KM [Knowledge Management] in its broadest sense, is a conceptual framework that encompasses all activities and perspectives required to gain an overview of, deal with, and benefit from the corporation’s knowledge assets and their conditions. It pinpoints and prioritises Those knowledge areas that require management attention. It identifies the salient alternatives and suggests methods for managing them, and conducts activities required to achieve desired results. (Wiig, 1993, p. 18)
A key-objective of KM is to ensure that the right knowledge is available with the right person at the right time in a "consistent and systematic" manner to enable timely decision-making.
To articulate all these concepts in an operational tool and apply it in a field test, the authors designed a questionnaire based on four tables, one for each technological resource, where each row represents an element of the Management Cycle and each of these has five choice answers which represent the adapted levels of the CMM. In that way each worksheet assesses the maturity level of one specific technological resource from the organizational management perspective
Key Steps in Knowledge Management
Having understood the strategic business objectives, the next step is to identify key drivers including Knowledge Capabilities that are vital to achieve these business objectives. This is followed by a Knowledge Inventory - i.e. identification of what knowledge capabilities currently exist - and where or with whom (this is an equally big challenge in large, geographically dispersed organizations and could be described as “If we knew what we know, we’d be three times as profitable”). At this stage, a Knowledge Map (a graphical representation of the business objectives, critical knowledge capabilities to achieve them and where or with whom they reside in the organization) may be prepared.
The Knowledge