Customer Reviews

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management

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Looking for a concise jargon-free guide to implementation of knowledge management processes and culture in your company? This book is your best bet for an easy-to-read guide to KM roadmaps, management roles, support infrastructure, and cultural change issues.

In contrast to the more serious and academic tomes on KM, this guide is written in a refreshingly witty, humourous and `in-your-face' manner, with numerous sidebars, checklists, and reminders.

The 25 chapters are divided into 6 sections: basic foundations, KM strategy, IT infrastructure, change management, KM measurement, and potential pitfalls.

The first section briefly covers some of the key literature and pioneers in KM, such as Karl-Erik Sveiby, Peter Drucker, Tom Stewart, Michael Polyani, Ikujiro Nonaka, Peter Senge, David Gavin, and Etienne Wenger - as well as some of the earliest conferences (held by Ernst&Young, Arthur Andersen, and APQC).

"KM refers to the systematic processes by which knowledge needed for an organization to succeed is created, captured, shared, and leveraged," Rumizen begins. KM draws on numerous concepts and processes like shared vision, team learning, mental models, systems thinking, and intellectual capital.

KM is key for companies that seek to increase efficiency, cut costs, innovate, preserve and enhance organizational memory, and operate on a global scale in an environment of high employee churn rate as well as accelerating mergers and acquisitions. Merely gathering all kinds of business information may lead to "data junkyards" if a focus on actionable knowledge is not adhered to.

According to Nonaka's "knowledge spiral" model of knowledge evolution in a company, there are four conversion processes: socialization (tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge), externalization (tacit to explicit), combination (explicit to explicit), and internalization (explicit to tacit).

IT approaches particularly shine in the combination process, where explicit knowledge in documents, email and databases can be manipulated to create new kinds of knowledge. "Without the quality of connectivity and the simplicity and commonality offered by the software interface to application that is provided by an Intranet, an organisation's ability to create, share, capture and leverage knowledge is stuck in the Stone Age, just above the level of typewriters, faxes and snail mail," says Rumizen.

Studies show that companies focusing on explicit knowledge tend to devote more time and effort on codification and maintenance of content and knowledge, whereas a focus on tacit knowledge involves more of connecting people.

Rumizen advises companies to start with a pilot or several pilots with clearly defined objectives, and then scale up depending on the lessons learned. New roles will need to be created, both within a core KM group as well as throughout the organization. A steering committee including senior members of diverse backgrounds - and possibly external consultants as well - is a critical success factor.

The real killer application for KM is the communities of practice, with clearly defined activities, roles (especially community coordinator), and connections support infrastructure. This includes a best practices database, lessons learned database, expertise finders and corporate yellow pages (which list employee qualifications, experience, network affiliations, project experience).

Communities of practice are known by various catchy names like Learning Networks (in HP), Best Practice Teams (Chevron), Family Groups (Xerox), COINS (Ernst&Young's community of interest networks), and Thematic Groups (World Bank). Corporate yellow pages have been known variously as PeopleNet (Texaco) and Connect (BP).

Many companies now have full-time positions for Chief Knowledge Officers (CKOs), who often have had a prior role as a CIO, librarian, academic, IT engineer, or independent consultant. A good CKO has an entrepreneurial streak, is a good communicator, can negotiate well, benchmarks new ideas, and is IT savvy. Other KM roles and titles include KM architects, KM managers, KM stewards, KM researchers, and KM brokers.

One section of the book focuses on IT infrastructure like electronic whiteboards, Intranets, content management, and knowledge taxonomies, but the treatment of actual KM architectures - particularly for large enterprises - is quite weak.

The section on change management touches on rewards and recognition for KM system usage and inputs, training programs, marketing the KM idea, effective design principles for KM Intranet interfaces, telling springboard stories (as exemplified in Steve Denning's book "The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge Era Organisations"), and moving from awareness to commitment to passion for KM.

The "Achilles heel" of KM, according to Rumizen, is measurement of performance beyond mere anecdotes. Quantitative and qualitative metrics for actionable understanding should target RoI, barriers to sharing of knowledge, employee attitude, level of knowledge standardization, KM systems maturity level, and assessment of intellectual capital and knowledge assets.

Numerous organizational measurement tools have cropped up here, such as Balanced Scorecard (financial results, customers, internal business processes, and learning). Other tools and benchmarks have been proposed by APQC, Celemi, Skandia Navigator, and Intellectual Capital Index.

The final section covers some of the challenges and roadblocks that typically arise in KM systems, such as cultural differences in knowledge sharing across a global enterprise, poor linkages between KM and business strategy, lack of IT scalability and interoperability, inadequate training, lack of employee support, and improper measurement.

