100 Knowledge Management Specialties, 50 KM Components, and 50 Alternative Names for KM

Originally published April 6, 2016

• Knowledge & Knowledge Management Defined
• KM Topics

100 Knowledge Management Specialties (For examples of each, see KM 102)

1. Sharing, culture, organizational design, and change management
2. Innovation, invention, creativity, and idea generation
3. Reuse, proven practices, lessons learned, and knowledge retention
4. Collaboration and communities
5. Learning, competency development, and training
6. Goals, measurements, incentives, gamification, recognition, and rewards
7. Social networks, organizational networks, value networks, and network analysis
8. Expertise location and personal profiles
9. Communications
10. Facilitation and knowledge transfer
11. User support and Knowledge-Centered Service
12. Content management, document management, and records management
13. Analytics, text analytics, visualization, metrics, and reporting
14. Project management, process management, Agile development, workflow, planning, decision making, and checklist
15. Knowledge audit, knowledge mapping, knowledge modeling, peer assist/retrospect, After Action Review, sensemaking, and ritual dissent
16. Appreciative inquiry, positive deviance, and Most Significant Change
17. Storytelling, narrative, anecdote circles, BarCamp/unconference, and World Café
18. Information architecture, usability, user interface, and user experience
19. Search, findability, taxonomy, ontology, metadata, tagging, and semantic web
20. Portals, intranets, and websites
21. Big data, databases, repositories, business intelligence, data warehouses, and data lakes
22. Competitive intelligence, customer intelligence, market intelligence, and research
23. Digital workplace, social business, and social media tools
24. Cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, machine learning, and neural networks
25. Wisdom of crowds, crowdsourcing, collective intelligence, and prediction markets

Definitions of 100 KM Specialties (For examples of each, see KM 102)

