Customer Reviews

The Knowledge Management Toolkit: Orchestrating IT, Strategy, and Knowledge Platforms (2nd Edition)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The authors of this book do not try to seduce you with yet another management fad (common in many KM books). Instead, they offer sane action steps for companies that are victims of stalled thinking about how to make KM work _and_ deliver results. This book is clearly written, comprehensive but not concise at 600 plus pages, discusses many issues in detail, and provides a comprehensive overview of the field. The evolution of KM in Ch 1 is interesting, the 20 plus page bibliography at the end has many hidden gems, and the structure is easy to follow. Many recent examples make reading this heavy title interesting and these examples and cases drive home things that will not work in practice. A step-by-step approach is complemented by an actually-useful CD on which I found word DOC versions of many analysis documents from the book. I liked that the authors have not taken the "build it and they will come" approach and discussed incentives, culture, and rewards for KM that are powerful to remove the security blanket of economic incentives _not_ to share knowledge. Excessive footnotes were a little distracting (ignore them). While this is a very good book, and probably the most comprehensive printed book on KM, read Working Knowledge by Prusak and Davenport (paperback) first. Also recommended are Harvard Business Review on Knowledge Management (a collection of timeless articles), Management Challenges for the 21st Century by Drucker, and The Knowledge-Creating Company by Nonaka and Takeuchi.

After you have your knowledge content properly engineered, you face the challenge of deciding who needs what knowledge, when, where, and why. Amrit Tiwana has designed the Results Driven Incremental Methodology (RDI) whereby an organization can design and implement a knowledge management system (KMS).

The challenge of designing the knowledge management architecture and building the knowledge management infrastructure so that it does perform effectively, is just as great as the previous one of structuring the knowledge so that it can be managed. As Tiwana says, there is no "silver bullet" to solve all problems, AND solving any of the problems will take considerable commitment and work.

This book is also well-written and profusely illustrated. Organized as a giant check-list, the author takes the reader through 10 steps:

(1)Analyzing the Existing Infrastructure; (2)Aligning Knowledge Management and Business Strategy; (3)Designing the Knowledge Management Infrastructure; (4) Auditing Existing Knowledge Assets and Systems; (5) Designing the Knowledge Management Team; (6)Creating the Knowledge Management Blueprint; (7) Developing the Knowledge Management System; (8) Deploying and Using the Results-driven Incremental Methodology; (9)Managing Change, Culture and Reward Structures; (10) Evaluating Performance, Measuring ROI, and Incrementally Refining the KMS.

Each step is described in terms of roles, tasks, and procedures, so it is possible to keep track of the flow of the project as well as the list of necessary activities. This book has a companion CD which serves a similar role to the CommonKADS website for that book. There are a variety of demos of different knowledge management tools on the CD, and a couple of them are full-fledged versions. The CD also contains the question lists that can guide the design and implementation of a RDI Knowledge Management project. The many real-life examples of the use of RDI will demonstrate its practicality.

This book/CD ROM combination is, indeed, a toolkit. The essence of the book is a four-phase, 10-step approach for capturing and disseminating knowledge, and measuring the impact of your efforts in the form of ROI and other performance metrics.

The phases and steps outlined are: Phase I, Infrastructure evaluation, accomplished by the following steps: (1) analyzing your existing infrastructure (the "as is" part) and (2) aligning your KM and business strategies (to ensure that you are not devising solutions to "non-problems" and/or your strategy addresses real business requirements). Phase II, KM System Analysis, Design and Development encompasses steps (3) designing the knowledge management architecture and integrating existing infrastructure, (4) auditing and analyzing existing knowledge, (5) building the knowledge management team, (6) creating the knowledge management blueprint, and (7) developing the knowledge management system. Phase III System Deployment entails steps (8) deploying with "results driven incrementation" methodology and (9) change management and cultural considerations. The final phase is Infrastructural evaluation, and is performed with the last step, 10, in the approach, which is measuring results of knowledge management, devising ROI metrics and evaluating system performance.

