What is the proper method of knowledge management?
How can we relate knowledge to what the enterprise needs to know? We collect and organize knowledge on various subjects, keywords, etc. Usually knowledge is made available, if someone wants to access it. We may get knowledge into the business when there is a routine recurring need like maintaining equipment or selling a product.
Knowledge is a type of information that is used to support and strengthen human capability for the benefit of the enterprise. Knowledge must be managed to that end. We need to create knowledge to support human personnel and capability development and to deliver knowledge where needed to utilize human capabilities and other capital available to produce results of value.
Enterprises need a systematic way to define the precise knowledge needed, to relate knowledge to the capability of the user applying the knowledge, to link knowledge to where and by whom it is needed, to understand the value provided by knowledge, to get feedback and improvement on the knowledge, and to assess the worth of knowledge. The answer to knowledge creation, delivery, and utilization is Result-performance Management (R-pM).
Most knowledge is managed to be available if someone wants to access it
Conventional knowledge management methods enable us to collect and store knowledge, but make it difficult to utilize knowledge for benefit.
There are many problems with the conventional methods used to manage knowledge:
- Knowledge is labeled often as intellectual capital or intangible assets to relieve the responsibility to manage knowledge as an asset of worth
- Knowledge is organized by topics or subject matter, which depend on someone referencing the topic to their job or function to put knowledge to use
- Knowledge is human capital to improve human capability, but it is rarely managed as human capital
- Knowledge is delivered through learning, but learning material is often separate from knowledge and neither is related to the actual business
- Knowledge is information capital to contribute to the overall enterprise information base, but is usually separated from other information
- Knowledge is not integrated with the business to be utilized as a performance solution to produce value for the enterprise
We need to understand knowledge as capital to be utilized in performance to produce value in results. Knowledge is human capital that is employed to develop human capability or that is captured from human capability to increase other human capability. Knowledge is human capital that is created, developed, and managed to support a human capability to produce a result. Knowledge is information capital that must be integrated and delivered with business data and other information to the point utilized to produce a result.
Result-performance Management (R-pM) develops and manages knowledge as human capital and utilizes knowledge as information capital
Now, there is Result-performance Management (R-pM) to organize and manage the business as one integrated business structure. R-pM defines the business through the performance solutions, such as human personnel, capabilities, and knowledge, to produce value in results, such as knowledge created, service rendered, sale completed, project closed, etc. R-pM enables the enterprise to apply the capabilities needed to create and manage knowledge and to integrate knowledge with information capital to produce results.
R-pM relates knowledge to specific performance solutions utilized and results produced
In order to apply knowledge to produce value, knowledge must be related to results. Knowledge can be related directly to the result identifier or be related to a human capability identifier that is utilized to produce a result. In order to apply knowledge to utilize another performance solution the knowledge is related directly to the performance solution identifier.
R-pM delivers knowledge where needed to produce result value
A business process is utilized to produce a result. The business process defines the human capabilities that are integrated with the process to produce the result. The result manager is responsible for the adequacy of the solutions utilized to produce a result. The manager must describe the additional knowledge requirements for specific results or performance solutions to the performance manager responsible for knowledge capital, to see that knowledge is created to increase the value of results.
Human capital utilizing knowledge to increase the value-added in results, increase their worth as human capital, and justify an increase in human performance cost.
R-pM makes knowledge creation and application part of the enterprise routine
Creating and delivering knowledge may look like a lot of work. But it is not a lot of work; it is routine in the R-pM enterprise that utilizes capital in performance to produce value in results. Visit Result-performance-Management.com to learn more about organizing your business with R-pM for 21st Century Management. Download the R-pM Toolkit, your 21st Century Management Manual, to learn how to create and manage knowledge as human capital and to deliver knowledge as information capital, where needed to utilize performance solutions to produce results.