1. Sharing: allowing someone else to use something that you have — what you have learned, created, or proved — so that others can learn from your experience and reuse what you have already done
2. Culture: the way things are done in an organization, and what things are considered to be important and taboo
3. Organizational design: the alignment of structure, process, rewards, metrics and talent with the strategy of the business
4. Change management: developing a planned approach to change in an organization to address anticipated obstacles and to ensure successful adoption
5. Innovation: the process by which an idea is translated into a good or service for which people will pay
6. Invention: a unique or novel device, method, composition or process
7. Creativity: imaginative behavior characterized by originality and expressiveness
8. Idea generation: the creative process of generating, developing, and communicating new ideas, where an idea is understood as a basic element of thought that can be either visual, concrete, or abstract
9. Reuse: using an item again after it has been used once — in particular, what others have already learned, created, and proved — in order to save time and money, minimize risk, and be more effective and efficient
10. Proven practices: selecting, documenting, and replicating processes which have proven to improve business results so that others in similar environments or with similar needs can benefit from the proven successes
11. Lessons learned: explaining what an individual or team has learned as a result of their experience, using documents, presentations, discussions, and recordings — including what they tried, what worked, what didn’t work, what to do, what to avoid, problems faced, how problems were solved, what they would do differently, and key insights and nuggets
12. Knowledge retention: methods of capturing or maintaining access to the knowledge of workers leaving an organization due to new jobs, retirement, promotion, relocation, and role changes; temporary work, contracting, consulting, and outsourcing; mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, and reorganizations; changes in strategy, focus, or specialty; workforce reductions; short-term job mentality; disillusionment; death, illness, and care giving
13. Collaboration: interacting with peers and colleagues to exchange ideas, share experiences, work together on projects, and solve problems
14. Communities: groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and deepen their understanding and knowledge of this area by interacting on an ongoing basis
15. Learning: the act of gaining knowledge from others, from existing information, and by doing
16. Competency development: define the competencies employees need to develop to improve performance in their current job or to prepare for other jobs via promotion or transfer; plan and implement
17. Training: classroom courses, self-paced courses, and recorded webinars which allow users to learn what is expected of them; the people, processes, and tools which are available to them; and how to use all of these in order to learn, share, reuse, collaborate, and innovate
18. Goals: employee targets included in performance plans and communicated and inspected regularly
19. Measurements: numerical and visual tracking of performance against goals and operational indicators
20. Incentives: programs designed to encourage compliance with goals, improve performance against metrics, and increase participation in KM initiatives — includes points, badges, and competitive rankings
21. Gamification: application of typical elements of game playing (e.g., point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to other areas of activity to encourage engagement with a process or tool
22. Recognition: praise, publicity and promotion
23. Rewards: financial and tangible awards
24. Social Networks: collections of people who are acquainted or connected as friends, business contacts, or colleagues and communicate, collaborate, or help one another as needed
25. Organizational networks: informal networks of personal relationships, rather than the formal organization structures –the network behind the org chart
26. Value networks: the natural way that work gets done — any set of roles and interactions that generates a specific kind of business, economic, or social good; value network modeling provides a human-centric, role-based, network view of any business activity
27. Network analysis: mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, animals, computers or other information/knowledge processing entities; the nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes — provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships
28. Expertise location: finding experts on particular subjects by searching explicitly for, or otherwise being made aware of, all people in an organization having desired skills, experience, or knowledge
29. Personal profiles: online tools which allow individuals to enter details about who they are, where they are, what they know and can do, and their affiliations — and which aggregate their contributions, social media posts, and other activities in order to provide others with a comprehensive, searchable view
30. Communications: vehicles for informing current and potential users about news, progress, functionality, success stories, documentation, and instruction using multiple channels (online, email, audio, video, etc.)
31. Facilitation: the process of designing and running a successful meeting, serving the needs of any group (decision making, problem solving, knowledge sharing, knowledge elicitation, innovation, etc.)
32. Knowledge transfer: methodical replication of the expertise, wisdom, and tacit knowledge of critical professionals into the heads and hands of their coworkers; planned movement of the right skills and information at the right time to keep a workforce prepared, productive, innovative, and competitive
33. User support: people who provide support by phone, email, chat, or social media to users, including consulting on tools, finding content, connecting to knowledge sources, and supporting processes
34. Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS): a methodology and a set of practices and processes that focuses on knowledge as a key asset of the customer/technical support organization
35. Content management: creating, managing, distributing, publishing, and retrieving structured information — the complete lifecycle of content as it moves through an organization
36. Document management: tracking and storing electronic documents and/or images of paper documents, keeping track of the different versions modified by different users (history tracking) and archiving as needed
37. Records management: maintaining the records of an organization from the time they are created up to their eventual disposal; this may include classifying, storing, securing, archiving, and destroying records
38. Analytics: discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data
39. Text analytics: analyzing unstructured text, extracting relevant information, and transforming it into useful business intelligence
40. Visualization: techniques for creating images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message
41. Metrics: indicators on performance and activity
42. Reporting: collecting, publishing, and distributing metrics and producing reports to communicate performance against goals, areas for improvement, and progress toward the desired state
43. Project management: the discipline of planning, organizing, securing, managing, leading, and controlling resources to achieve specific goals
44. Process management: the application of knowledge, skills, tools, techniques and systems to define, visualize, measure, control, report and improve processes
45. Agile development: a set of principles in which requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams; promotes adaptive planning, evolutionary development, early delivery, and continuous improvement, and encourages rapid and flexible response to change
46. Workflow: embedding knowledge creation, capture, and reuse in business processes so that these steps happen routinely as part of normal work; software which connects and sequences different applications, components, and people, all of which must be involved in the processing of data to complete an instance of a process
47. Planning: the process of thinking about and organizing the activities required to achieve a desired goal, including the creation and maintenance of a plan
48. Decision making: mental processes resulting in the selection of a course of action among several alternative scenarios; produces a final choice which is an action or an opinion
49. Checklist: job aid used to reduce failure by compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention; helps to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task
50. Knowledge audit: formal determination and evaluation of how and where knowledge is used in business processes; identifies implicit user needs and explicit information stores to evaluate all information resources and workflows, and determine enterprise user access requirements; rigorous process using questionnaires, interviews and resource descriptions
51. Knowledge mapping: presenting what knowledge resides where (e.g., people, media, organizational units, or sources of knowledge outside the organization) and demonstrating the patterns of knowledge flow
52. Knowledge modeling: process of creating a computer-interpretable model of knowledge or standard specifications about a kind of process, facility, or product; cross-disciplinary approach to capture and model knowledge into a reusable format for purpose of preserving, improving, sharing, substituting, aggregating and reapplying it
53. Peer assist/retrospect: peer assist — bringing together a group of peers to elicit feedback on a problem, project, or activity, and to draw lessons from the participants’ knowledge and experience; retrospect — structured and facilitated knowledge capture meeting at the end of a project, involving as many of the project team as possible; quick and effective way of capturing knowledge before team disbands; if a member from the next team to undertake a similar business challenge participates in the discussion, a retrospect for one team can serve as a peer assist for the next
