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Division of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications
Knowledge Management Techniques: Teaching & Dissemination
Concepts
by
Ann Mackintosh, John Kingston, Ian Filby
Informatics Research Report EDI-INF-RR-0049
Division of Informatics September 1999
http://www.informatics.ed.ac.uk/
Knowledge Management Techniques: Teaching &
Dissemination Concepts
Ann Mackintosh, John Kingston, Ian Filby
Informatics Research Report EDI-INF-RR-0049
DIVISION of INFORMATICS
Centre for Intelligent Systems and their Applications
September 1999
Appeared in the International Journal on Human Computer Studies, Special Issue on Organizational Mem-
ory and Knowledge Management, vol. 51, no. 3, September/October, 1999
Abstract :
This paper describes knowledge management teaching and dissemination concepts to support the training of pro-
fessionals in an organisation to manage their knowledge assets. They are based on AIAIs experience of working
with large organisations to establish a technical knowledge management framework and to support their personnel in
implementing the framework.
The concepts support organisations who embark on a knowledge management programme. They promote the im-
portance of knowledge management and the awareness of how knowledge management can be accomplished within,
and across, operational divisions; create an awareness of a framework to achieve knowledge management; and es-
tablish a group of personnel who have skills in knowledge management techniques to enable them to facilitate the
development, maintenance, use and sharing of the organisations knowledge assets.
The main objective is to ensure that knowledge management techniques are rolled out across the organisation.
Importantly these concepts provide the organisation with the necessary training in the use of techniques to identify,
analyse and manage knowledge assets.
Keywords :
Copyright
c
2001 by The University of Edinburgh. All Rights Reserved
The authors and the University of Edinburgh retain the right to reproduce and publish this paper for non-commercial
purposes.
Permission is granted for this report to be reproduced by others for non-commercial purposes as long as this copy-
right notice is reprinted in full in any reproduction. Applications to make other use of the material should be addressed
in the first instance to Copyright Permissions, Division of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh, 80 South Bridge,
Edinburgh EH1 1HN, Scotland.
Knowledge Management Techniques
Page 1
Knowledge Management Techniques:
Teaching & Dissemination Concepts
∗
Ann Macintosh, Ian Filby and John Kingston
AIAI, The University of Edinburgh
80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1HN, UK
Email: aiai@ed.ac.uk
Summary
This paper describes knowledge management teaching and dissemination concepts to
support the training of professionals in an organisation to manage their knowledge assets.
They are based on AIAI’s experience of working with large organisations to establish a
technical knowledge management framework and to support their personnel in implementing
the framework.
The concepts support organisations who embark on a knowledge management programme.
They promote the importance of knowledge management and the awareness of how
knowledge management can be accomplished within, and across, operational divisions;
create an awareness of a framework to achieve knowledge management; and establish a
group of personnel who have skills in knowledge management techniques to enable them to
facilitate the development, maintenance, use and sharing of the organisation’s knowledge
assets.
The main objective is to ensure that knowledge management techniques are rolled out
across the organisation. Importantly these concepts provide the organisation with the
necessary training in the use of techniques to identify, analyse and manage knowledge assets.
1. Introduction
AIAI has developed teaching and dissemination concepts to support the management of
knowledge assets in an organisation. The concepts described in this paper are based on our
experience of working with large organisations to establish knowledge management
initiatives and support to their personnel in implementing the associated knowledge
management programme. They are also based on over ten years experience of training
knowledge engineers in a methodological approach to analysing and modelling knowledge.
This paper describes the knowledge management approach that we employ and describes
∗
To appear in the International Journal on Human Computer Studies, Special Issue on Organizational
Memory and Knowledge Management, September/October, 1999
Knowledge Management Techniques
Page 2
how the techniques taught in a formal classroom setting are put to practical use within the
organisation.
