hi good morning today i am going to start ah my first lecture that is introduced the

concept of knowledge management

and then i will also discuss that why knowledge management is required by the organization

in the next i will be discussing about the system life cycle that how knowledge management

system is developed over a period of time and then why organization are looking for

alining knowledge management with business strategy

this is how i am going to introduce the concept of knowledge management and then you can see

that how this knowledge management has evolved over a period of time

now what is knowledge if you look at the concept of knowledge it has a origin called genisis

from the data so first stage is data or data is something which is unprocessed it could

be related to facts or events anything like that say for example i say number of students

in the class i say 15 or 20 means that i am talking about the data but it is not a processed

fact but data is converted into information when we try to organise this data into a meaningful

way

so for example if we say there are 15 students in the class then we can classify or organise

them into different categories like how many boys are there how many girls are there right

so in that way this becomes the information now this information becomes knowledge when

it is contextual relevant and actionable what i mean to say by saying that it is contextual

or relevant or actionable is that when information is used in a particular context right

for example you know that okay in this institute the number of girls students are less are

the number of girls is 20% and 80% students are there now how are going to use this information

for taking certain actions so it has to have a context that it must be relevant that you

are going to make use of it and then that information you can act upon it that is why

we say that it is it should be actionable also

so when we are converting information into knowledge then there is thin difference between

information and knowledge that is information is organised data but when we make use of

that information in particular context which is good for you or the organisation then it

becomes a knowledge let me give you another example say you know that how to write a software

code you are software engineer

now as a software engineer you are going to write a code and for that what kind of information

that you need is that how to write code you have knowledge sorry information about what

programming language but this programming language is just give you information about

the way to write the program in a particular context

now suppose your organisation asked you to write a program for customer for particular

specific act now this becomes the context that what is the use of it why you are going

to write it and then when you write a program that is going to be useful to the customer

using coding information then it becomes an action

now this knowledge has characteristics like it has a strong experiential and reflective

element what does it mean when we say that it has a strong experiential and reflective

element it means the information that you make use is converted it into a knowledge

based on what you call experience so out of experience your knowledge accumulates your

capacity to convert information into knowledge improves

second is it has a reflective element reflective elements means that you are going to reflect

on certain things based on the information suppose you have certain information that

this is going to happen have a nice okay you know that new technology has come now how

this technology is going to affect your organization

so you are going to reflect upon that and then you see that whether you are going to

make use of technology or not so it has a reflective element also and why companies

are going for using knowledge because knowledge provides you a good leverage it means with

the help of this knowledge you can have a competitive edge over your competitors it

could be individual or it could be groups or it could be organizations and it can provide

you better returns

so objective of having in knowledge management system is to see that how you can make use

of knowledge to achieve competitive advantage to get better returns to increase efficiency

and productivity and that is why we are using this knowledge management system the next

characteristic is that it is dynamic what do you mean by saying it is dynamic

okay dynamic means what the dynamic means that the nature of knowledge keeps on changing

the kind of knowledge that we use to have 70’s or 80’s or 90’s related to any

domain has gone under significant change so that is why we say that nature of knowledge

keep on changing let me give an example if you look at google which provides a lot of

information about particular activities

now when we say that it is dynamic if you look at the nature of knowledge on any subject

or in any domain and you search on google you will find latest information on latest

knowledge in that particular field what does it mean it means that the nature of knowledge

keep on changing because it is updated over a period of time

so new knowledge is coming which could be useful more relevant and also if you look

at the last point that is it evolves over time with experiences the nature of knowledge

keeps on changing and as you grow as you learn and as you experience the kind of knowledge

that to accumulate and store with you keep on changing so knowledge is very important

and that is why we are going to have this course on knowledge management

and however to manage this knowledge in work is going to change because with technology

because of the economy because of the environment and that is why we have a course on knowledge

management i hope that it is going to be useful to you it is also a human capital why we say

that it is human capital because knowledge resides with the people or it could also reside

with group or resides with the organization

so when we say that knowledge is human capital it means the knowledge mostly resides with