54. After Action Review (AAR): structured review or debrief process for analyzing what happened, why it happened, and how it can be done better by the participants and those responsible for the project or event
55. Sensemaking: process of creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions; a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate their trajectories and act effectively
56. Ritual dissent: workshop method designed to test and enhance proposals, stories, or ideas by subjecting them to dissent (challenge) or assent (positive alternatives); forced listening technique, not a dialogue or discourse
57. Appreciative Inquiry: asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential; mobilization of inquiry through the crafting of the unconditional positive question
58. Positive Deviance: approach to change based on the observation that in any community, there are people whose uncommon but successful behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers, despite facing similar challenges and having no extra resources or knowledge
59. Most Significant Change: monitoring and evaluation technique used for evaluating complex interventions, based on a qualitative, participatory approach, with stakeholders involved in all aspects of the evaluation; involves the generation of significant change stories by various stakeholders involved in the intervention — the more significant of these stories are then selected by the stakeholders and in depth discussions of these stories take place
60. Storytelling: recounting an event that happened to you, to someone you know, or from another source, engaging the listener by pulling them into the story to participate in the conversation, rather than telling them what to think; an effective story is surprising, emotional but most importantly it must be credible
61. Narrative: the structure of events — the architecture of the story, comparable to the design of a building; story is the sequence of events, the order in which the narrative occurs — the tour through the building
62. Anecdote circles: narrative technique like focus groups except they’re facilitated to elicit stories rather than judgment and opinion; the collected stories reveal what is really happening in the organization and what people value; powerful tool to gain insight and new perspectives using anecdotes — naturally-occurring stories, as found in the wild of conversational discourse, usually about a single incident or situation
63. BarCamp/Unconference: loosely-structured conference emphasizing the informal exchange of information and ideas between participants, rather than following a conventionally structured program of events
64. World Café: structured conversational process intended to facilitate open and intimate discussion, and link ideas within a larger group to access the collective intelligence or collective wisdom in the room; participants move between a series of tables where they continue the discussion in response to a set of questions, which are predetermined and focused on specific goals
65. Information architecture: the structural design of shared information environments; a discipline and a set of methods that aim to identify and organize information in a purposeful and service-oriented way; the resulting document or documents that define the facets of a given information domain
66. Usability: making products and systems easier to use, and matching them more closely to user needs and requirements
67. User interface: the point of entry to a knowledge base that provides navigation, search, communication, help, news, site index, site map, and links to all tools
68. User experience: a person’s perceptions and responses that result from the use or anticipated use of a product, system or service
69. Search: tools which help find documents, files, list items, content, and answers to questions –they allow specifying the scope or domain, whether to search text or metadata, and how results are presented
70. Findability: the ease with which information contained on a website can be found, both from outside the website (using search engines) and by users already on the website
71. Taxonomy: a particular classification arranged in a hierarchical structure that can be used to organize information so that it can be readily found through navigation, search, and links between related content
72. Ontology: formal specification of a conceptualization; renders shared vocabulary and taxonomy which models a domain with the definition of objects and/or concepts and their properties and relations; the representation of entities, ideas, and events, along with their properties and relations, according to a system of categories
73. Metadata: Structural — design and specification of data structures: data about the containers of data; Descriptive — about individual instances of application data (the content): data about data content
74. Tagging: adding non-hierarchical keywords or terms to documents, websites, files, lists, or social media content — allows related items to be listed, searched for, navigated to, and aggregated
75. Semantic web: a mesh of information linked up to be easily processed by machines, on a global scale; a web of data — of dates, titles, part numbers, chemical properties and any other data one might conceive of; RDF provides the foundation for publishing and linking data; an RDF triple is subject, predicate, object
76. Portals: websites which provide personalized capabilities to users through the use of customization, building blocks, and integration of multiple sources
77. Intranets: a private computer network which uses Internet Protocol technology to share information, operational systems, or computing services within an organization
78. Websites: sets of related web pages containing content such as text, images, video, audio, etc.
79. Big data: extremely large data sets that may be analyzed computationally to reveal patterns, trends, and associations, especially relating to human behavior and interactions
80. Databases: collections of information organized for easy access, management, and updating
81. Repositories: structured lists and databases which allow documents and other files to be stored, searched for, and retrieved
82. Business intelligence: the ability for an organization to take all its capabilities and convert them into knowledge
83. Data warehouses: copies of transaction data specifically structured for querying and reporting
84. Data lakes: storage repository that holds a vast amount of raw data in its native format, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data; the data structure and requirements are not defined until the data is needed
85. Competitive intelligence: defining, gathering, analyzing, and distributing intelligence about products, customers, competitors and any aspect of the environment needed to support making strategic decisions
86. Customer intelligence: gathering and analyzing information regarding customers, their details and their activities, in order to build deeper and more effective customer relationships and improve strategic decision making
87. Market intelligence: information relevant to a company’s markets, gathered and analyzed specifically for the purpose of accurate and confident decision-making in determining market opportunity, market penetration strategy, and market development metrics
88. Research: collecting and analyzing information to increase the understanding of a topic or issue
89. Digital workplace: using an intranet as a platform for information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration; allows users to interact and collaborate with each other in a social media dialogue as creators (prosumers) of user-generated content in a virtual community, in contrast to intranet sites where users (consumers) are limited to the passive viewing of content created for them
90. Social business: Enterprise Social Networks, and using blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, podcasts, mashups, tags, tag clouds, pins, ratings, and folksonomies within an enterprise
91. Social media tools: web- and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities, and individuals
92. Cognitive computing: simulation of human thought processes in a computerized model, involving self-learning systems that use data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing to mimic the way the human brain works; makes a new class of problems computable, addressing complex situations that are characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty
93. Artificial intelligence: the capacity of a computer to perform operations analogous to learning and decision making in humans, as by an expert system
94. Natural language processing: a branch of artificial intelligence that deals with analyzing, understanding and generating the languages that humans use naturally in order to interface with computers in both written and spoken contexts using natural human languages instead of computer languages
95. Machine learning: giving computers the ability to learn without being explicitly programmed; a method of data analysis that automates analytical model building; using algorithms that iteratively learn from data to find hidden insights without being explicitly programmed where to look
96. Neural networks: computing systems made up of a number of simple, highly interconnected processing elements, which process information by their dynamic state response to external inputs; artificial neural networks (ANNs) are algorithms or actual hardware that are loosely modeled after the neuronal structure of the mammalian cerebral cortex but on much smaller scales
97. Wisdom of crowds: the process of taking into account the collective opinion of a group of individuals rather than a single expert to answer a question; a large group’s aggregated answers to questions involving quantity estimation, general world knowledge, and spatial reasoning has generally been found to be as good as, and often better than, the answer given by any of the individuals within the group
98. Crowdsourcing: the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people and especially from the online community rather than from traditional employees or suppliers
99. Collective intelligence: a form of universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills
100. Prediction markets: speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions; the current market prices can then be interpreted as predictions of the probability of the event or the expected value of the parameter

