The Knowledge Management Cycle

Introduction :

-Effective KM requires an organization to identify, generate, acquire, diffuse and capture the benefits of knowledge that provide strategic advantage to organization.

One of the major KM processes identifies and locates knowledge and knowledge sources within the organization.

Valuable knowledge is then translated into explicit form, often referred to as codification of knowledge, in order to facilitate more wide-spread dissemination.

Once it is transferred to organizational knowledge repository, it is become part of organizational memory

      The Meyer and Zack KM Cycle

•The Meyer and Zack KM cycle is derived from work on the design and development of information products.

•Information products are broadly defined as any information sold to internal or external customers such as databases, new synopses, customer profiles and so forth.

•Lessons learned from the physical products cycle can be applied to the management of knowledge assets. 

This approach provides a number of useful analogies:

1.Product platform : the knowledge repository

2.Information process platform : the knowledge refinery 

The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle

The McElroy KM Cycle

The Meyer and Zack  KM Cycle

•Acquisition of data or information addresses the issue regarding sources of raw materials such as scope, breadth, depth, credibility, accuracy, timeliness, relevance, cost, control, exclusivity, and so on.

•Refinement is the primary source of added value. It can be physical (migrating form one medium to another) or logical (restructuring, relabeling, indexing and integrating).

•Storage may be physical (file folders, printed information) or digital (database, knowledge management software). 

•Distribution describes how the product is delivered to the end user (e.g., fax, print, email) and encompasses not only the medium of delivery but also its timing, frequency, form, language and so on. 

•Presentation or Use is where the context plays a very important role. The effectiveness of each of the preceding value-added steps is evaluated here: does the user have sufficient context to be able to make use of this content? If not, the KM cycle has failed to deliver value. 

The Bukowitz and Williams KM Cycle

Bukowitz and Williams describe a KM process framework that outlines “how organizations generate, maintain, and deploy a strategically correct stock of knowledge to create value.” 

•Assess deals more with the group and organizational level. Assessment refers to the evaluation of intellectual capital.

•Build and sustain ensures that future intellectual capital of the organization will keep the organization viable and competitive.

•Divest The organization should not hold on to assets – physical or intellectual – if they are no longer creating value. 

The McElroy KM Cycle

McElroy (1999) describes a knowledge life cycle that consists of the knowledge processes of knowledge production and knowledge integration, with a series of feedback loops to organizational memory, beliefs, claims and the business-processing environment. 

The Wiig KM Cycle

Wiig (1993) focuses on the three conditions that need to be present for an organization to conduct its business successfully:

1.It must have a business (products and services) and customers for them

2.It must have resources (people, capital, facilities)

3.It must have the ability to act.

Building knowledge refers to a wide range of activities ranging from market research, focus groups, surveys, competitive intelligence, and data mining applications.

Building knowledge consists of five major activities:

1.Obtain knowledge

2.Analyze knowledge

3.Reconstruct/synthesize knowledge

4.Codify and model knowledge

5.Organize knowledge