People-focused knowledge management

Routines, Operational Models, Scripts, Schemata, 
General Principles, and Metaknowledge
In our minds, and when we work with explicit knowledge, we rep-
resent situational and procedural concepts with varying degrees of
abstraction. An example of how we go about hiring a new employee
illustrates how we can characterize knowledge in each of these cate-
gories. For hiring, routines may apply only to hiring many people to
fill similar positions (See Figure 3-10). Hiring one or a few people
may not become routine, and the hiring process may instead be gov-
erned by scripts, and in more unusual situations, by schemata or even
metaknowledge. For hiring, proceeding from specific routines to
general principles and metaknowledge, the characterizations will be
something as follows.
Routines
Routines are generally automatized, nonconscious, concrete, and
deterministic. Routines may allow room for variance to accommo-
date branching when different, but understood and expected, condi-
tions materialize. In the case of hiring a competent professional,
routines consist of rigid steps that might cover many of the tasks of
the hiring process. Some tasks may still require explicit reasoning.
As we become very familiar with a work process such as hiring 
a particular type of professional, much of the process becomes 
automatic, resulting in a routine. However, we may never routinize
all steps in a procedure for how to handle a situation. Instead, we
may routinize the way we handle selected episodes that often are
repeated.
The actual routine may start earlier in the process than illustrated.
It also may extend beyond the steps shown in the example and will
generally consist of hundreds of subevents. A simplified routine for
hiring tasks may be described by the sequence of the main events
within the procedure:
Identify job requirement with function manager and write job
standard description.
Research salary range from peer groups within organization and
specify salary level and job class.
Memory and Knowledge Categorizations
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
Obtain approval for hiring from personnel department, function
manager, and general manager using standard procedures.
Contact the designated employment agency and authorize them
to start search.
Receive resumes that have been pre-screened by agency.
Screen resumes, first in personnel department, then with func-
tion manager.
Invite selected candidates for interviews.
Interview candidates, by personnel department, function
manager, and associates.
Evaluate candidates and rank them, and decide what initial
offers should be.
Check references for the two best candidates.
Send formal offer letter to best candidates, and hold off 
communications to the remainders until one candidate accepts
position.
Receive response from candidate.
Negotiate salary and relocation terms, start date, and so on,
with candidate, obtain approval of renegotiated terms, write and
send revised offer letter.
Candidate accepts — first verbally and then in writing.