50 Knowledge Management Components

People Components

1. culture and values
2. knowledge managers
3. user surveys
4. social networks
5. communities
6. training
7. documentation
8. communications
9. user assistance and knowledge help desk
10. goals and measurements
11. incentives and rewards

Process Components

1. methodologies
2. creation
3. capture
4. reuse
5. lessons learned
6. proven practices
7. collaboration
8. content management
9. classification
10. metrics and reporting
11. management of change
12. workflow
13. valuation
14. social network analysis
15. appreciative inquiry and positive deviance
16. storytelling

Technology Components

1. user interface
2. intranet
3. team spaces
4. virtual meeting rooms, web/video/audio conferencing, and telepresence
5. portals
6. repositories
7. threaded discussions and Enterprise Social Networks (ESNs)
8. expertise locators and ask the expert
9. metadata and tags
10. search engines
11. archiving
12. blogs
13. wikis
14. podcasts and videos
15. syndication, aggregation, and subscription management systems
16. social software and social media
17. external access
18. workflow applications
19. process automation
20. gamification applications
21. e-learning
22. analytics and business intelligence
23. cognitive computing and artificial intelligence

Definitions of 50 KM Components (For examples of each, see KM 102)

1. Culture and values: the way things are done in an organization, and what things are considered to be important and taboo
2. Knowledge managers: people who spend all or a significant portion of their time leading KM initiatives, sharing knowledge, and supporting others in sharing their knowledge
3. User surveys and employee satisfaction surveys: periodic surveys to determine user preferences, needs, and challenges and to determine how employees view a KM program and its components
4. Social networks: collections of people who are acquainted or connected as friends, business contacts, or colleagues and communicate, collaborate, or help one another as needed
5. Communities: groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and deepen their understanding and knowledge of this area by interacting on an ongoing basis
6. Training: classroom courses, self-paced courses, and recorded webinars which allow users to learn what is expected of them; the people, processes, and tools which are available to them; and how to use all of these in order to share, innovate, reuse, collaborate, and learn
7. Documentation: user guides, manuals, and help files which allow users to read about what is expected of them; the people, processes, and tools which are available to them; and how to use all of these in order to share, innovate, reuse, collaborate, and learn
8. Communications: vehicles for informing current and potential users about progress in the KM initiative through web sites, team spaces, portals, wikis, threaded discussions, conference calls, blogs, newsletters, distribution lists, and links
9. User assistance and knowledge help desk: people who provide support by phone or email to users, including tool consulting, finding reusable content, connecting to knowledge sources, process support, training, communication, and other assistance
10. Goals and measurements: employee goals included in performance plans, and measurements to track performance against those goals and other operational indicators
11. Incentives and rewards: programs designed to encourage compliance with goals, improve performance against metrics, and increase participation in KM initiatives — includes tangible rewards, recognition, and competitive rankings
12. Methodologies: policies, rules, techniques, and procedures that prescribe how work is to be performed and provide proven ways to do it successfully
13. Creation: inventing new concepts, approaches, methods, techniques, products, services, and ideas which can be used for the benefit of people and organizations
14. Capture: collecting documents, presentations, spreadsheets, records, processes, software source, images, audio, video, and other files which can be used for innovation, reuse, and learning
15. Reuse: putting to practical use the captured knowledge, community suggestions, and collaborative assistance provided through knowledge sharing
16. Lessons learned: explaining what an individual or team has learned as a result of their experience, using documents, presentations, discussions, and recordings — including what they tried, what worked, what didn’t work, what to do, what to avoid, problems faced, how problems were solved, what they would do differently, and key insights and nuggets
17. Proven practices: selecting, documenting, and replicating processes which have proven to improve business results so that others in similar environments or with similar needs can benefit from the proven successes
18. Collaboration: interacting with peers and colleagues to exchange ideas, share experiences, work together on projects, and solve problems
19. Content management: creating, managing, distributing, publishing, and retrieving structured information — the complete lifecycle of content as it moves through an organization
20. Classification: creating and maintaining a taxonomy that can be used to organize information so that it can be readily found through navigation, search, and links between related content
21. Metrics and reporting: capturing operational indicators and producing reports to communicate performance against goals, areas for improvement, and progress toward the desired state
22. Management of change: developing a planned approach to change in an organization to address anticipated obstacles and to ensure successful adoption
23. Workflow: embedding knowledge creation, capture, and reuse in business processes so that these steps happen routinely as part of normal work
24. Valuation: quantifying the value of knowledge assets, reuse, and innovation so they can be fully appreciated by the organization, including customer pricing, cost benefit analysis, and project justification
25. Social Network Analysis: mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people, groups, organizations, animals, computers or other information/knowledge processing entities; the nodes in the network are the people and groups while the links show relationships or flows between the nodes — provides both a visual and a mathematical analysis of human relationships
