Information And Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management - Assignment Example

Knowledge Management Student’s Name Institution Affiliation Introduction Knowledge Management (KM) is a field that cuts across many industries where it is applied to give the necessary in the development of the economy today. When comparing Knowledge management to other academic disciplines, it bases its credibility on validity and the performance-driven out of the new tactics proven by the results. The results come out of experiments in labs, and other success stories when dealing with academic disciplines. However, Knowledge management is judged by the way that it adopts and the effectiveness of the initiatives deployed in different fields of economics. The adoption and effectiveness are determined by the daily activities carried out by organizational, individuals and group levels. We can define knowledge management as the act of carrying out activities needed to be implemented and assist in the daily decision making out of the knowledge resources. For some in different industries, they view knowledge management as a discipline that can be used as a method of creation, leveraging, and sharing the organization’s best knowledge to all stakeholders. Therefore it is possible that arguments can raise that knowledge management is one of the vital resources that is used to collect knowledge of those who are players within the organization ranging from vendors to the employees. When an organization engages in a robust knowledge management within it will have more benefits that are read and some benefits that can wait a little while. Knowledge management within the organization include doing the business to be more competitive, building a competitive advantage that will be sustainable within the organization, strengthen commitment within the organization, increase innovation and make a timely market, it improves decision making within the organization and improvement of important cycles within the organization. In short, they make the organization better suited to compete successfully in a much more demanding environment. Organizations are increasingly valued for their intellectual capital. In general, KM usually is concerned with ensuring that important knowledge when it is required and ensuring that the knowledge is well organized to benefit the organization. The traditional emphasis in KM has been on knowledge that is recognized and already articulated in the same form. This includes knowledge of processes, procedures, intellectual property, documented best practices, forecasts, lessons learned, and solutions to recurring problems. Increasingly, KM has also focused on managing important knowledge that may reside solely in the mind of an organization’s experts (Girard, 2015). Real-world knowledge management scenarios The following are five different scenarios where the application of them will lead an organization to thrive regarding development and make it to the next level. The scenarios are relevant to the day to day learning of the organization. These are areas that are related to a sales force in which the sales wants to be one of the best. The methods are meant to ensure that the organization has improved its performance. The reason why the sales force was chosen since it requires a wide knowledge base to ensure success of the organization. 1. “Reinventing the wheel.” As a logistics manager, I want to make an improvement in the way records can easily be kept within the organization. I saw it wise to come with barcodes that will be used as a method of recording the goods in the store. This could also reduce the cases of theft within the organization. As a way of doing that, It was decided that the IT manager can be consulted to give its opinion on how to go about the idea. The IT manager gave his suggestions, however, saying the method through which we had suggested to come with the barcodes could be expensive to the organization. This was because there could be a need for additional devices that could be added to the desktops that existed in the different outlets. Due to this it manager has suggested a simple device that can be added which is cheaper compared to the suggestion we had, and it could play the same role as that of the barcodes required. However, with this, there was a suggestion of inquiry on how to do this simple act to enable the organization work efficiently. The team within the organization was given a task of enquiring from counterparts and know further how the process can be made perfect. In all the action that is going to be taken, it is worth to reinvent the whole process, but our main question should be will the result replicate what we deserve. The knowledge of those within the organization is enough to enable the managers to have the right decision regarding the decision to be taken. 2. “Knowledge is Power so retain it.” As a sales person in the market, customers come to me to inquire about the different products that we offer. However, due to the bulky work we sometimes experience we let our junior employees do the service on our behalf. Sometimes if we have not trained them, it is difficult to deliver knowledge to our customers. Due to this, we experience long queues which at the end make our customers be annoyed about our delivery of services. However, this can be improved by ensuring that those employees who have vast experience in the selling of our product to be retained within the organization. The experienced workers play an important in ensuring that the organization is progressing. In the progress of any organization, it is important that top employees who have heard a vast experience to be treated in the right manner that will encourage them to continue working in the organization. Incentives that will make them feel comfortable with working in the organization should be provided to them. If you let such employees leave the organization, it will lead to eroding the already build knowledge which may be the start of the downfall of the organization at large. Loosing of any experienced employee results to the reduction of knowledge within the organization and it is likened to giving away the knowledge to others. Sharing of workers will make the company lose its secrets to other competitors. As an organization, it should be their capital priority since retaining experienced employees since that will be a way of retaining knowledge. 3. “Everybody is replaceable.” As a manager in charge of any organization, we manage several employees who have different abilities. Sometimes we feel that it is difficult to have individuals who can replace top talented individuals with the organization. However, with all these worries it is impossible that an organization can lack options if one of its top talents leaves the organization at any particular time. Managers should understand that the organization has plenty people who can replace any employee in the organization regardless of the talent that he/she has. It is a matter of attaching other employees to work with him for them to study how he works. Cases where other employees are let to learn from those who do best their jobs, This will enable them to learn the rich knowledge of doing the jobs something that will lead to producing more experienced personnel within the organization. Managers will make a great mistake if they imagine that somebody is irreplaceable. If that case happens within any organization, then it is possible that the learning processes within the organization are not well organized to ensure that employees learn from one another. Employees should be allowed to acquire knowledge from one another freely. If this happens, then it will be easy for an organization to replace any employee at any given time. When employees feel that they are replaceable within an organization, it is possible that he will not perform well as he will feel that his job is already secured. The other employees also may be demoralized as he will be treated in a special way something that may not be healthy for the organization at large. Employee learning should be continuous and rotational within organization jobs should frequently be practiced something that will make them learn the scope of others and what they perform. This will make the organization eliminate the mentality that no one is irreplaceable. Knowledge makes an organization to replace every individual and be able to ensure that employees acquire diverse skills in different sections. 