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K

nowledge

Management

helps you capitalize on the

strengths and experience of

your entire organization.

I

t is said that “knowledge is

power”. Certainly, anyone that

has been involved in business

for any length of time can at-

test to the truth in that state-

ment. It is only through ac-

cumulated knowledge that

organizations are able to

expand their sphere of influ-

ence and profit from emerg-

ing opportunities. Moreover,

in order to actually identify an

opportunity, experience is of-

ten required. In other words,

knowledge and experience

are among any business’ most

valuable assets.

K

nowledge Management is

essentially a way of approach-

ing business-oriented strate-

gies and practices utilizing

the abilities and insights of

personnel as tools. Think of

it this way: if you’re not tap-

ping into the true abilities of

your employees or are not al-

lowing them to present you

with their thoughts, findings,

and opinions, you’re missing

out a lot. Simply put, individu-

als that are embedded within

certain departments will obvi-

ously have a much clearer idea

of what’s going on within their

unit. By taking everyone’s ide-

as and knowledge into con-

sideration, a more compre-

hensive business strategy will

likely emerge.

W

hat makes knowledge

management so powerful is

that it isn’t tied down to one

specific area of an organiza-

tion. Every single department

in a company should fall un-

der the influence of knowl-

edge management, includ-

ing IT, business management,

production, and even areas

like customer service. For ex-

ample, if a company is releas-

ing a new product and con-

sumers were voicing technical

concerns about it directly to

those employed in help desk

positions, would it not be ben-

eficial for those customer ser-

vice specialists to rely this in-

formation to those who have

the ability to actually fix the

problems?

I

n the field of knowledge

management, there are sev-

eral different areas of concen-

tration or focus. Wikipedia de-

fines them as follows:

Techno-centric

- focuses on

technology, ideally those that

enhance knowledge sharing

and creation

Organizational

- focuses on

how an organization can be

designed to facilitate knowl-

edge processes best

Ecological

- focuses on the

interaction of people, identity,

knowledge, and environmen-

tal factors as a complex adap-

tive system akin to a natural

ecosystem

Knowledge Management is Power!

B

y taking each of these areas into consid-

eration, both individually and grouped as a

whole, you can develop a more complete ap-

proach to knowledge management that takes

nearly every facet of your organization into ac-

count. You might even say that this is crucial,

as technology is reliant on how human beings

use it within their organized social structures.

Likewise, it’s critical to determine how a busi-

ness functions from an ecological point-of-

view, because that will tell you how accumu-

lated knowledge is actually being used.

H

owever, perhaps the most practical and

valuable use of knowledge management ex-

ists within the IT sector. There are so many

individual elements associated with running

a massive IT operation that it’s almost impos-

sible to keep track of everything that’s going

on. IT managers have to rely on the abilities

of their subordinates to ensure that the many

minor, yet routine problems that are encoun-

tered are dealt with.

L

ikewise, whenever an issue comes to light

(as is usually the case), logs are supposed to

be created which detail what the problem

was and how it was resolved. This allows the

entire IT department to gain an immediate

insight into any perceived weaknesses in the

infrastructure (also, it contributes directly to

knowledge management).

In such cases, a person who is charged with

knowledge management would likely take

all of the recorded issues encountered within

a period of time and begin formulating new

strategies, enacting changes to policy or even

upgrading/purchasing new hardware.

E

ven though knowledge management in IT

is going to primarily deal with specific techni-

cal issues, the end goal is to help create addi-

tional business value for the entire organiza-

tion. This is where things get sort of ‘tricky’

and targeted training might need to be con-

sidered or advised. Often times, certain indi-

viduals’ opinions or observations within the IT

sphere aren’t given ample consideration.

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