26. a. Appreciative Inquiry: asking questions that strengthen a system’s capacity to apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive potential — mobilization of inquiry through the crafting of the “unconditional positive question” b. Positive Deviance: an approach to change based on the observation that in any community, there are people whose uncommon but successful behaviors or strategies enable them to find better solutions to a problem than their peers, despite facing similar challenges and having no extra resources or knowledge
27. Storytelling: using narrative to ignite action, implement new ideas, communicate who you are, build your brand, instill organizational values, foster collaboration to get things done, share knowledge, neutralize gossip and rumor, and lead people into the future
28. User interface: the point of entry to a knowledge base that provides navigation, search, communication, help, news, site index, site map, and links to all tools
29. Intranet: a private computer network that uses Internet protocols, network connectivity, and possibly the public telecommunication system to securely share part of an organization’s information or operations with its employees
30. Team spaces: collaborative workspaces designed to allow teams to share documents, libraries, schedules, and files; conduct meetings, calls, surveys, and polls; and store meeting minutes, discussions, reports, and plans
31. a. Virtual meeting rooms and web conferencing: online, real-time tools designed to allow teams to share presentations, applications, and white boards during meetings b. Videoconferencing: Technology that allows two or more locations to communicate by simultaneous two-way video and audio transmissions c. Telepresence: Technology that allows a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance of being present, at a place other than their true location
32. Portals: web sites that provide personalized capabilities to users through the use of customization, building blocks, and integration of multiple sources
33. Repositories: structured lists and databases which allow documents and other files to be stored, searched for, and retrieved
34. Threaded discussions and Enterprise Social Networks: forums for carrying on discussions among subscribers on a specific subject, including online and email posts and replies, searchable archives, and discussions grouped by threads to show the complete history on each topic
35. Expertise locators and ask the expert: systems for finding experts on particular subjects, allowing individuals to enter details about what they know and can do, and others to search for all people having desired skills, experience, or knowledge; and systems for asking questions of experts and getting the answers
36. Metadata and tags: information about information — data fields added to documents, web sites, files, or lists which allow related items to be listed, searched for, navigated to, syndicated, and collected
37. Search engines: tools which allow searching for documents, files, list items, content, and answers to questions — allow specifying the scope or domain of the search, whether to search on text or metadata, and how results should be presented
38. Archiving: offline file storage for legal, audit, or historical purposes, using tapes, CDs, or other long-term media
39. Blogs: web sites where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order; often provide commentary or news on a particular subject; some function as personal online diaries or logbooks; combine text, images, and links to other blogs and web sites; typically provide archives in calendar form, local search, syndication feeds, reader comment posting, trackback links from other blogs, blogroll links to other recommended blogs, and categories of entries tagged for retrieval by topic
40. Wikis: web sites which allow users to easily add, remove, edit, and change most available content — effective for collaborative writing and self-service web site creation and maintenance
41. Podcasts and videos: recordings which can be listened to or viewed online, or downloaded manually or automatically through syndication and then listened to or viewed on mobile devices whenever is convenient
42. a. Syndication and aggregation: using feeds available from a web site or other content source to provide an updated list of its content in the form of a subscription, an embedded portion of a web site, or a collection of disparate content on a particular topic b. Subscription management systems: tools that allow content providers to reach subscribers on an opt-in basis, and subscribers to sign up to receive periodicals and other communications based on their interests
43. Social software and social media: a range of tools that facilitate social networking, typically personal web pages including bios, interests, links, photos, videos, personal networks, posts, and comments; web and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue, photo sharing, and video sharing
44. External access: capability for users outside of a company’s firewall to have access to selected web sites and team spaces to allow collaboration with retirees, partners, and customers who would otherwise be blocked from the company’s internal network — requires technical, security, and legal elements
45. Workflow applications: software which connects and sequences different applications, components, and people, all of which must be involved in the processing of data to complete an instance of a process
46. Process automation: tools that automate previously manual processes, such as producing proposals, creating presentations, developing products, managing surveys, or managing reporting
47. Gamification applications: tools that use game mechanics to motivate desired knowledge management behaviors, such as awarding and tracking points for sharing and reusing knowledge
48. e-Learning: tools which enable the delivery and tracking of online training courses
49. a. Analytics: discovery and communication of meaningful patterns in data and text b. Business intelligence: the ability for an organization to take all its capabilities and convert them into knowledge; includes data mining, data visualization, big data, databases, data warehouses, and data lakes
50. a. Cognitive computing: simulation of human thought processes in a computerized model, involving self-learning systems that use data mining, pattern recognition and natural language processing to mimic the way the human brain works; makes a new class of problems computable, addressing complex situations that are characterized by ambiguity and uncertainty b. Artificial intelligence: the capacity of a computer to perform operations analogous to learning and decision making in humans, as by an expert system; includes natural language processing, machine learning, and neural networks

