in Knowledge Management Chapter 1 - Terminology Mounib Mekhilef Ecole Centrale Paris Industrial Engineering Department Gde Voie des Vignes, Châtenay Malabry 9295 France Dominic Kelleher PricewaterhouseCoopers Woluwedal 18 1932 Sint Stevens Woluwe, Belgium Annie Olesen A9 Consulting Ellegärdvej 36 DK-6400 Sonderborg, Danemark Draft Version 3.6
European Knowledge Management Glossary Introduction This document forms chapter one of the in Knowledge Management (KM), which is being prepared under a CEN Workshop agreement and will be published in October 2003. This chapter covers the core KM terminology that European private and public sector executives, particularly in small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) will need to know in order to have a proper understanding of KM. Readers can benefit from the content of this chapter alone, but we strongly recommend that they actually read this document along with the other chapters in the guide (all chapters are complementary and cross-referenced), namely: Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Framework Measurements SME Implementation Culture. [to be completed] 2 in Knowledge Management
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Table of Contents 3 2 Description of the process 4 3 List of contributors 7 4 CURRENT list of terms @ July 2003 8 5 Definitions 9 6 References 14 in Knowledge Management 3
European Knowledge Management Glossary 2 NOTA BENE Dear reader, would you please notice that the references for the proposed definitions (especially those entirely provided by known organisations or authors) have not been included yet. This is to be done for the final version after revision process. 4 in Knowledge Management
3 DESCRIPTION OF THE PROCESS The process for preparing this first draft of chapter one began in October 2002 through a call for inputs on KnowledgeBoard (http://www.knowledgeboard.com/), which is the European Commission s public KM portal. This led to the Project Team (PT) carrying out a first analysis of the 50 terms collected from various submissions. Next step was a first telephone meeting, which resulted in a widening of our search to include existing KM glossaries in the public domain, and included: inputs from all over the world; systematic analysis of the KM terms on KnowledegeBoard, through a specific data mining tool; systematic analysis of 1200 KM-related papers that had been published in international academic journals. From this process, the PT arrived at a first shortlist of the 34 most widely used KM terms. The next step was a first open working meeting in Paris, on 3 December 2002, which resulted in: a further shortlisting to 28 core terms; a first attempt at structuring the glossary as an ontology (structured terminology); a first projection of the shortlisted terms into four types i.e. Asset, Tool, People and Process; subsequent circulation of the revised list between the PT leaders, inviting further comments. The process was further refined through two further telephone meetings and then, on 16 January 2003, a second PT leader meeting in Brussels, where progress to date was presented and where the following next steps were agreed. build a questionnaire for the wider CEN workshop, which would invite their comments on the shortlisted terms; request further inputs from the wider CEN workshop; collect the questionnaire results; analyse the results. These steps were carried out and then a second open workshop was held in Brussels on 5 February 2003, which resulted in: review and consolidation of revised glossary; qualitative analysis of the responses to the questionnaire. in Knowledge Management 5
European Knowledge Management Glossary This was immediately followed by the next CEN wider workshop, in Brussels on 6 February 2003, where the PT: presented an overview of the process above and the results to date invited further wide contributions for the glossary disseminated the current list (see below) and definitions received decided to hold a further open workshop in April 2003 Agreed upon some active actions for dissemination and discussion of the additional terms in the list that users had not validated by a wide majority, using the European KM forum Theme 4 : KM made in Europe 30 terms for 30 countries. 6 in Knowledge Management
4 LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS By the time of submission of the interim report to CEN in February 2003, the following organisations had contributed to the draft Terminology: A9Consulting (Denmark) http://www.a9.dk/ ATOS-ORIGIN (France) British Standards Institution (BSI) (UK) Danish Standards Ass. (Denmark) PricewaterhouseCoopers (Europe ) http://www.pwc.com/ DELPHI (UK) EC-Lille (France) Ecole Centrale paris (France) http://www.lgi.ecp.fr/ EKMF (Europe) Fundecyt (Spain) http://www.fundecyt.es/ GRUNDSTEIN Consulting (France) ICASIT KnocoM (Netherlands) KnowledgePoint LAMSADE (France) NODOUBT NTG SENEKA (Europe) SoberIT TFPL (UK) UC Berkley (USA) VNULearning Planet Ernst & Young (Greece) Fraunhofer IPK (Germany) KPMG (Belgium) in Knowledge Management 7
European Knowledge Management Glossary 5 CURRENT LIST OF TERMS @ JULY 2003 1 Knowledge 2 Knowledge Management (KM) 3 Explicit Knowledge 4 Intellectual Capital 5 Tacit Knowledge 6 Communities of Practices 7 Information 8 Intangible Assets 9 Knowledge Audit 10 Learning Organisation 11 KM Tools 12 Knowledge Mapping 13 KM Core Competencies 14 Chief Knowledge Officer 15 Data 16 Organisational Culture 17 Narrative 18 KM Framework 19 Content Management 20 Personal KM 21 KM Lifecycle 22 KM Roles 23 Measuring KM 24 Organisational KM 28 KM Culture 29 Taxonomy 30 Knowledge Economy 8 in Knowledge Management
