... snip ...
>So my question, dear friends, is this: what sorts of steps do we take to
>make it possible for traditionally disempowered, knowledge-poor (in the
>sense of things like basic understanding of the financial structures and
>external customer requirements that drive the business) staff to choose to
>broaden their own individual and common knowledge base, without
>reinforcing the paternalistic structures that allowed them to languish
>there in the first place?
My suggestion would be to (and I know this will draw *comment*) separate
the prevailing mental models of, "who should know what" and, "who knows
what is best for whom" from the problem of what knowledge is needed where
and when in the business process. When you have established the knowledge
requirements for the process events, and you know who is responsible for
the events, then you have a basis for answering the question, who needs to
know what to do their job.
Then examine at each of these "knowledge input requirements." For each
event, look at the possible methods by which the needed knowledge can be
acquired. Should it be developed anew for each occurrence of the event, is
there another process within the company that could provide it, can it be
"out-sourced," etc. The answers to these questions should start to match
knowledge requirements with knowledge sources, and knowledge users with
knowledge providers.
Keep in mind that data is not knowledge. This should not an exercise in
creating new and better distribution lists for reports. Nor is it an
argument for creating strict need-to-know compartmentalization of
knowledge. I totally agree that the knowledge development process is
highly dependent on the effective use of previously developed knowledge.
This previously developed knowledge, especially when it deals with the
knowledge development process itself, is what needs to be most widely
available. Some call this previously held knowledge, "lessons learned" or
part of the "corporate culture." Whatever it is called it is truly one of
the most valuable assets of any company.
You might want to use one of the knowledge development models to help
people understand how knowledge is created and the factors that affect
knowledge quality. Gowin's Vee Heuristic for knowledge development is one
that comes to mind, members of the list might have others they would
recommend. If you have an interest, I have developed a general knowledge
development model for use in my knowledge managment practice and would be
willing to share further thoughts on the subject.
-- Brian (Bo) Newman bonewman@cbvcp.comHost of the Knowledge Management Forum <http://www.iea.com/~bonewman/