4. “This is the way we do things here.” A manager in an organization should have a knowledge of how things are done within the organization. To ensure productivity within the organization, it is best that employees know the scope of work that is carried within the organization since they will able to know what the products and services within the organization entail. The culture and the essential beliefs within the organization should be known to all those who are within the organization. When it comes to making people know what they should be doing within the organization it requires a lot of organization from both the top management and those at the lower levels. Managers should educate the employees on how to conduct themselves in-depth about the organization and various things about the organization. Knowledge management will be easy when those within any organization know how they should carry out things something that will make them eliminate the probability of wasting time on things they do not know. Any organization that has a robust organization of the way employees perform different functions will increase its profitability. There is a strong relationship that exists between educating stakeholders within an organization and knowledge management. 5. “Making mistakes is fine, this is how you learn.” To ensure that knowledge has been utilized then it is good that people within the organization are allowed to try new things to develop themselves. Acquiring of new knowledge requires trial and error to realize results that will enable the organization to develop well. When employees are allowed to try new ideas, it makes them learn a lot and be able to have a bank of knowledge that they could not have acquired if they were restricted in performing functions that are sure on how they are done. Innovation in an organization will be a habit when employees do not fear of being punished for the mistakes they have made. Always it is important that managers allow their employees to make mistakes in the event they are somethings that are important to the organization. Making mistakes will enable the people to learn a lot. As a form of knowledge management, it is important always that after a mistake reasons and corrections are done so that next round things can be done in a better way than before. Alternative solutions Knowledge management in an organization can take different courses. There are many options that can be the sort to ensure that knowledge within an organization result to better ways of doing things. In the case the status quo need to be broken down, it is good that those who are actively engaged to allow all individuals to participate so that they cannot resist the change being introduced. Participation is one way of managing knowledge because those who participate will exchange hence learning from one another. Where the employees are allowed to perform functions as a group, they will learn from one another making them accumulate knowledge (Langton, 2006). Another way of knowledge management is doing training within the organization where those who are in the organization are either trained on the job or taken out to seminars to get new knowledge. When the training is over, the whole organization can be allowed to apply the knowledge that they learned from search seminars fro the betterment of the organization. Training is one of the community learning that will enable the organization to develop (Wright, 2005). Networking is also another method that will enable the organization develops as employees will interact while learning from one another. Networking enables new knowledge to be acquired from those who are outsiders. When networking of purpose is allowed within the organization, employees will learn a lot and may do thing better. Networking for example in the sales department will lead to more revenue for new clients will be brought on board, and new leads will be created. Knowledge management is all about having better performance, and this is one of those areas that will lead to the improvement.’ Another thing that can be done is knowledge mapping. This where the knowledge know how within the organization is known to all. Thi will enable employees to access the areas that will educate in a faster and efficient manner. When this is done, it will encourage employees to get down and learn much as they would have not. When those who did not know much access the knowledge, then it is likely they will improve regarding the way they will be performing their functions in the future. Also, other methods that will enable management of knowledge to be installed within the organization be installed. This will ensure that the organization has a robust way of carrying out things which in the long run will improve the performance of the organization at large (Spender, 2007). Evaluation of the solutions Training will be one of the best ways to ensure that the sales force know much how they will be carrying out their activities. They will be able to learn new methods that will enable them to go beyond the obvious old activities. From training, salespeople will be more accurate in the way they will be performing their duties. Networking will on the other make the organization be at a better position of getting new ideas, motivation from other companies and ensuring that the company is updated in the way it does it things. Where networking has been done well, employees will have abundant knowledge about the industry making the company improve on its weaknesses. Knowledge mapping, on the other hand, will make the whole organization access the required resources to enable it to perform better. Employees will easily access the materials that will train themselves well. All these strategies regarding knowledge management will enable the organization move to the next level. Knowledge management using this strategy will be good in the training the sales force do that at the end the organization will have a stable bank from which improvement will be seen. Recommendation The practice of knowledge management will is key for any organization as it comes with new ways of conducting activities. Those who are involved in it should carry out close look on how activities within the organization are being carried inn ensuring the success of the organization. The already mentioned real life situations that have been carried out to ensure that knowledge management has been instilled within the organization should be done better than the way they are being done right now. The mentioned areas where managers have a big responsibility should carefully be looked into so that they can bring in into the organization the required results. The practise of knowledge-based management should be much involved in carrying out of various activities within the organization that other method that is said to be used in improvement and measurement of results. References Langton Robbins, N. S. (2006). Organizational Behaviour (Fourth Canadian Edition). Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Prentice Hall. Girard, John P.; Girard, JoAnn L. (2015). "Defining knowledge management: Toward an applied compendium." Online Journal of Applied Knowledge Management. 3 (1): 1–20. Maier, R. (2007). Knowledge Management Systems: Information And Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management (3rd edition). Berlin: Springer. Spender, J.-C.; Scherer, A. G. (2007). "The Philosophical Foundations of Knowledge Management: Editors' Introduction." Organization. 14 (1): 5–28. Wright, Kirby (2005). "Personal knowledge management: supporting individual knowledge worker performance." Knowledge Management Research and Practice. 3 (3): 156–165. Read More