People-focused knowledge management

Human
Reasoning
by Financial
Planner
Information that
describes situation
Information items such as:
·
 Client’s portfolio and income
·
 Today’s stock market performance
·
 The economic outlook
Objectives to 
guide reasoning
Context objectives such as:
·
 financial planner’s legal
obligations
·
 Client’s time frame and 
financial status
Lifestyle objectives such as:
·
 How we would like to retire
·
 How we plan to fund our
children’s education
·
 How we would like to live
until retirement
Recommendation
Alternative 2
Recommendation
Alternative 3
Recommendation
Alternative 1
Figure 3-8
A competent financial planner utilizes goal-directed human reasoning to 
establish the best strategy for her client. Her task requires objectives to specify 
the goal-state, information to describe the situation, and knowledge to reason 
and act. Copyright © 2002 Knowledge Research Institute, Inc. Reproduced 
with permission.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
The process shown in Figure 3-8 focuses on the financial planner’s
goal-directed reasoning to generate several recommended alternatives
for the client to consider. However, the process does not stop there.
The overall objective is to assist the client by also building sufficient
understanding to make her own decisions on which alternatives to
pursue. Hence, the second goal-directed reasoning, now by the client,
is added to the process as illustrated schematically in Figure 3-9.
The objective of this example is to highlight some of the objectives,
knowledge, and information-building blocks that are needed to
support a relatively simple, but knowledge-intensive, process. Expert
financial planners have a clear overview of the processes in which
they are engaged. Less experts planners are often uncertain — even
confused — about the elements and structure of the process.