A few things stand out: the approach is laid out and the CD ROM that comes with the book has evaluation forms and checklists that will assist greatly every step of the way. Second, the "results driven incrementation" (RDI) methodology is a sane implementation approach that starts with a pilot and grows from there. This prevents dumping money and resources into a strategy that stalls from over ambition or unrealistic expectations. Phase I, however, is also a check against unrealistic expectations, so the author's overall approach avoids or mitigates a great deal of risk.

I like the approach and tools because they are directly applicable to what I do for a living: developing and implementing IT processes in support of service delivery. Among the tools I use are problem management systems and help desk software. Most have KM modules (examples: Peregrine, Remedy ARS and SupportMagic). What most do not have is the straightforward method and associated analysis and implementation tools for capturing and disseminating knowledge. This book fills those gaps. Moreover, KM is an essential and usually missing ingredient in project management. While mature companies capture lesson's learned and make them available to other project teams, more often than not this information is not available and history keeps repeating itself. The approach and tools provided in this book would go a long way in rectifying that situation in companies that are project-intensive (consulting, ASPs, developers, etc.).

KM has matured beyond buzzwords and visions from people who have ideas but cannot implement, into an essential element of organization and process for companies that will survive. Implementing it is hard work, but this 5-star book will show you how.

Most texts on knowledge management are strictly theory. This is one of the few that I have seen that has taken a "hands on" approach to KM. Certainly a lofty goal, and the author does a good job trying to reach it, but still falls somewhat short.

The diagrams, checklists, and templates are thought-provoking, and will help you design YOUR KM program. Full lifecycle, thorough, and plenty of case studies. Overall, I'm quite pleased with its content.

One will almost immediately notice the research and writing style--the author is obviously from the academic world.

The "The Knowledge Management Toolkit" is the best book I've read so far on this topic. Without being a cookbook, it gives all practical knowledge and touches all the different aspects involved when setting up a KM-project. It goes well beyond the theoretical concepts where most other books on KM stop. One of the chapters I find most interesting is "Aligning knowledge management and business strategy". It provides a good model to scope your KM-project. The practical cases spread all over make the topics very understandable. After reading Tiwana's book, you should be able to start working on a KM-project and finalize it successfully.

The book "The Knowledge Management Toolkit" is a comprehensive guide that explores and unearths the practical methods of planning, developing and deploying KM solutions for an enterprise.

Unlike a theoretical source of info, this book explains the KM pitfalls and firewalls, the ways and means of diffusing them to have measurable KM results.

The 24 drivers of KM, the 10 step KM road map, Aligning KM and Business strategy, K audit and analysis, prototyping and development of a KM system are the sections which are very unique and drives an organization with a highly focussed KM approach.

The KM toolkit is an excellent source of KM information. Enjoyed reading this and would love to look for more related titles from Amrit Tiwana.

With Regards, A. Rajagopal

I liked the first paragraphs, as it stresses some important points regarding KM. But is it really a toolkit ? It is not practical enough to be called a toolkit. There are better books to speak about knowledge management strategy or concepts. There are also shorter and much more concrete books about methods. This one mixes bit too much of all, it's overwelming.

Hello

In general the book covers some interesting topics in KM, but as a toolkit it leaves a lot to be desired -- some actual hands on evidence of the utility of some of the approaches mentioned would have been useful and might have convinced me that this was a more practical book, however I didn't see too much of this.

There were some funny tautologies and oxymorons smattered throughout the book and there are some interesting although well worn case studies.

If you can read it in your library first then do so.

Regards,

Martyn R Jones Iniciativa Consulting Spain

This book by far is the best book I've read on knowledge management. Most others on KM are so unspecific and unclear that at the end you have no idea what's going on.

Not so with this one: author Tiwana has broken KM application into 10 clear steps. In addition, the diagrams are excellent as well as the case studies. Much work and thought went into this and it shows glowingly. This is a winner.

I spent the better part of a week participating in probably around 25 knowledge management workshops/lectures. This was the only book that was singled out by many different lecturers as an excellent resource for those who are developing a KM initiative from the ground up. Just thought I'd pass on what I learned from those in the "know" (no pun intended).