6 DEFINITIONS KNOWLEDGE: The combination of data and information, to which is added expert opinion, skills and experience, to result in a valuable asset which can be used to aid decision making. Knowledge may be explicit and/or tacit, individual and/or collective. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT (KM): Management of activities and processes for leveraging knowledge to enhance competitiveness through better use and creation of individual and collective knowledge resources EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE: Individual and collective knowledge that has been codified e.g. in objects, words, numbers shared in the form of graphics, drawings, metaphors, specifications, manuals, procedures etc. and can therefore be easily understood. INTELLECTUAL CAPITAL (IC): A subset of the intangible assets within or between organisations. It is commonly accepted to include three sub-categories: Human Capital, Structural Capital, Customer Capital. IC can include knowledge of employees, data and information about processes, experts, products, customers and competitors; and intellectual property such as patents or regulatory licenses. IC is sometimes calculated as company market value minus book value. TACIT KNOWLEDGE: Tacit knowledge consists of mental models, behaviours and perspectives, largely based on experience. This knowledge is difficult to codify. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICES (COPS): Informal, self-organised, collaboration of people, within or between organizations, who share common practices, interests or aims. When the community proves useful to its members over time, they may formalise its status by adopting a group name and a regular system of interchange. INFORMATION: Data which adds value to the understanding of a subject and in context, is the basis for knowledge. INTANGIBLE ASSETS: Things which can have a great value to an organisation but which have no physical presence and have traditionally not been recognised from a in Knowledge Management 9
European Knowledge Management Glossary financial perspective, except sometimes grouped together as goodwill on balance sheets. and comprising assets such as reputation, brand value or monopoly rights. KNOWLEDGE AUDIT: A systematic review typically, based on questionnaires, interviews or narrative techniques of the knowledge within an organisation. Often also includes a systematic mapping of knowledge interactions and flows within and between organisations, teams and individuals. LEARNING ORGANISATION: An organisation that views its future competitive advantage as based on continuous learning and an ability to adapt its behaviour to changing circumstances. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT TOOLS: The generic tools that enable implementation of KM processes. These can be either IT systems (e.g. databases, intranets, extranets, portals), or methodologies, or human networks ( e.g. CoPs). KM CORE COMPETENCES: The set of skills, experience and attributes recognised by an organisation(s) as critical to their success in KM. CHIEF KNOWLEDGE OFFICER (CKO): The individual with overall leadership of KM in an organisation. Person who articulates and champions the KM vision, provides the organisational leadership to implement and sustain KM, and is the ultimate focal point for knowledge creation, sharing, and application DATA: Discrete, objective facts (numbers, symbols, figures) without context and interpretation. ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE: Can be defined as the way of perceiving, thinking and feeling, shared and transmitted among organisational members. NARRATIVE: Techniques employed in KM environments to describe complicated issues, explain events, communicate lessons learned, or bring about cultural change. The techniques can involve story telling, narrative databases, or after action reviews.(retrospective accounts of significant events in an organisation s recent past, described in the voices of people who took part in them). 10 in Knowledge Management
KM FRAMEWORK: Describes the most essential components of KM (culture, people, process, technology) and their relationships with each other. IProvides a schematic picture and description of these various aspects and helps users to position and guide KM projects/activities. CONTENT MANAGEMENT: Covers the processes of selecting, capturing, categorising, indexing, storing and purging explicit knowledge. Typically this involves active and continuous review of content via a range of tools (databases, taxonomies, human networks etc). Personal KM: A set of, concepts, disciplines and tools for organising often previously unstructured knowledge, to help individuals take responsibility for what they know and who they know. Knowledge Management lifecycle: Describes the principle phases of managing knowledge, such as selecting, maintaining, measuring, sharing and applying knowledge in given contexts. in Knowledge Management 11
European Knowledge Management Glossary KM ROLES To implement KM successfully sometimes requires specific and clearlydefined roles. These are not always formal, but can include such roles as CKO, content managers, change management experts, knowledge brokers and harvesters etc. KM MEASUREMENT : KM measurement, one of the KM lifecycle phases, aims to fix in each specific context ways to help organisations measure the value created by their KM projects, programmes and strategies. For example, measuring Return on Investment (ROI) in KM is possible through a range of both quantitative and qualitative techniques. ORGANISATIONAL KM: Unlike personal KM, which centres on the individual, organisational KM depends upon an enterprise-wide strategic decision to actively manage knowledge through a range of processes, tools and people. CUSTOMER CAPITAL: Refers to the value of an organization s network of satisfied clients, and their loyalty to the organisational. HUMAN CAPITAL: Describes the value of the know-how, competencies of an organisation's employees, required to provide solutions to customers. STRUCTURAL CAPITAL: Describes the knowledge that has been captured and institutionalised within the structure, processes and culture of an organisation. It could include patents, copyrights, proprietary software, trademarks, trade secrets etc. It can be stored in the form of documented procedures, databases, expert systems, decision-support software and KM systems. SC is everything left at the office when the employees go home, and can clearly be regarded as an organization's property. KM CULTURE: Organisational culture can be defined as the learned way of perceiving, thinking and feeling, shared and transmitted among organisational members. TAXONOMY: An outcome from knowledge mapping and structuring processes. A taxonomy is a hierarchical classification which helps users understand how explicit knowledge can be grouped and categorised. KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY: A recently coined term that refers to the stage of economic evolution in which knowledge is considered as the key factor of progress and competitiveness. This major 12 in Knowledge Management
change has significant implications for the strategy, operations, and structure of all types of organisation, large or small, public or private.. in Knowledge Management 13
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