Knowledge Capture and Codification

Introduction 

•In knowledge capture, a distinction needs to be made between the capture and identification of existing knowledge and the creation of new knowledge.

•In KM, we need to also consider knowledge that we know is present in the organization, which we can then set out to capture.

•Knowledge that we do not know about will require additional steps in its capture and codification.

•Knowledge that we know we do not have need to be facilitated to create new and innovative content.

•There is no doubt that knowledge capture may be difficult, particularly in the case of tacit knowledge.

•Tacit knowledge management is the process of capturing the experience and expertise of the individual in an organization an making it available to anyone who needs it. 

•Once knowledge is explicit, it should be organized in a structured document that enable multipurpose use.

•The best KM tools enable knowledge creation one and then leverage it across multiple channels, including phone, e-mail, discussion forums, and any new channels that come online. 

Tacit Knowledge Capture

•Individuals in the firm play a critical role in organizational knowledge acquisition.

•Learning at the individual level, however, is widely accepted to be a fundamentally social process – something that cannot occur without group interaction in some form.

•In KM, this knowledge creation or capture may be done by individuals who perform this role for the organization or a group within organization.

•Many of the tacit knowledge capture techniques were originally used in artificial intelligence, more specifically in the development of expert system.

•The term “knowledge acquisition” was coined by the developers of such systems and referred to various techniques such as structured interviewing, protocol or talk aloud analysis, questionnaire, surveys, observation and simulation.

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Individual and Group Level

 

  Learning by Observation

–Learning by observation approve involves presenting the expert with a sample problem, scenario, or case study that the expert then solves.

–Although we cannot observe someone’s knowledge, we can observe and identify expertise.   

–Expertise is a demonstration of the application of knowledge. 

     Learning by Being Told

–In learning by being told, the interviewee expresses and refines his or her knowledge, and the knowledge manager clarifies and validates the knowledge artifact that renders this knowledge in explicit form.

-This form of knowledge acquisition typically involves task analysis, process tracing and protocol analysis and simulations.

Interviewing Experts

–Two of the more popular means include structured interviewing and stories.

–Structured interviewing of subject matter experts is the most often used technique to render key tacit knowledge of an individual into more explicit forms.

–In many organizations, structured interviewing is done through exit interviews that are held when knowledge staff near retirement age.

–Two major type of questions: Open and Closed questions. 

–Stories can be defined as the telling of a happening or connected series of happenings, whether true or fictitious (Denning, 2001). 

–Conveying information in a story provides a rich context, remaining in the conscious memory longer and creating more memory traces than information not in context.  

Other methods of Tacit knowledge capture

–Ad hoc sessions

–Road maps

–Learning histories

–Action learning

–E-learning

–Learning from others through business guest speakers and benchmarking against best practices.

 Grafting involves the migration of knowledge between firms  a learning process whereby the firm gains access to task – or process-specific knowledge that was not previously available within the firm.

Experiential knowledge acquisition involves knowledge acquisition within a given firm – knowledge that is created by doing and practicing.

•Inferential knowledge acquisition processes, learning is within the firm and occurs by doing; however knowledge acquisition occurs primarily through interpretation of events, states, changes and outcome relative to the activities undertaken and decisions that were made. 

Explicit Knowledge Codification

Cognitive Maps is representation of the “mental model” of a person’s knowledge and provides a good form of codified knowledge.

•Cognitive mapping is based on concept mapping, which allows experts directly construct knowledge models.

•Concept maps represent concepts and relations in a two-dimensional graphical form with nodes representing key concepts connected by links representing propositions.

 

Decision Trees is typically in the form of a flowchart, with alternate paths indicating the impact of different decisions being made at that juncture point. 

•Knowledge Taxonomies allow knowledge to be graphically represented in such a way that reflects the logical organization of concepts within a particular field of expertise or for the organization at large. 

Taxonomies are basic classification systems that enable us to describe concepts and their dependencies – typically in a hierarchical fashion. 

The Relationships among KM, Competitive Intelligence, Business Intelligence and Strategic Intelligence

•Competitive intelligence (CI) can be defined as “a systematic and ethical program for gathering, analyzing, and managing external information that can affect your company’s plan, decisions, and operations.

•Strategic intelligence, is information resources that are needed for decision making, which in turn benefits the company.

•Business Intelligence (BI) refers to the set of tools that allow information to be gathered and used in decision making.