the people now if you want to see the difference between knowledge management sorry information

and the knowledge it is the level of understanding so information just why do i setup data into

an organised and meaningful way

but when you are going to make use of that information for doing or acting or for making

certain decisions then it becomes knowledge okay

now we will see the differences between the different kinds of concepts that we have been

using starting with facts that is the data information knowledge wisdom or something

more to that now if you look at this hierarchy it is like a pyramid i suggest that the bottom

of it is that information more to that in facts that is the data

from facts we move to the next stage that is information that is the meaningful organisation

of the data then we moved to the intelligence then intelligence is that however we are going

to make use of it it shows your ability to make use of that information for doing some

certain actions and when you do it it means that you are going to infer something from

that data based on your ability that is your mental intelligence or mental ability and

that is what we call it as knowledge

moving to next is wisdom so when you have done something then you experience ha ha enlightenment

so that is what we call wisdom and then move to further if you look at that two lines that

is drawn parallelly along with this pyramid it shows two things one is that volume completeness

and objectivity

if you look at these things what will happen the down the arrow that is coming from top

to bottom it means at the bottom of the pyramid you will find data which is more objective

which is more complete the move the more you move up okay the level of completeness goes

down it means that in terms of volume completeness and objectivity facts are at the best okay

and then you move up in the hierarchy but at the same time when you look at the value

the value resides more in knowledge wisdom and something like that but if you look at

this structure it is less structured it is more subjective because the data and the information

that we have this is more organised and complete and whole structure compared to the knowledge

because they are going to make use of that in a particular context and the kind of wisdom

that we have okay

so if you look at the difference in terms of objectivity and subjectivity you will find

the data is more objective and while knowledge and go beyond knowledge is more subjective

okay

so moving to the next part now i am going to show you something ah it is a cartoon and

this cartoon has a source from cleveland which clearly shows the difference between information

knowledge and wisdom now lip look at the information the first cartoon what does it is show it

is getting all kind of inputs from different sources that is the input

now is going to make use of that input to act on that so if the inputs are lights are

there grass is there sun light is there it is raining all kind of information that he

has so he is going to make use of that like rabbits or grass eats grass grass grows in

soil rains falling from the clouds wolves eats rabbits so this is knowledge

but he is moving beyond knowledge what we call wisdom so he says that okay with this

knowledge if i act upon suppose if i kill all the wolves the rabbits will eat up the

grass and soil will all wash away so this is the wisdom so this wisdom say gives you

some kind of enlightenment or an experience that okay how we are going to hire this knowledge

for use the individuals groups and the organizations

now based on this let us say that what are the different types of knowledge that we have

now when we are talking about types of knowledge ah this is actually classified into three

different categories that is whether the knowledge at the surface level or at the deep level

that is what we call shallow or deep

shallow knowledge means that you have very special knowledge about a particular thing

and the deep knowledge is that you have very good knowledge which is acquired through learning

through experience right and that is the difference between the shallow and the deep knowledge

next case is explicit and tacit knowledge

i will discuss about explicit and tacit in more detail but here what i want to say is

explicit that is notified in some form it is this documented knowledge which is available

to you in in the form a books manuals guidelines and these kinds of things while when i am

talking about tacit knowledge it is a winded in the mind

what does it mean tacit knowledge is that kind of knowledge actually which decides in

the mind of the people another way to differentiate knowledge is procedural episodical procedural

means how to do certain things episodic means that you have learnt through experience memory

is this kind of things okay

and then the question is that the how you are going to chunk knowledge which could be

useful to you

now if you look at differences across knowledge from procedural to episodic you can see that

on the right side it shows shallow to deep knowledge when we say shallow to deep knowledge

it means that the knowledge from the surface level moves to a deeper level that depending

upon your learning your experiences your knowledge your skill and these kinds of things

now when i am saying procedural knowledge that is much more shallow that it only tells

you how to perform a task right suppose i am going to use this computer to write something

on a word is that means that the kind of knowledge that is required is actually is motor in nature

