Customer Reviews

Working Knowledge

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Although knowledge management is an irresistible concept, your progress in this area is anything but assurred. Knowledge management is a hot topic, but it is usually pushed by people who want to sell you something. As a result, you can end up with a lot of technology that will not help you to manage your knowledge. As insurance against getting started in the wrong direction, I suggest you read Working Knowledge as a first step.

Davenport and Prusak have examined 39 organizations that are well above average users of their knowledge. The case histories will give you a practical sense of what works that would take you years of false steps to duplicate in your organization.

Then, even more helpfully, the authors outline the key lessons of these top performers for you to follow. I especially recommend chapter 9 on The Pragmatics of Knowledge Management.

Any new initiative will run into problems and fall back. A great book to read next is The Dance of Change, which focuses squarely on that issue.

Any book has to narrow its focus to be successful. That focus creates a vulnerability. In this book, the vulnerability is not looking far enough ahead for more effective ways to do knowledge management that no one is yet doing. For example, the potential to share knowledge among top best practice organizations is enormous. More attention is needed here.

But do buy, read, and apply the lessons of this book. It's a great place to start!

While this book summarized the concept of working knowledge with thoughtfulness and communicated these concepts clearly, it is not a comprehensive step-by-step instruction guide for knowledge management. Also, the book examples from organizations seemed more like a portfolio of successes or resume of experiences by the authors rather than serving as a means to more clearly covey working knowledge in action. While the examples did allow the reader to delve into more areas of working knowledge and better understand it in action, the parallel of how one would implement such strategy in one's own workplace was not nearly explored. All that being said, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and feels it serves a good, basic introduction into working knowledge. It covers what knowledge is, who has it, who uses and needs it, what skills are necessary to form and manage it, cultural and other issues related to knowledge management, ways to incorporate it (with or without technology) into the workplace, and what measurements can be used. The measurements area was a little weak. But, again, the absence of true measurement analysis and instruction remind the reader that this is a book intended for a solid look and understanding of knowledge management--not a comprehensive guide for implements and assessing it within an organization. This book provides the information that might persuade someone to value and seek knowledge management. Additional reads and study would be required in order to master it.

I found Davenport's work to be of enormous value as I begin my work in the KM area. This is the first book you should read on KM -- it is concise and provides a very good foundation. I would then highly recommend moving on to Amrit Tiwana's Knowledge Management Toolkit. It's hands-on approach was an excellent follow-up to Davenport, as it lays out specific scenarios, guidelines, and tools for implementing KM in your organization.

Your company is thinking about implementing knowledge management, then "Working Knowledge" is the place to start your research on this topic. Thomas Davenport and Laurence Prusak give you a very practical introduction to this business concept with many "real life" examples that explain the theoretical foundation. Therefore you will earn a deeper understanding of how to generate, codify and transfer knowledge without ever feeling overrun at any point. Especially chapter eight and nine are very helpful when it comes down to get to work with the implementation of a knowledge management system in your company. Here you'll find helpful hints and advice to start out in the right direction and never miss a turn. So don't hesitate put your knowledge to work and do it right the first time!

If you are like most people, you are a victim of "stalled" thinking about how to make knowledge transfer work better in your organization. As the authors point out, many people believe things that will not work in practice, such as "build it and they will come" from a technology resource sharing perspective that all one needs to do is have the resource available. Unlike the theory about knowledge management, Davenport and Prusak have investigated many organizations to learn what does and does not work. Unlike some books that are no more than a few case histories strung together, the authors concisely use examples to examplify the key points of what they have learned. In their parlance, this book is full of "knowledge" rather than just "information" or "data." They are also astute observers, and notice things that many might miss. A key example of their astuteness is the observation that those who are expected to share must be given some meaningful incentive to do so. In these days of downsizing, rightsizing, etc., those with knowledge often see that knowledge as a security blanket for an economic livelihood. You have to provide some incentive to share that matches or exceeds the incentive to hoard knowledge. You need to read and understand the lessons of this book if you want to get further along in using the knowledge that is available (both in and outside of your company) to achieve greater results. A terrific book on the related subject of how to create new knowledge and use that knowledge to then create much greater results is "The 2,000 Percent Solution."

I have to say that the only frustrating thing about reading this book was the fact that I had not done it before. In addition to addressing important, acute issues, Davenport and Prusaks are good writers and base their approach on practice and solid cases (including examples from 39 organisations) instead of abstract theories. The point is, most of existing knowledge management literature has its head in the clouds, forgetting the actual work environment, where the knowledge managed is born and used.

The one thing that may feel alien from a Scandinavian perspective is the weight the authors' put on the so called "knowledge markets". That is, their approach to knowledge management is a strict application of market economy. While this opens some interesting perspectives and offers an applicable framework, it is, in my view, too simplistic. The authors do mention altruism as one of the possible motivations of knowledge sharers and exclaim: "Such people do exist ... We all know individuals who simply like helping" but the authors seem to have difficulties understanding such individuals. I have to give them credit, though, as they note that attitude to altruism is at least partly a question of national culture.

Short and to the point. This book can be read in one night and will make you think for many more.

This classic is an excellent blueprint of knowledge management (KM) in action, and is a must read for KM professionals, CIOs, and CEOs. One of the unique aspects of the book is its treatment of knowledge roles, skills and personnel (such as CKOs), in addition to detailed analysis of knowledge generation, codification, transfer and technologies. The material is divided into 9 chapters, and draws on case studies of KM in action in about 40 organisations.

