Knowledge Management Overview

Knowledge management is about facilitating the processes by which knowledge is created, shared and used. It is about changing the way everyone works, which requires changing people’s behaviours and work patterns. Knowledge management is essentially about people - how they create, share and use knowledge, thus knowledge management programmes should have both a “collecting” and a “connecting” dimension.

The collecting dimension involves linking people with information. It relates to the capturing and disseminating of explicit knowledge. The connecting dimension involves linking people with people - specifically people who need to know with those who do know, and so enhancing tacit knowledge flow through better human interaction and communication processes, so that knowledge is widely disseminated and not just held in the heads of a few.

A successful implementation of a knowledge management requires the adoption of an integrated and holistic approach. Such an approach should take into consideration the following:

1. External factors (partners, networks, local, national, regional and global factors)
2. Organizational context (management behaviours, institutional pressures, funding cycles)
3. Relationships and collaborations within and across organization (networks, ICTs, communication plans, core and support functions)
4. Organizational knowledge (creation, sharing, storing, using knowledge, key activities and tools, packaging and communication of messages)

Knowledge is a human creation or social construct, when information is applied to doing something and is globally applicable, it becomes knowledge. Knowledge workers evaluate, analyse, and adapt knowledge to their own material, political and social conditions. Thus development of knowledge becomes a process. This process in turn entails a process of questioning and reflection which is different from knowledge contained in a finished product. The questioning and reflection will lead to the creation of a finished knowledge products.