People-focused knowledge management

Frequency of
Occurrences
Required
Knowledge
Can Be
Explicated
(Some Can Be
Automated)
Some Abstract
Knowledge
Is Needed
Workers Need
Additional
Knowledge
Considerable
New Knowledge
Is Required
Candidates
for
Intelligent
Automation
1. Routine
(simple,
repetitive, and
well understood)
2. Logical or less
common
variations
(transformations)
of
routine situations
3. Complex, yet
expected
extensions of
routines integrated
with
external factors
4. Unexpected
challenges
(conditions),
but with a mix
of routines and
external factors
5. Totally
unexpected
situations and
non-routine
challenges,
yet within the
larger job scope
6. Unusual
challenges
outside
job scope
Complexity
of Work
Potentials for
Delivering Work
Requiring
Greater Knowledge
Past
Work
Future
Work
Figure 1-2
Future work is becoming increasingly complex as routine and almost-routine
work is automated. Copyright © 1999 Knowledge Research Institute, Inc.
Reproduced with permission.
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operators have been provided with new conceptual and method-
ological knowledge, much in the form of mental models. They have
assumed selected tasks from process engineers and maintenance pro-
fessionals who now can pursue complex work that previously was
not well covered. As a result, refined products are now closer to 
specifications, production rates are higher, energy consumption per
barrel of product is lower, and maintenance problems are reduced.
Performance productivity is improved on the individual, department,
and organizational levels.
Complex Work Creates Greater Value
The complex work required to create and produce sophisticated
goods and services with better quality and increased customization
has greater value than less complex work required to provide simpler
deliverables. Within the enterprise itself, non-routine and novel chal-
lenges also have greater value than routine tasks in that, by their very
nature, they address more important opportunities or challenges than
do routine matters. The more costly, difficult, and risky work will
not be undertaken unless it also has the potential for creating 
greater value.
The Six Major Challenges
The evidence is clear that to survive and succeed, enterprises must
change their approaches to conduct successful business in the glob-
alized economy. Whereas gradual change has always been required
to adapt to new conditions, the pace is now accelerating and incre-
mental change is no longer sufficient. There are many reasons behind
the needs to change (see Figure 1-1). Additional challenges and
greater detail are indicated in Figure 1-3, which illustrates the six
major challenges: (1) work is becoming more complex; (2) competi-
tion is more demanding; (3) new management approaches are intro-
duced; (4) changes occur quicker and quicker; (5) workers demand
greater involvement; and (6) education and training follow new 
directions.
1. Work is becoming more complex resulting from
— Continued efforts and advances to streamline business and
automate routine tasks.
— Increased demands to create and deliver better and more
competitive products and services.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
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— Greater sophistication of management and operating prac-
tices that require new approaches.
Increased work complexity necessitates that people must be
better prepared and support systems that must be better suited
to handle new tasks with proper competence. In particular:
— People need to possess — or have access to — work-domain
knowledge and metaknowledge with higher competitive
quality, thereby allowing them to deliver complex work
with the necessary degree of proficiency.
— Support systems must be better integrated with business
(and other systems) and must be smarter by increased 
application of artificial intelligence (AI) and other advanced
methods. These changes will improve the quality of current
information services. More importantly, they will lead to
increased offloading of intellectual work for people by
automating simple reasoning tasks.
It is realized that most work is increasingly knowledge inten-
sive — requiring expertise to deliver competitive products and
Competing in the Global Economy Requires Effective Enterprises
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