People-focused knowledge management

Involved?
engines
compressor design
expertise
What Is the Business
Understand how to
Provide effective repair
Develop, build, and sell
Increase the value of a
Use of Knowledge?
produce specialty
of diesel powered
high performance
retirement fund
chemicals for the
trucks used by the
compressors to
portfolio for mutual
commercial market
organization
industrial customers
fund customers
Does the Situation
There are too few
The master 
“Our design knowledge
The securities trader is
Represent a
proficient operators
diagnostician only has
is superbly better than
operating in an
Constraint or
and as a result many
time to diagnose 25%
competition and we
environment that is 
Opportunity?
reactors are not run
of the trucks with
should offer a broad
too disruptive to 
well
problems and this 
line of highly
allow him to search 
— Constraint —
leads to improper and
specialized custom
out and analyze the
expensive repairs that
designs to create a
opportunities for 
take too long
larger and more
each trade
— Constraint —
profitable market.”
— Constraint —
— Opportunity —

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292
P
eople
-F
ocused
K
no
wledge
M
ana
gement
Table A-2
(Continued)
Examples
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
CKF Characteristics
Chemical Industry
Truck Repair
Engineering
Financial Industry
Services
Department
What Are Relevant
Create a KBS with
Train more
Introduce a new
Support securities
KM Alternatives?
expert reactor 
diagnosticians by
product line of
trader with a second
operator knowledge 
apprenticing to the
compressors that are
trader and a KBS 
and make it available 
master diagnostician
custom designed for
that performs initial 
to all operators
for six months
specific situations
market analyses of 
changes and screens 
trade opportunities
Which Benefits Might
Increased profit,
Reduce repair costs and
Increase revenues and
Better selection of
We Expect?
decreased costs, and
time — to increase net
profit margins to 
trading opportunities
increased market 
profit and reduce
obtain higher net 
and faster executions
share
capital investment 
profits
increase revenues 
(due to higher 
and profit margins 
utilization factor of 
to yield greater net 
vehicles in fleet)
profits

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Examples of Knowledge Management Analysis Approaches
293
benefits from knowledge result later from the application of knowl-
edge to create added value by improving quality, timeliness, or direc-
tion of work of some kind.
The assessment of benefits from KM actions requires first an esti-
mate of the monetary or other costs of investments and second, the
assessment of incremental value (again in monetary or other terms)
from either (1) utilizing the expected improvement of knowledge in
some work process, or (2) trading the knowledge in question (e.g.,
an IC asset such as a patent) in the marketplace.
Assessing the value of utilizing knowledge in work processes is inher-
ently complex. It normally involves many stages for knowledge to be
organized, communicated, mobilized (internalized and be readied for
utilized) — and, when utilized, have the effects of translating the
improved knowledge into intermediate improvements and benefits
until the final benefits are realized. This is illustrated in Figure 8-3.
A major issue associated with knowledge benefit assessment, as a
result of its complexity and intangibility, is to substantiate and estab-
lish the credibility of the analysis. It has been found helpful to 
represent the expected propagation of KM actions from beginning to
end in a diagram such as Figure 8-3. The diagram is then used as a
framework to discuss potential effects — activities involved, possible
timetables, advantages, disadvantages, costs, benefits, etc. — with
affected parties. Such discussions normally lead to better insights as
to the best approaches to achieve the desired results as well as clear
understandings of agreements and concerns. The outcome is a foun-
dation for the credibility of the overall assessment.
Purpose: Prepare benefit analysis for potential knowledge-related
initiatives to provide support for planning, action, and monitoring.
Information Technology-Based KM Tools
IT-based KM tools fall outside the scope of this book. However,
extensive information on many different existing tools can be found
by searching the Internet — for example, for the following compa-
nies which represent a fair cross section of what is available:
AI-CBR (www.ai-cbr.org)
Autonomy, Inc.(www.autonomy.com)
BackWeb Technologies (www.backweb.com)
CBR-Web (www.cbr-web.org)
AP.qxd 5/3/04 2:29 PM Page 293

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294
People-Focused Knowledge Management
IT
Common &
Adv.
Intranet
Knowl.
Corp.
Knowl.
Distance
Global
CBR &
Subject
Applications/
Advanced
Group-
Internet
Inventory
Knowl.
Bases
Learn.
Knowl.
KBS
Matter
Knowledge
E-Mail
ware
WWW
Systems
Maps
Systems
Sharing
Expert
Ontologies
Management
Systems
Systems
Practices