The book offers numerous anecdotes and case studies of KM in action. "A successful KM program usually takes several years," according to Rumizen.

Thanks to KM practices, Ford Motor Company has cut costs in areas like brake installation, and Chevron saved operating costs of $2 billion in 2000.

In sum, a good KM strategy must incorporate vision, top-level sponsorship, alignment with business objectives, and clarity of scope. The focus of the initiative could be on entire corporate culture, introduction of new business lines, new markets, organizational restructuring, M&As, or new leadership. The balance between innovation and reuse is a critical success factor for any KM effort.

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Madanmohan Rao is the author of "The Asia-Pacific Internet Handbook" ...

When I sat down in the airplane to read Idiot's Guide to Knowledge Management I told myself "I hope I can stay awake". Boy, was I surprized. This KM book kept me energised and musing to myself on both the outgoing and return flights. Ms. Rumizen leads the reader in a path to greater understanding and definition of some of the technical terms that we've all heard, but not understood, in the Knowledge Management movement. There are an appropriate number of case histories and references to this phenonenon that has basically been a hot topic for the past six years. As a witness to most of the conferences she refers to and the leaders she qoutes, I can truthfully say she told it like it is. I think this book can serve as a Primer for KM 101 and will provide a great overview of all the aspects of deploying a KM stategy in your company. I particlaly like the tact she took in Part 2 "Getting Started" by addressing the sponsorship issues and the infrastructure issues. Part 4 "The Show Stopper of Culture" is also strong as it recognises that the company culture is the one item that drives all behavior including knowledge mangement. eanablers. I would say buy it, read it, chuckle and then go do something.

New to knowledge management? Already deep in the throes of a knowledge initiative, but hitting the sticky spots? Then this is a must read. As a leader and strategist in two successful implementations Melissie Rumizen obviously knows the realities of bringing this new management focus into an organization. Yet, she brings deep understanding of the principles as theories as one who was in on the new thinking around knowledge and intangibles from the beginning. Everything in this book is tried, true, and respected in the field. The author has synthesized and simplied the best practices and theory from a variety of sources and experiences, laying out the path forward in a clear, direct and good humored style that will make this one of the key guides for successful knowledge initiatives.

I work on implementing KM strategy, and always have this book at hand. It is an excellent, practical guide which I couldn't do without. I own many bookson KM and this is by far the most useful one. Well done to the author!

Don't let the name of this book fool you. Dr. Rumizen is a KM expert with outstanding knowledge and writing skills. She discusses developing a strategic approach, building an infrastructure, dealing with change and culture, measuring and assessing, and avoiding common pitfalls.

Rumizen's "Getting Started" (Part 2) chapters are very insightful. The chapter on communities of practice alone is worth the cost of the book. She also includes three chapters on organizational culture, and how to deal with this possible "showstopper."

There are also four chapters on "measuring," which are very helpful for practitioners. She concludes with a valuable appendix with a list of books and articles.

Excellent book!

Michael Beitler
Author of "Strategic Organizational Learning"

I'm new to a Knowledge Management role and was searching desperately for a book to give me more background information... this was it! Concise, very easy to read and with some inspiring examples about how KM can work within a variety of environments.

With this book by my side, I'm now ready to start trying to make a difference!!

I found this book to be extremely helpful in assisting me understand Knowledge Management. I believe the book was very easy to read and understand for a 'layman' like myself. Alot of books out there are very technical or directed to people in the academic arena, not this one. Anybody looking for a book to explain KM, I strongly recommend this book as it is balanced by not being too simplistic or too deep.
For me is was money well spent

Cheers
nv

By far the most useful of all my KM references. An excellent choice if you are trying to initiate a KM effort in your organization and to help people understand what KM is and isn't!

I have been reviewing the literature of Knowledge Management (KM) for over a year. I am surprised how much is written about KM, but how little it is employed in the workplace, learning place, and government. The Complete Guide is a fine introduction--even though it is five years old, providing the core concepts and a well-rounded Glossary of KM.

Now, if we could only get the decision-makers to collaborate with us fire-starters and implement KM, we wouldn't be idiots for lack of access to knowledge resources.

On the face of it, knowledge management appears to be valid and important. The term carries weight. But after reading this book, I felt there wasn't a clear body of knowledge to knowledge management, at least per this book. Everything and nothing is knowledge management. We all do it and nobody in particular does it. My conclusion is we won't see lots of knowledge manager positions open up under normal circumstances, unless somebody develops the field much further. While many points are valid, and the author tried mightily to wrest a subject out of disconnected thought processes, I cannot recommend this book.