in a single month has that data available to them. Knowledge management could include the process of taking that data, comparing it to other months to create an average number of units sold, then comparing that to the sales of other products. The demographics for the product, the method of sales and the other items purchase with it could be analyzed to reach some conclusions about the product such as that more of the product is sold during certain times of the year. This can help the company create better advertising during the slow periods and push sales during the times it sells the most to maximize the good periods. All of that took the raw data, turned it into useful knowledge and applied it. A company faced with data and information needs to have a knowledge management process to make the best use of the information it has in order to achieve the biggest benefits.

Why should organisation apply Knowledge Management? To serve customers well To reduce their cycle times To operate with minimum fixed assets and overhead (people, inventory and facilities), To shorten product development time, To improve customer service, To empower employees, To innovate and deliver high quality products, To enhance flexibility and adaption, capture information, create knowledge, share and learn.

None of this is possible without a continual focus on the creation, updating, availability, quality and use of knowledge by all employees and teams, at work and in the marketplace.

Benefits of knowledge management

To minimize loss and risk To improve organizational efficiency, Knowledge Management efforts and initiatives add great value to an organization. Knowledge Management: Facilitates better, more informed decisions Contributes to the intellectual capital of an organization Encourages the free flow of ideas which leads to insight and innovation Eliminates redundant processes, streamlines employee operations, and enhances

To improve team communication To reduced problem solving time To improved profitability To improved project mgmt For customer participation

The challenge of Knowledge Management is to determine what information within an organization qualifies as "valuable.. All information is not knowledge, and all knowledge is not valuable. The key is to find the worthwhile knowledge within a vast sea of information

Knowledge Management System Knowledge Management System (KM System) refers to a (generally generated via or through to an IT based program/department or section) system for managing knowledge in organizations for supporting creation, capture, storage and dissemination of information. It can comprise a part (neither necessary nor sufficient) of a Knowledge Management initiative. The idea of a KM system is to enable employees to have ready access to the organization's documented base of facts, sources of information, and solutions. For example a typical claim justifying the creation of a KM system might run something like this: an engineer could know the metallurgical composition of an alloy that reduces sound in gear systems. Sharing this information organization wide can lead to more effective engine design and it could also lead to ideas for new or improved equipment. A KM system could be any of the following:

1.

Document based i.e. any technology that permits

creation/management/sharing of formatted documents such as Lotus Notes, SharePoint, web, distributed databases etc.
2.

Ontology/Taxonomy based: these are similar to document technologies in

the sense that a system of terminologies (i.e. ontology) are used to summarize the document e.g. Author, Subj, Organization etc. as in DAML & other XML based ontologies
3. 4. 5.

Based on AI technologies which use a customized representation scheme Provide network maps of the organization showing the flow of Increasingly social computing tools are being deployed to provide a more

to represent the problem domain. communication between entities and individuals organic approach to creation of a KM system. KMS systems deal with information (although Knowledge Management as a discipline may extend beyond the information centric aspect of any system) so they are a class of information system and may build on, or utilize other information sources. Distinguishing features of a KMS can include: 1. Purpose: a KMS will have an explicit Knowledge Management objective of some type such as collaboration, sharing good practice or the like. 2. Context: One perspective on KMS would see knowledge is information that is meaningfully organized, accumulated and embedded in a context of creation and application. 3. Processes: KMS are developed to support and enhance knowledgeintensive processes, tasks or projects of e.g., creation, construction, identification, capturing, acquisition, selection, valuation, organization, linking, structuring, formalization, visualization, transfer, distribution, retention, maintenance, refinement, revision, evolution, accessing, retrieval and last but not least the application of knowledge, also called the knowledge life cycle. 4. Participants: Users can play the roles of active, involved participants in knowledge networks and communities fostered by KMS, although this is not necessarily the case. KMS designs are held to reflect that knowledge is developed collectively and that the distribution of knowledge leads to its

continuous change, reconstruction and application in different contexts, by different participants with differing backgrounds and experiences. 5. Instruments: KMS support KM instruments, e.g., the capture, creation and sharing of the codifiable aspects of experience, the creation of corporate knowledge directories, taxonomies or ontologies, expertise locators, skill management systems, collaborative filtering and handling of interests used to connect people, the creation and fostering of communities or knowledge networks. A KMS offers integrated services to deploy KM instruments for networks of participants, i.e. active knowledge workers, in knowledge-intensive business processes along the entire knowledge life cycle. KMS can be used for a wide range of cooperative, collaborative, adhocracy and hierarchy communities, virtual organizations, societies and other virtual networks, to manage media contents; activities, interactions and work-flows purposes; projects; works, networks, departments, privileges, roles, participants and other active users in order to extract and generate new knowledge and to enhance, leverage and transfer in new outcomes of knowledge providing new services using new formats and interfaces and different communication channels. The term KMS can be associated to Open Source Software, and Open Standards, Open Protocols and Open Knowledge licenses, initiatives and policies. [edit]Benefits of KM Systems Some of the advantages claimed for KM systems are: 1. Sharing of valuable organizational information throughout organizational hierarchy. 2. 3. Can avoid re-inventing the wheel, reducing redundant work. May reduce training time for new employees

4. Retention of Intellectual Property after the employee leaves if such knowledge can be codified.