"Concept Analysis Technique" to define your Knowledge Management (KM)

"A light bulb in the socket is worth two in the pocket" - Bill Wolf (1950 - 2001)

Definitions across the domain

Knowledge Management Consortium International defines that “KM is first and foremost a branch of management, which makes it a social science. Moreover, it is a branch of management that seeks to improve performance in business by enhancing an organization’s capacity to learn, innovate, and solve problems.”

Wikipedia defines that “Knowledge management (KM) is the process of capturing, developing, sharing, and effectively using organizational knowledge.”

KM World defines that “KM is organizing an organization’s information and knowledge holistically.”

Dave Snowden defines that “the purpose of knowledge management is to provide support for improved decision making and innovation throughout the organization. This is achieved through the effective management of human intuition and experience augmented by the provision of information, processes and technology together with training and mentoring programmes.”

Thomas H. Davenport, Laurence Prusak from Working Knowledge defines that “Knowledge Management draws from existing resources that your organization may already have in place-good information systems management, organizational change management, and human resources management practices.”

The Inquiry

So, what is Knowledge Management?

• Is that what KM stands for?
• Is it a function to institutionalize the culture of knowledge sharing?
• Is it about capture, storage and sharing of knowledge?
• Organizational knowledge or project knowledge or both?
• Is it about improving the quality of service?
• Is it related to improving customer satisfaction?
• What role does it play in achieving business goals?

Your definition of KM may include all of the above or some of the above or something entirely different too. But it must clearly define the KM practice with respect to your organization and should distinctly explain how it differs from other functions.

There is no consensus on a common definition of knowledge management as “all Epistemologists have spent their lives to understand what it means to know something”.

Concept Analysis Technique

Concept Analysis = [Key attributes + Examples + Non-examples]

I came across an interesting technique called Concept Analysis. This technique is widely used in philosophy and education and is particularly useful in tackling multi-faceted domains such as Intellectual Capital.

This technique can be used to generate definition and descriptive phrases for highly complex terms. And, as we all Knowledge Managers know, KM can get as complex as any other multi-disciplinary domain.

Concept Analysis emphasizes on three major dimensions of a given concept. They are,

1. List of Key attributes
2. List of Examples
3. List of Non-examples

By applying this below concept analysis to your organization, your team can create the best definition for KM and create great clarity in minds of the employees by differentiating with examples and non-examples.

I will fill the below template to define the KM initiative with respect to my professional experience.

My KM Definition

“Knowledge Management (KM) is the backbone for any business that leverages the power of codified and experiential knowledge in driving organizational goals by adopting up-to-date tools and automation. KM is not just document or quality management but an extensive adoption of Storytelling, Technical Knowledge Repositories and Self-service knowledge portals.”

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