In knowledge management, a proven practices process involves selecting, documenting, and replicating procedures that have demonstrably improved business results. As a result, others in similar environments or with similar needs can benefit from proven successes.

Proven practices are methods that have been demonstrated to be effective and lend themselves to replication to other groups, organizations, and contexts. Typically referred to as “best practices,” they are sometimes called “good practices.” The problem with the term “best practice” is that it connotes that an ideal has been achieved, where “proven practice” more reasonably asserts that an approach has been tried successfully. …

This is the 70th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. Georg von Krogh is a Professor in the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics at ETH (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule) Zurich and holds the Chair of Strategic Management and Innovation. He was also the Head of ETH Zurich’s Department of Management, Technology, and Economics from 2008 to 2011. Georg specializes in competitive strategy, technological innovation, and knowledge management. He teaches courses on Entrepreneurial Leadership, Strategic Management and Innovation Theory, and Research.

I first learned of Georg’s work from a 2004 post by Denham Grey…

In the practice of KM, a lessons learned process involves explaining what an individual or team has learned as a result of their experience.

This is done using databases, documents, presentations, discussions, and recordings. Lessons learned include what was tried, what worked, what didn’t work, what to do, what to avoid, problems faced, how problems were solved, what to differently the next time, and key insights and knowledge nuggets.

It’s easier to get people to talk about successes than about failures, but there is often more to be learned from the latter. …

In a KM context, reuse is putting to practical use the captured knowledge, community suggestions, and collaborative assistance provided through knowledge sharing.

Reuse is the other side of capture. It represents the demand for the knowledge supply resulting from a knowledge capture process. For reuse to succeed, there must be a good supply of reusable content, it must be easy to find, and it must be in a format suitable for reuse. Demand-driven knowledge management takes advantage of networks, supply, analysis, and codification. It is stimulated by dissemination and enabled by making it easy to find resources.

Reuse is applying…

Knowledge capture includes collecting documents, presentations, spreadsheets, records, processes, software source code, images, audio, video, and other files that can be used for innovation, reuse, and learning.

Gartner defines knowledge capture as “one of the five activities of the knowledge management process framework. Knowledge capture makes tacit knowledge explicit, i.e., it turns knowledge that is resident in the mind of the individual into an explicit representation available to the enterprise.”

Dave Snowden asserts, “If you ask (people) to give you your knowledge on the basis that you may need it in the future, then you will never receive it.” This…

This is the 69th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. Jane McConnell is an independent advisor to global organizations on digital and workplace strategies based in Uzès, Occitanie, France. We were both presenters at KMWorld 2006, 2011, and 2013. Jane attended the first annual SIKM Leaders Community KMWorld Dinner in 2009 in San Jose.

Background

The knowledge creation process includes inventing and innovating new concepts, approaches, methods, techniques, products, services, and ideas that can be used for the benefit of people and organizations.

Creating new products and services, coming up with new ideas to try out, and developing innovative methods and processes can help transform an organization, industry, or a nation. Generating new sources of customer demand, stimulating personal and organizational growth, and rethinking the existing rules of the road can help an organization develop, thrive, and endure. Failure to do so may lead to stagnation, decay, or death.

Knowledge management can help trigger the…

Methodologies are policies, rules, techniques, and procedures that prescribe how work is to be performed and provide proven ways to do it successfully.

Once a process has been used successfully to accomplish a desired result, it can be codified to allow it to be repeated. In some cases, reusing the process is so beneficial that it is becomes a prescribed policy which must be followed. Policies define what tasks must be followed in specific situations, and procedures provide the details on how these tasks are to be performed. …