50 Alternative Names — from Knowledge Management: What’s in a name?

1. Best Practice Replication
2. Best Practice Transfer
3. Business Improvement Services
4. Collaboration
5. Collaboration Systems
6. Collective Learning
7. Communities
8. Digital Enterprise and Digital Workplace
9. Digital Transformation
10. Enterprise 2.0
11. Enterprise Collaboration
12. Enterprise Content Sourcing
13. Enterprise Learning and Collaboration
14. Enterprise Social
15. Enterprise Social Network
16. Insights
17. Intangible Asset Plan
18. Intellectual Capital
19. Intellectual Property
20. Knowledge and Information Management
21. Knowledge and Information Sharing
22. Knowledge and Learning Processes
23. Knowledge Development
24. Knowledge Enablement
25. Knowledge, Engagement and Collaboration
26. Knowledge Exchange
27. Knowledge Flow Management
28. Knowledge Management
29. Knowledge Processing
30. Knowledge Publishing and Curation
31. Knowledge Retention
32. Knowledge Science
33. Knowledge Services
34. Knowledge Sharing
35. Knowledge Sharing and Collaboration
36. Knowledge Transfer
37. Learning and Knowledge Exchange
38. Learning Communities
39. Learning from Experience
40. Management
41. Organizational Effectiveness
42. Post-Industrial Knowledge Age Transformation
43. Performance Management
44. Radical Connectivity
45. Social Business
46. Social Collaboration
47. Social Learning
48. Social Media
49. Social Networking
50. Tackling Wicked Problems

Philosophy and Professional Fields

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature and scope of knowledge. It addresses questions such as:

• What is knowledge?
• How is knowledge acquired?
• To what extent is it possible for a given subject to be known?

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence, or reality, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations; deals with questions of:

• What entities exist or can be said to exist?
• How can such entities be grouped, related within a hierarchy, and subdivided according to similarities and differences?

Knowledge Management (KM) is the art of transforming information and intellectual assets into enduring value for an organization’s clients and its people.

The purpose of knowledge management is to:

• Foster the reuse of intellectual capital
• Enable better decision making
• Create the conditions for innovation

KM provides people, processes, and technology to help knowledge flow

• To the right people
• At the right time
• So they can act more efficiently and effectively

Also see Knowledge & Knowledge Management Defined

80 Methods and Tools — from KM Method Cards by Patrick Lambe

Approaches

• 01 Knowledge & Information Management Policy
• 02 Better Practice Transfer
• 03 Positive Deviance
• 04 Change Management
• 05 KM Champions
• 06 Community of Interest
• 07 Community of Practice
• 08 Email Detox
• 09 Evaluation & Monitoring
• 10 Subject Matter Experts
• 11 Expertise Transfer
• 12 Knowledge Continuity
• 13 Information Architecture
• 14 KM Awareness
• 15 KM Governance
• 16 Knowledge & Information Literacy
• 17 Knowledge-Enabled Work
• 18 Learning Culture
• 19 Rewards & Recognition
• 20 Safe Fail vs Fail Safe
• 21 Work Group KM
• 22 Project KM
• 23 Stealth KM
• 24 Stakeholder Management
• 25 Enterprise 2.0

Methods: Interview

• 26 Interviews
• 27 Appreciative Inquiry
• 28 Critical Decision Method
• 29 Concept Mapping
• 30 Expertise Knowledge Audit
• 31 Fish Bowl
• 32 Mentoring & Coaching
• 33 Play of Life

Methods: Group

• 34 After Action Review
• 35 Challenge Session
• 36 Strategic Conversation
• 37 World Cafe
• 38 Open Space Technology
• 39 Retrospect
• 40 Pre-Mortem
• 41 Peer Assist
• 42 Anecdote Circles
• 43 Speed Networking

