Rhem - Knowledge management in practice

Knowledge Management in Practice

Knowledge Management in Practice

Anthony J. Rhem

CRC Press

Taylor & Francis Group

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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

2017 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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Printed on acid-free paper

Version Date: 20160229

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-4665-6252-3 (Hardback)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Rhem, Anthony J., author.

Title: Knowledge management in practice / Anthony J. Rhem.

Description: Boca Raton, FL : Auerbach Publications, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016002475 | ISBN 9781466562523 (alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Knowledge management.

Classification: LCC HD30.2 .R5195 2016 | DDC 658.4/038--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016002475

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I dedicate this book to my mother, my angel, and to whom I owe all that I am and all that I will ever be; Marine McCloud Rhem is my angel in heaven constantly looking over me.

Also, I dedicate this book to my wife Tanya and to my son Jaren and daughter Jasmine, who remain my inspiration to continuously strive to be the best I can be every single day!

And for all of those who have a dream and the will to pursue it!

Contents

People and civilizations desire and cherish wisdominspired wisdom or the kind from experience that leads to deep expertise. In knowledge professions, the pathway to wisdom is data information knowledge. As the penultimate step, knowledge involves notions of the nature of an expert versus a novice, heuristics based on experience, and depth versus narrow intelligence. The pathway starts with the imperative for clean, relevant, error-free data in a form suitable for analytics and scientific analysis. Information should be relevant to the needs of the users, in an appropriate format for interpreting and archiving, and should be presented for convenient visualization.

People in small communities and large organizations collaborate and share their experiences, so capturing and reusing their knowledge are important for increasing group effectiveness and efficiency as well as for fostering innovation. For organizations, a key challenge is to identify needs for collaboration and to share collective knowledge. This means understanding who holds knowledge and what knowledge they have. Tools, techniques, and processes are thus needed to capture, store, and reuse the many types and instances of knowledge in an organization.

KM includes practices and procedures, as well as the people and systems, that support societies information and knowledge needs. This includes ways to encourage organizations and individuals to add value and share knowledge. Managers and knowledge professionals then implement KM methods and techniques, differentiating them for specific industries and subject areas. In practice, KM must address the varying requirements in specific industries such as healthcare, human resources, military, and finance. The different environments and cultures require consistent procedures that identify and analyze relevant content, organize knowledge, create effective access, and promote a knowledge-sharing culture through education and training.

Organizations need detailed information on applying KM practices to solve real-world problems. They need to establish organizational policies that lead to successful KM adoption and to understand reasons why KM projects fail. Organizations need to apply known lessons and tips to ensure successful implementation of KM practices and to elevate the value of adopting KM policies.

Dr. Anthony Rhems Knowledge Management in Practice is unique in the degree to which his extensive experience informs his insights and writing. At a time of such great attention to Big Data and data analytics, this book reminds us that knowledge is after all the ultimate goal of careful work with data and the creation of accurate information. Identifying, capturing, and managing knowledge as a critically important asset are formidable tasks in our large corporate and governmental organizations. This evidence-based book provides the framework and guidelines that professionals need for working with the contemporary explosion of data that is creating opportunities and challenges to all phases of our society and commerce. To our benefit, this book captures the considerable wisdom Dr. Rhem has acquired over his career as a KM professional.

Larry R. Medsker

Research Professor in Physics and Data Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC

Knowledge is recognized as a valuable asset in organizations across many industries. How knowledge is shared, leveraged, obtained, and managed will be the difference in how successful and sustainable an organization will become. This book is a culmination of my years of experience in the knowledge management (KM) discipline. Since 1998, I have been involved in various KM activities such as researching, developing processes for capturing and codifying knowledge, developing KM systems, developing and operationalizing KM strategies across several industries, writing articles and books, developing and teaching KM curriculum, and speaking at numerous KM conferences.

Why I Wrote This Book

The use of KM principles, practices, and procedures has expanded enormously since 2010. This expansion has also brought about the proliferation of KM systems in its many forms such as contact center knowledge repositories, expertise locators, content management, document management, knowledge repositories/libraries, social media applications, and decision support systems. The inclusion of KM from a strategic point of view to streamline revenue, increase revenue, improve performance, attract/retain customers, and manage human capital has enabled organizations to maintain and/or improve their competitive edge. To compete in a local, national, and/or global market, organizations, including educational, government, and military, are looking for that differentiator, and KM has proved to be just that. I wrote this book to capture and make available my experience in implementing and practicing KM across many organizations to scholars and practitioners of KM. This book is a resource that presents how KM is being implemented along with specific KM methods, tips, techniques, and best practices to get the most out of a KM investment.