Page 214 - DCAP307_PLANNING_AND_MANAGING_IT_INFRASTRUCTURE

Planning and Managing IT Infrastructure Avinash Bhagat, Lovely Professional University

Notes Unit 13: Knowledge Management

CONTENTS
Objectives
Introduction

13.1 Concept of Knowledge Management
13.1.1 Importance of Knowledge Management
13.2 Applications and Benefits of Knowledge Management
13.3 Best Practices for a KM Project
13.3.1 Best Practice 1: Clearly Define Your Initiative
13.3.2 Best Practice 2: Remember that Less is More
13.3.3 Best Practice 3: Foster Unstructured Knowledge Creation
13.3.4 Best Practice 4: Focus on What You Don’t Know
13.3.5 Best Practice 5: Think Globally
13.4 Supporting Technologies
13.5 Summary
13.6 Keywords

13.7 Review Questions
13.8 Furthur Readings

Objectives

After studying this unit, you should be able to:
 Define the concept of knowledge management
 Discuss the applications of knowledge management
 List the benefits of knowledge management
 Discuss best practices for a KM project
 Describe supporting technologies of knowledge management

Introduction

Knowledge is the ability to make effective decisions, and take effective action. Knowledge
Management (KM) is a concept and a term that arose approximately two decades ago, roughly
in 1990. Quite simply one might say that it means organising an organisation’s information and
knowledge holistically, but that sounds a bit woolly, and surprisingly enough, even though it
sounds overbroad, it is not the whole picture. Knowledge management is the name of a concept
in which an enterprise consciously and comprehensively gathers, organises, shares, and analyses
its knowledge in terms of resources, documents, and people skills. Knowledge Management
(KM) refers to a multi-disciplined approach to achieving organisational objectives by making
the best use of knowledge. KM focuses on processes such as acquiring, creating and sharing
knowledge and the cultural and technical foundations that support them. In early 1998, it was
believed that few enterprises actually had a comprehensive knowledge management practice
(by any name) in operation. Advances in technology and the way we access and share information
has changed that; many enterprises now have some kind of knowledge management framework
in place.

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