Methods: Process

• 44 Cultural Archetypes
• 45 Knowledge Audits & Maps
• 46 Business Process Mapping & Design
• 47 Before Action Review
• 48 Environmental Scanning
• 49 Future Backwards
• 50 Most Significant Change
• 51 Story Listening
• 52 Social Network Analysis
• 53 Value Network Analysis
• 54 Card Sorting

Methods: Packaging

• 55 Decision Games
• 56 Rich Pictures
• 57 Graphic Facilitation
• 58 Information Neighbourhood
• 59 Podcasting & Vodcasting
• 60 Screencasting
• 61 Storytelling

Methods: Events

• 62 Share Fair
• 63 Knowledge Fair
• 64 Knowledge Market

Tools

• 65 Blog
• 66 Bulletin Board
• 67 Taxonomy
• 68 Competency Framework
• 69 Instant Messaging
• 70 Knowledge-Friendly Environment
• 71 Social Bookmarking
• 72 Social Tagging
• 73 Wiki
• 74 Yellow Pages
• 75 Metadata
• 76 Enterprise Search
• 77 Intranet
• 78 Dashboard
• 79 Document Management System
• 80 RSS

10 KM Facets — from Developing an Open Source, Adaptable and Sustainable Method for Conducting Knowledge Management Maturity Modeling and Assessment — by Denise A. D. Bedford, Margaret Camp, Dessie Hein, Tyler Liston, Jeffery Oxendine, and Dean Testa

1. Knowledge Leadership and Strategy: Knowledge Management Initiatives and Projects; Use of Knowledge Metrics; KM Program Development and Planning; Knowledge Policies and Procedures; KM Business Plans and Strategies; Availability of KM Funding; KM Program Implementation
2. Intellectual Capital Management: Knowledge Management Responsibilities; Knowledge Valuation; Access to Expertise; Identification of Intellectual Capital Attributes; Growth of Intellectual Capital Assets
3. Communities and Collaboration: Communities Of Practice; Health and Growth of Networks; Relationships with Professional Societies, Partners, Clients, and Stakeholders; Creation of New and Relevant Practices; Facilities Knowledge Sharing and Trust-Building; Promotion of the Flow of Knowledge Across Networks; Adoption and Use of Collaboration Methods
4. Organizational Culture and Communication: Knowledge Communication; Knowledge Use; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge Hoarding; Use of Knowledge in Resolving Differences; Knowledge Sharing Processes and Practices; Knowledge Management Training; Adoption of Knowledge Management Activities; KM Outreach and Awareness Programs; KM Standards Alignment; KM Liaison with External Communities; KM-Related Rewards and Recognition Programs; KM Stories and Business Narrative Promotion; KM Publicity Activities
5. Knowledge Operations: Knowledge Use in Projects; Knowledge Use in Decision Making; Continuous Process Improvement; Use of New Knowledge; Use of Expertise in Processes; Knowledge Use in Workflows; Promotion of the Use of Knowledge in Decision Making And Operational Processes; Integration of Knowledge into Business Rules; Making Procedural Knowledge Accessible to Any Staff Performing a Specific Process
6. Organizational Learning: Effectiveness Of Learning Environment; Promotion of Informal and Formal Learning Methods; Promotion Of Learning Opportunities For Individuals, Groups, and the Organization; Use of Instructional Design Best Practices; Development Of Extended Learning Networks; Response to Dynamic Learning Needs; Embedding Learning Activities in the Onboarding Process of New Employees
7. Knowledge Technologies: Technologies Designed to Support Work; Acceptance of Knowledge Technology Requirements; Use Of Technology to Support Knowledge Initiatives; Designing Virtual Environments and Applications to Support Knowledge Workers Wherever They Work
8. Knowledge Asset Management: Knowledge Capture; Knowledge Capture Policies; Knowledge Storage; Best Practices Management; Information Management; Feedback Valuation; Customer Knowledge Capture; External Partner Knowledge Capture; Know-How Capture; Knowledge Capture Workflows; Workflows for Capturing Business Critical Knowledge; Knowledge Capture Metrics; Knowledge Capture Statistics and Reports; Knowledge Organization Systems; Effective and Efficient Accessibility Of Knowledge
9. Knowledge Architecture: Ease of Access to Knowledge; Organization of Knowledge; Standards for Organizing Knowledge and Information; Information Security Risks; Assignment of Information Security; Accessibility of Project Information; Standards for Recording Knowledge; Knowledge and Information Format Standards; Findability of Knowledge; Knowledge Publishing and Distribution; Publishing and Distribution Standards; Browsing and Navigation Structures; Search Effectiveness; Search Results Relevance; Free Flow of Knowledge Across Sources; Open Access to Knowledge Resources; Access to Experts Throughout and Beyond the Organization; Effective Knowledge Discovery Tools and Methods
10. Knowledge Assessment and Evaluation: Knowledge Quality Monitoring; Performing Knowledge Audits; Conducting Knowledge Management Maturity Assessments