which i can use any time if i want to use this computer for writing anything

so knowledge of how to do a task that is essentially motor in nature so same knowledge is used

over and above whenever i want to write i will open the computer i will fix the procedure

which is known to me and i go through this procedure and open the word file and make

use of it to write so that is what call procedural knowledge which is at the surface level

now but i do not know how this computer works so that is basically the deep knowledge that

i will talk about it later now second is declarative knowledge so this is a declarative knowledge

that is available with you whenever you want to recall it so that is related to short term

memory which you can easily remember

which can be retrieved memory okay and it is good because at the first stage you should

know okay what is there which you can easily remember which is going to be useful for you

and which can be used by you for doing certain things so that is what we call declarative

knowledge which is known to you which is available to you in your short term memory

so at a moment’s reflection you can get them now moving to the next part that is semantic

knowledge now semantic knowledge is what semantic knowledge is basically when you move further

to the deeper part of the knowledge that is called semantic knowledge and this kind of

knowledge suggests that knowledge is organised in classified into different categories

based on the nature of the concepts that is a fact with that the concept or with relationship

so based on this concept fact or relationship you are going to organise knowledge into different

category so it is basically related to organization classification and codification of knowledge

so it helps you to achieve knowledge from the data database from your memory or whatever

it is

now next is episodic knowledge what is episodic knowledge that is organised not by conception

relationships but it is more experiential in nature it is chunk by episodes so you remember

certain episodes which are related to this when we talk to supervisor you based on your

experience you say that so in these conditions these are the things that need to be done

and that is how we should be working

that is based on your memory which is there what you do keep that information on intuition

experience and learning and that is much more complied but it is not that easy to extract

because it is long term memory and it is very difficult sometimes to retrieve that kind

of information but you need to do it because that is very very useful and that is at a

deeper level

that is how we have decided to see that how the knowledge moves from the shallow to deep

and what are the different types of knowledge from procedure to episodic

next now when i was talking about two different kind of knowledge that is explicit and tacit

let me put some more observations related to explicit and tacit knowledge now when i

am talking about explicit knowledge which deals with objective rational and technical

knowledge for example the goals objective papers and reports

so most of the explicit knowledge is actually available in documented form so for example

book in the library so whatever information available it is explicitly given in the book

and you can have it so it is explicit in the sense that you can go through it you can read

it you can make use of it and you can easily codify it

your library since it is an example of explicit knowledge books are organised and classify

using coding system and that it is we say that it is more structured so explicit knowledge

is more structured and it is organized codified and classified in such a way so that retrieval

is very very easy so you can easily manipulate it share it or a taught it or learn it okay

moving from explicit to tacit knowledge and when i am talking about tacit knowledge it

is very very unstructured highly unstructured you can say because it resides in the head

of the people okay so once it resides in the head of the people it means that it is subjective

it is based on the experience knowledge intuition that a person has right

and it is not documented in any form so you cannot get it easily right and it is very

very personal because it is with me or it is with you and how to do it but the processes

are not documented in a particular form say for example if a person does certain things

using certain processes now these processes are known to that person only

if that process is known to that person only then what will happen he will use those processes

to perform but these processes are in the mind of that particular individual and how

to do it it is not available in a documented form so it is not formalised or documented

because it is very very personal the way the person is doing the job okay

what is there in when you say that it is tacit it could be related to experiences and that

mental math that you form about doing certain things your insights your expertise your how

to do things secrets related to traits your skill set understanding comprehension comprehension

ability all this is related to tacit knowledge

so now what we have done is we have tried to examine what is knowledge and what are

the different types of knowledge see the most important thing here is to talk about explicit

and tacit knowledge so explict is that is available in some form tacit is that is not

available which is not formal which is with the people

(refer slide tim: 21:08)

now let us look at some of the principles on which is knowledge management system works

why we are talking about knowledge management system at all today okay so where i am going

to talk about certain principles related to knowledge so that you can build an effective

knowledge management system the first principle says that knowledge influences success

now whether you are talking about explicit knowledge or tacit knowledge both are required

and if have this kind of knowledge it is going to help you to bring success to your internal

