Knowledge Management Toolkit, The: Practical Techniques for Building a Knowledge Management System [Paperback]

Amrit Tiwana (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 7, 1999

Through knowledge management, companies can build on their intranets, data warehouses, and project management systems to make sure that every key decision is fully informed -- and to stop wasting time "reinventing the wheel." Knowledge management is hot -- and this is the first book to deliver hands-on techniques and tools for making it happen! Leading consultant Amrit Tiwana walks step-by-step through the development of an enterprise Knowledge Management System, demonstrating how to ensure that each step serves as a foundation for the enhancements that will follow. Tiwana shows how to leverage the extensive resources today's organizations already have: intranets, data warehouses and data mining applications, groupware, project management software, and more. Discover how to identify your organization's key knowledge management challenges; how to staff the right team and manage it effectively; and more. With this book/CD-ROM package, knowledge management goes beyond theory -- to cost-effective, real-life solutions!

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

The only "how-to" guide for building an enterprise knowledge management system!

Until now, implementing Knowledge Management (KM) has been like nailing jelly to the wall-but not anymore! The Knowledge Management Toolkit delivers hands-on techniques and tools for making KM happen at your company. You'll learn exactly how to use KM to make sure that every key decision is fully informed as you build on your existing intranet, data warehouse, and project management investments. Top researcher Amrit Tiwana walks you through the development of an enterprise KM system from start to finish, showing how every stage can serve as a foundation for later enhancements.

• 10-step roadmap for implementing KM successfully
• Checklists help you focus on critical issues every step of the way
• Interactive toolkit format guides your strategic design decisions
• Identify your key intangibles-and audit the knowledge you already have
• Staff your project team and manage it effectively
• Build a foundation of KM infrastructure that can evolve through results-driven, incremental steps
• Mobilize your organization's subtle, "tacit" knowledge
• Calculate and maximize ROI in KM systems
• www.kmtoolkit.com-stay informed with the author's dedicated Web site, which provides ongoing support and updates from the KM community!

Discover the best ways to align KM with business strategy, avoid key KM pitfalls such as excessive formalization and overreliance on technology, master prototyping, and understand the new role of the Chief Knowledge Officer. Tiwana also presents KM case studies from leading companies worldwide, from Nortel to Rolls Royce. If you're ready to transform KM from business-school theory to real-world competitive advantage, start right here!

CD-ROM INCLUDED

• Knowledge Management Toolkit, including an interactive 10-step KM roadmap and easy-to-customize KM evaluation forms -complete and unrestricted!
• MindManager Personal for creating, organizing, and sharing knowledge maps
• Performance Now Enterprise, a trial version of the #1 change management tool
• FrontPage 2000 45-day trial
• Plus great tools for data mining, integrating mobile systems, workflow, modeling, and more!

About the Author

AMRIT TIWANA researches KM and teaches IT at the J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta. He has consulted with several leading companies, been involved in high-technology startups, and regularly publishes in several international magazines and journals. He writes a monthly column for IT Magazine.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Pearson Education (December 7, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130128538
• ISBN-13: 978-0130128539
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #776,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Digging Knowledge Management, March 16, 2000

By 

Pradip Ganguly (NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knowledge Management Toolkit, The: Practical Techniques for Building a Knowledge Management System (Paperback)

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.

59 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Delivering Knowledge, January 17, 2000

By 

William Sheridan (Ottawa, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knowledge Management Toolkit, The: Practical Techniques for Building a Knowledge Management System (Paperback)

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.

68 of 72 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete, pragmatic approach and great supporting tools, May 5, 2001

By 

Linda Zarate "IT Ops Consultant" (Azusa, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knowledge Management Toolkit, The: Practical Techniques for Building a Knowledge Management System (Paperback)

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.