People-first Learning & Knowledge Management

As I delve more into learning and organizational change, I realize how vital making concepts explicit is to creating understanding. Creating models with the core entities, their relationships, and how they relate helps me visualize, consider implications, and commit principles to memory. Like any model, it's an incomplete representation. This article captures my current understanding of learning and knowledge management as depicted.

I am starting at the top. If knowledge is in people and information is in systems, a knowledge management system must include both. Considering a technology system alone as a knowledge management system is impractical, as people are the most critical system component and must be considered.

People acquire, share, and apply knowledge in their experiences with others and technologies. In addition, they create meaningful understanding through reflection and dialog. Knowledge is made explicit by capturing information in documents and systems where the information can be processed, retrieved, and transferred. People learn and apply, and systems support learning and application.

Implications

Strategic

Consider identifying, creating, and maintaining areas of knowledge that establish a competitive advantage.

• How might knowledge management help align strategy, innovation, and operations to understand customers, markets, and the technologies to serve them?

Innovation

Consider innovation a knowledge-creation function focused on strategic opportunity areas and operational improvements.

• How might knowledge be created, used, and shared when forming, validating, and realizing concepts?

Operations

Knowledge management is critical to increasing the value delivered and captured.

• How might operational knowledge be effectively and efficiently created, managed, and shared?

Conclusions

• Learning and organizational change are knowledge management in action.
• Knowledge Management Systems are socio-technical.
• People, especially subject-matter experts in strategic opportunity areas, are critical components of a knowledge management strategy.
• The value of applied knowledge is the primary metric, i.e., revenue and savings.
• Knowledge acquisition, processing, and transfer costs are secondary metrics.