6 Practices of Knowledge Management in Organizations — from Australian KM Organizational Standard (under development)

1. Develop and Embed a Strategy

2. Learn as an Organisation

• 2.1. Manage organisational learning
• 2.2. Develop and Acquire new knowledge
• 2.2.1. Create new ideas and concepts
• 2.2.1.1. Reverse brainstorming
• 2.2.1.2. Brainstorming
• 2.2.1.3. Brainswarming
• 2.2.1.4. Crowdsourcing
• 2.2.1.5. Sensemaking
• 2.2.2. Invent new processes, products or tools
• 2.2.3. Dealing with complexity
• 2.2.4. Model new processes and frameworks
• 2.2.5. Experiment and trial concepts to ascertain utility and reduce risk
• 2.2.5.1. Action Learning
• 2.2.5.2. Action Research
• 2.2.5.3. Simulation
• 2.2.5.4. Pilot projects
• 2.2.6. Acquire new knowledge from external sources
• 2.2.7. Benchmark against other organisations
• 2.2.8. Find and attract great people
• 2.3. Innovate
• 2.4. Expose new practices
• 2.4.1. After Action Reviews
• 2.4.2. Anecdote Circles
• 2.4.3. Appreciative Inquiry
• 2.4.4. Conversation Mapping
• 2.4.5. Dialogue Mapping
• 2.4.6. Positive Deviance
• 2.5. Capture and retain
• 2.5.1. Knowledge continuity and knowledge retention
• 2.5.2. Lessons Learned
• 2.5.3. Expertise identification and capture
• 2.5.4. Conversation/ Dialogue Mapping
• 2.5.5. Oral histories
• 2.6. Organise key knowledge for access
• 2.6.1. Document and records management
• 2.6.2. Integrate with data management
• 2.6.2.1. Dashboards and analytics
• 2.6.2.2. Business intelligence tools
• 2.6.3. White pages / SME directory
• 2.6.4. Inventories
• 2.6.5. Taxonomies
• 2.6.6. Ontologies
• 2.6.7. Metadata
• 2.6.8. Knowledge graphs
• 2.6.9. Search
• 2.6.10. Information architecture
• 2.6.11. Manages the relationship between common platforms and workgroup platforms
• 2.7. Share knowledge
• 2.7.1. Identify sources and targets
• 2.7.2. Enable modes of sharing
• 2.7.2.1. Asking
• 2.7.2.2. Telling
• 2.7.2.3. Searching
• 2.7.2.4. Publishing
• 2.7.3. Applying techniques to share knowledge
• 2.7.3.1. Communities of practice
• 2.7.3.2. Knowledge cafes
• 2.7.3.3. Storytelling
• 2.7.4. Considers cultural and language issues
• 2.7.5. Controls access
• 2.8. Unlearn and Adapt
• 2.9. Track how well the organisation learns
• 2.10. Participate and contribute to the wider KM community

3. Apply knowledge

• 3.1. Provide easy access to resources such as policies, plans, procedures, templates, records and evidence
• 3.2. Embed new knowledge into operations
• 3.3. Evaluate and provide feedback in near-real time
• 3.4. Make good decisions
• 3.5. Undertake continuous improvement
• 3.5.1. Design thinking
• 3.5.2. Quality management (ISO 9001)
• 3.5.3. Quality circles
• 3.5.4. Six Sigma
• 3.5.5. Lean development, services or manufacturing
• 3.5.6. 5S
• 3.5.7. JIT
• 3.6. Transfer skills, knowledge and experience to the work
• 3.6.1. Mentoring
• 3.6.2. Supervising
• 3.6.3. Cadetships
• 3.6.4. Apprentices
• 3.6.5. Shadowing
• 3.6.6. Peer Assist
• 3.6.7. Toolbox meeting
• 3.6.8. Induction
• 3.6.9. Communities of practice
• 3.6.10. Brown bag lunches
• 3.6.11. Campfire
• 3.6.12. Knowledge cafes
• 3.6.13. Storytelling
• 3.6.14. Gamification
• 3.6.15. Situation-based learning
• 3.6.16. Agile SCRUMS
• 3.7. Encourage and recognise suggestions
• 3.8. Protect intellectual assets

4. Leverage Technology and infrastructure

5. Shape a Knowledge Capability and Culture

6. Evaluate and Measure Performance

References

• Knowledge Sharing Toolkit
• Green Chameleon
• Knoco
• Knowledge Bucket: Approaches, Competencies, and Techniques
• RealKM
• Skills for knowledge management — A TFPL Report
• KM Approaches Methods and Tools — A Guidebook by Patrick Lambe and Edgar Tan
• The Knowledge Management and Application Domain by Steven Wieneke and Karla Phlypo-Price
• Learning in Action: A Guide to Putting the Learning Organization to Work by David A. Garvin
• SIKM Leaders Community threads on KM competency frameworks
• Implementing a Successful KM Program
• KM Basics Presentation
• KM Blog Posts