For any teaching and dissemination there is a need to recognise the applicability of different
levels of teaching required. In this case, knowledge management at the strategic level
requires the organisation to analyse and plan its business in terms of the knowledge it
currently has and the knowledge it needs for future business processes. At the tactical level
the organisation is concerned with identifying and formalising existing knowledge,
acquiring new knowledge for future use, archiving it in organisational memories and
creating systems that enable effective and efficient application of the knowledge within the
organisation. At the operational level knowledge is used in everyday practice by
professional personnel who need access to the right knowledge, at the right time, in the right
location.
Therefore using these three perspectives and from considering the knowledge management
dissemination requirements of the large organisations we have worked with, three distinct
target profiles have emerged:
1. Knowledge Development Managers who need a business-oriented perspective of
available tools and techniques to manage knowledge assets better. There is typically a
senior member of the organisation who has the remit of managing the knowledge
management initiative, identifying key knowledge management projects and ensuring that
these projects meet the overall business objectives of the organisation.
2. Knowledge Developers who need to be able to capture, structure and analyse
knowledge by working with the appropriate professional personnel. The captured
knowledge is then structured, analysed and may be distributed in reports, or through
intranets, or implemented in knowledge-based systems. Knowledge Developers range
from IT specialists with good programming skills to retrained professionals with a good
understanding of their knowledge domain. They are drawn from the many business units
in the organisation. These are the personnel whom the organisation have selected to
establish their knowledge asset base.
3. Professional Personnel who need to be aware that their knowledge can be managed
effectively and need to appreciate how it can be more widely shared and re-used within
the organisation. It is important that once the organisation has established a knowledge
management programme, these knowledge workers appreciate its importance and
understand how to pro-actively contribute.
The overall approach which we take for knowledge management is a modelling approach -
in other words, decisions are based on models of the organisation. However we have found
that the three groups listed above need different perspectives on the knowledge assets:
1. Knowledge Development Managers need a strategic perspective on all knowledge
assets. They need to understand the current state of the assets and to form a vision of
how these knowledge assets could be improved or utilised to move the organisation
forward.
Knowledge Management Techniques
Page 3
2. Knowledge Developers need a comprehensive understanding of individual knowledge
assets. They need to understand all the processes, roles, rights, and constraints
associated with each knowledge asset, so that they can represent everything that may be
relevant when describing or applying that knowledge asset.
3. Professional Personnel need to know about the existence of relevant knowledge
assets and must understand how to apply them at the operational level.
This paper focuses on the techniques we employ for managing knowledge within the
organisation. These are drawn from two distinct areas:
• the techniques that have been used previously from business management, for example,
SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats) analysis; balanced scorecards
(Kaplan and Norton (1996)); process modelling languages such as the IDEF Process
Flow and Object State Description Capture Method (Mayer, Cullinane, de Witte,
Knappernberger, Perakath and Wells (1992)); and agent/communication modelling
techniques such as RADs (Role Activity Diagrams, Ould (1993));
• knowledge modelling techniques that have been used previously for the disciplined
development of knowledge-based applications such as CommonKADS (Benus (1993)
and Schreiber, Akkermans, Anjewierden, De Hoog, Van De Velde, and Wielinga
(1998)).
It must be recognised that the ultimate success of any knowledge management programme
for a particular organisation will also depend critically on the attitude and culture adjustments
of its key workers.
The paper consists of six sections. This introduction establishes the scope and purpose for
the paper and gives the necessary background information to support it. Following this, a
section explains the need for knowledge management. Section 3 of this paper puts our
knowledge management teaching and dissemination concepts into context by establishing the
terms we use and the approach we promote. Section 4 describes the training modules we
have established. Section 5 details how the methods and techniques taught are used in
practice within organisations. Finally in Section 6 we summarise our approach and give
concluding remarks.
2. Why Manage Knowledge?
The success of businesses in the 1990's in an increasingly competitive marketplace depends
critically on the quality of knowledge which those organisations apply to their key business
processes. For example the supply chain depends on knowledge of diverse areas including
raw materials, planning, manufacturing and distribution. Likewise product development
requires knowledge of consumer requirements, new science, new production techniques,
marketing etc.
Knowledge assets are the knowledge regarding markets, products, technologies and
organisations, that a business owns or needs to own and which enable its business processes