achievement goals and objectives that you have whatever it is so knowledge is going

to influence of success

if you have knowledge whether it explicit form or tacit form it help you to achieve

success in terms of achieving goals and objectives whatever is there now another important thing

is that which knowledge is more important tacit knowledge or explicit knowledge when

i am saying tacit knowledge or explicit knowledge since we have identified these two types of

knowledge tacit is something that is personal and explicit that is codified

why i am saying codified because it is available in the form that is documented either as a

video or as a book or in digital form so that it is available to others for use but personalized

knowledge is with the person and it is not available to use for others

so personalized knowledge and explicit knowledge both are very very important what is to be

done if we have to see that how to formalize the knowledge that resides in the head of

the people so there is a need to see that how we can transform this tacit which is more

personal in nature into some explicit form that is a very important

now so we have been talking about codified and personalize knowledge that one that is

explicit the other one that is tacit now there is a need to have more explicit knowledge

which could be used by others because if the knowledge is available only in tacit form

then others may not be able to use it so the idea is to transform tacit knowledge into

explicit form

how does it happen that is through sharing so when we share our knowledge with others

then others also come to know about that so it is very very important to share our knowledge

with each other okay now that there are two ways to share the knowledge it could be through

using face off face to face at a personal level or you also use technology to share

knowledge

now when you are going to share knowledge at a personal level it is going to be more

tacit because as you are passing on that knowledge from one person to another person but again

it is not going to be available in explicit form now in order to make it available in

explicit form you are going to make use of technology okay

so if you are going to record certain processes or bring certain things then that knowledge

that related to that particular process is captured using technology so technology becomes

the carrier the means of expression of that particular knowledge of the process right

now when want to share knowledge with other person especially at personal level what does

it requires

it requires trust if you have trust on the other person only then you can share knowledge

with other person but if the knowledge is available in explicit form then these things

may not be required because then it is available in some form and you can make use of it now

we are talking about knowledge management okay

then we have to see that whether organization are going to make use of knowledge whether

they going to have a knowledge system or not right and whether they want to make use of

knowledge in order to create innovate and perform well right so most of the organisations

today which are working in a knowledge economy are going to be called a knowledge intensive

organizations

and most of these knowledge intensive organisations like it companies r and d institutions labs

they are into these business of knowledge management and they have developed and created

system for knowledge management and for that they have created a framework that how they

are going to acquire create store and disseminate so that the knowledge can be used

and that is what and that is what is the last point that came has a plan architecture which

helps you to retrieve and make use of knowledge from the storage

now these are the different sources are where the knowledge is there and that is what we

call knowledge reservoirs knowledge is residing with artifacts organisations and the people

if you look at people level the knowledge resides with individuals and also groups so

if you look at the artifacts so that is in the process the repositories repositories

of the organizations the kind of technology that an organisation uses

so artifacts basically related to systems and processes and repositories of the organisation

where the knowledge resides now knowledge also resides with the departments the units

and the network that organisation build up over a period of time so there could be different

reservoirs knowledge where knowledge is available

now if you look at knowledge as if different kind of knowledge as if that we have it could

be classified as you as i already told you that is codified or personalized knowledge

the codified knowledge is basically that kind of knowledge which is owned by the organization

but the personalized knowledge or other form of knowledge is not legally owned and it is

written by different sets of people or groups or the organizations

now most of the codified knowledge which is legally owned by the organisations may include

patents copyrights trademarks and documents and this is very very important because unless

you have the these things you cannot grow and develop yourself and that is why you have

copyrights for books you have trademarks you have trade secrets you have patents okay which

you can make use of it

and this is your asset in terms of knowledge but that is only a part of it most important

is what you call other form of knowledge which is relying in relationships communities of

practices which people follow the best practices the benchmarks the experiences experience

expertise and other theoretical knowledge the database in which is there with the organization

now the thing is that we need to ensure that how to make use of a large chunk of these

kind of things which is related to relationships practices experience database to convert them

into a formal system of knowledge that is more explicit which can be used by the organization