Today, the knowledge movement is picking up as more and more companies have instituted knowledge repositories, supporting such diverse types of knowledge as best practices, lessons learned, product development knowledge, customer knowledge, human resource management knowledge, and methods-based knowledge.

The only sustainable advantage a firm has comes from what it collectively knows, how efficiently it uses what it knows, and how readily it acquires and uses new knowledge, the authors begin.

First, companies must understand the difference between data, information and knowledge. Generally speaking, data is transformed into information after it has been contextualised, categorised, calculated, corrected and condensed. This becomes knowledge after a process involving comparison, consequences, connections and conversation.

Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information, the authors state. Knowledge is fluid as well as structured, and involves experience, truth, judgement and rules of thumb.

Knowledge is aware of what it doesnt know. Many wise men and women have pointed out that the more knowledgeable one becomes, the more humble one feels about what one knows, the authors explain.

In contrast to individual knowledge, organisational knowledge is a more complex and murky dynamic, involving socio-political factors of knowledge buying, selling, brokering, pricing, reciprocity, altruism, reputation and trust.

The chapter on knowledge generation focuses on conscious and intentional techniques like acquisition (eg. of Lotus by IBM, NCR by AT&T), rental (sponsorship of research in academic institutes, hiring a consultant), dedicated resources (research centres and universities like Xerox PARC, McDonalds universities), fusion (via brainstorming and retreats), adaptation (eg. via learning sabbaticals), and knowledge networking.

Successful codification is implemented via a knowledge taxonomy suited for different knowledge types and attributes and which is aligned with business goals, as well as narratives and rhetorical devices for communicating knowledge behaviours. This can include external knowledge (eg. competitive intelligence), structured internal knowledge (eg. research reports), and informal internal knowledge (eg. know-how databases).

Instead of Stop talking and get to work, Alan Webber recommends a better attitude: Start talking and get to work.

Other approaches, depending on organisational and national cultures, include corporate universities, KM workshops, group dinners, and even group drinking sessions in nightclubs as in Japan (where inebriation can sometimes be used as an excuse for voicing criticism!).

Key roles here include knowledge project managers, coaches, trainers, councillors, counsellors, officers, integrators, administrators, engineers, librarians, synthesisers, reporters, and editors -- capped by learning officers, CKOs, directors of intellectual assets, or CIOs. Consulting firms have hundreds of KM jobs; Buckman Labs even has a role for anecdote management to develop stories about successful KM in practice.

Good knowledge workers need to have a combination of hard skills (structured knowledge, technical abilities, professional experience) and soft skills (cultural, political and personal aspects of knowledge), the authors advise.

Three key CKO responsibilities include building a knowledge culture, creating a KM infrastructure, and making it all pay of economically, the authors recommend.

The recent dramatic rise in Internet and Intranet use is one manifestation of the expanding role of electronic technology in communication and knowledge-seeking. Firms are becoming aware both of the potential of this technology to enhance knowledge work and of the fact that the potential can be realised only if they understand more about how knowledge is actually developed and shared, the authors explain.

The authors caution against a technology-centred KM approach, but argue that a technology ingredient is a necessary ingredient for successful KM projects.

Peter Senge, the influential author of The Fifth Discipline, has argued recently that organisations seeking to manage knowledge have placed too much emphasis on information technology and information management. We agree. However, the world of organisational learning places too little emphasis on structured knowledge and the use of technology to capture and leverage it, the authors forcefully argue. In fact, the word knowledge is not in the index of Senges book!

Hoffman-LaRoche used KM to efficiently manage the drug application process, cutting it down by several months at a savings of $1 million a day. New England heart surgeons have jointly collaborated to cut down mortality rate for coronary bypass surgery. HPs case-based reasoning KM tool for customer support helped reduce call times by two-thirds and cost per call by 50 per cent.

Other benefit calculations include better management of patents (eg. Dow Chemicals), improved cycle time, better customer satisfaction, and even phone calls avoided (HP).
Intangible but also important outcomes include higher workforce morale, greater corporate coherence, richer knowledge stock, more knowledge usage, and stronger meritocracy of ideas.

In terms of pragmatic steps, the authors have lots of recommendations. Start with a focused pilot project. Work along multiple fronts at once: technology, organisation, culture. Begin with existing information resources. Focus on weak areas. Lead with technology and organisational learning.

The book is also peppered with useful quotes about knowledge, and it would be appropriate to end this review with some of them:

In the end, the location of the new economy is not in the technology. It is in the human mind (Alan Webber);

The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers (Sydney Harris);

The great end of knowledge is not knowledge but action (Thomas Huxley).

Knowledge is the only unlimited resource, the one asset that grows with use, according to Stanford economist Paul Romer.

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This book has a simple approach and giving a very clear information on what Knowledge Managment is all about. It is practical and for a new comers on this subject - it is highly recommended.

The authors wrote this book 178 page book in 2000--it is still very relevant in 2004. Not only is this book clearly written providing a wealth of content on KM systems, it is also provides a very practical and realistic template for initiating a KM system.

The final chapter was a wonderful summary of the practicals to implementation:
-start small
-business problems relates to knowledge (loss of customers and key personnel, low win rates on service engagements, poorly designed products, etc.).
-a knowledge system is more than technology. You may start with an intranet and Lotus notes. More than a third in $, time and effort on the tech part, you're neglecting the other key factors.
-Getting content will take a while. It's easy enough to put the technology in place but getting the organization contribute and use content is a behavioral challenge. So, assess the culture of your organization before launching a knowledge initiative.

"What makes knowledge valuable to organizations is ultimately the ability to make better the decisions and actions on the basis of the knowledge".

Thanks Tom and Laurence for a great book.