Preserving and Using Institutional Memory Through Knowledge Management Practices (2007)

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

100 Australian Standard: Knowledge Management—A Guide AS 5037-2005 (2005) was released October 15, 2005, as a nonprescriptive guide on knowledge management (KM). An update to an earlier interim standard (AS 5037-INT) in 2003, the 2005 revision incorporates insights gained as a result of feedback on the interim standard by many Australian and international KM practitioners. The Standard provides guid- ance on what KM is and how it may be implemented using a flexible framework. It can be used by any individual, com- munity, or organization. The document walks one through the steps and implementation options for KM to suit the require- ments of your own organization’s context, capabilities, and readiness. Perhaps the most useful feature is a listing and descriptive details of 33 “enablers”; that is, tools, techniques, and activities for KM implementation. It also includes a chapter on specific ways to evaluate and measure KM in organizations. The document outlines an ecosystem model of KM based on relationships, networks, processes, content, and technology. It is not hierarchy based. This document is, in the opinion of this author, the single most useful practical reference on KM reviewed in this report, especially in the initial phase when developing KM processes. Quality Management Systems—Guidelines for Perfor- mance Improvements, ISO 9004:2000 (2000) includes, in Section 6.2.2.2, a recommendation to include tacit and explicit knowledge when planning for training and education of staff (p. 16). Section 6.5 specifies that the continual devel- opment of an organization’s knowledge is essential for deci- sion making and innovation. It recommends identifying information needs, identifying and accessing internal and external sources of information, converting information to knowledge of use to the organization, and using knowl- edge to meet objectives (p. 18). ISO 9004:2000 specifically describes in Section 4.2, Documentation, how the genera- tion, use, and control of documentation should be evaluated with respect to the effectiveness and efficiency of the orga- nization against such criteria as functionality; user friendli- ness; resources needed; policies and objectives; current and future requirements to managing knowledge; benchmarking of documentation systems; and interfaces used by the orga- nization’s customers, suppliers, and other interested parties. It recommends that access to documentation should be ensured for people in the organization and to other interested parties (p. 3). Quality Management Systems—Requirements ISO 9001 (2000) lays out the requirements of process-based quality management systems in Section 4.2, Documentation Require- ments. It states: “that the quality management system be doc- umented” (p. 2). Included in the list of required documentation are “documents needed by the organization to ensure the effec- tive planning, operation, and control of its processes” (p. 2). The standard allows documentation to be in any form or type of medium. Furthermore, Section 4.2.3, Control of Documents, requires a documented procedure be established for document approval, review, updating, reapproving, version control, and legibility. Documents must be identifiable. Documents of external origin must be identified. Unintended use of obsolete documents must be prevented and obsolete documents must be suitably identified if they are retained at all (p. 3). In Quality Management Systems—Fundamentals and Vocabulary, ISO 9000 (2000), under Section 2.7.2, Types of Documents Used in Quality Management Systems, among others these types of documents are listed c) documents stating requirements . . . d) documents stating recommendations or suggestions . . . guidelines . . . e) documents that provide information about how to per- form activities and processes consistently . . . proce- dures, work instructions, and drawings f ) documents that provide objective evidence of activities performed or results achieved . . . records . . . (p. 4). In 2004, the European Committee for Standardization, known by the acronym CEN issued a 5-part series of Work- shop Agreements entitled European Guide to Good Prac- tices in Knowledge Management. As with the Australian standard described earlier, this series of documents provides guidance and is not prescriptive. The Guide was written to give Europeans a practical guide to both mainstream think- ing and emerging new thinking in KM. Although it is aimed at business environments, other organizations will find it use- ful owing to its structured, practical approach. Because it stresses the business focus, it puts KM in the value-adding processes of an organization, and concentrates on critical knowledge. It also deals with processes that are part of interorganizational business networks, which include suppli- ers, partners, and clients. It describes three layers of activity: (1) the five core knowledge activities as identifying, creating, storing, sharing, and using knowledge; (2) the integration of these activities into an integrated framework by forming an integrated process; and (3) identifying and implementing the right KM tools and methods within two main categories— APPENDIX J Annotated Literature Survey: Standards and Guidance Documents Issued by International Standards-Developing Organizations Regarding Knowledge Management

101 personal and organizational—which complement each other. Part 1 describes the overall KM framework. Part 2 discusses organizational culture. Part 3, “SME Implementation,” is devoted to the SME (small and medium-sized enterprise), because the Committee believed that knowledge in SMEs tends to be tacit, informal, and not recorded; know-how in SMEs may not be valued as highly as it might be; SMEs may use short-term approaches to knowledge gaps; and the knowledge in SMEs may be more easily lost when an owner sells the business or retires (pp. 5–6). One could substitute “CEO” or similar title for “owner.” Part 4 spells out guide- lines for measuring KM. Part 5 is devoted to KM terminol- ogy. In short, all five parts of the Guide offer a wealth of distilled, structured, easy-to-read information on KM imple- mentation, albeit it for U.S. readers, with a slight European twist. Note that all five parts, although copyrighted, are avail- able free of charge, as of this writing, on the CEN website (see References). In 2001, the BSI Group, which issues British standards among other activities, published Knowledge Management— A Guide to Good Practice, PAS 2001. PAS stands for “pub- licly available specification,” which indicates that the docu- ment is, as is the case with the Australian and CEN documents, not a “standard” in the usual sense, but a nonprescriptive guide to practice. Written in cooperation with PriceWaterhouse- Coopers, the document disseminates KM good practices to both United Kingdom and global audiences, gives case studies, and provides details about KM resources (http://www. bsi-global.com). Its target audience is broad and not limited to business and industry. Since the publication of PAS 2001, BSI has issued six related detailed KM guides. Similarly, the Danish Agency for Trade and Industry pub- lished A Guideline for Intellectual Capital Statements: A Key to Knowledge Management (2001). Although the term “cap- ital statements” might be confusing, the introduction makes clear that the document is about knowledge resources and how companies manage, deploy, and develop the resources, including their employees, customers, processes, and tech- nologies, and how they manage these resources. Seventeen companies worked with the agency on the document. It is quite business oriented; however, it does contain numerous examples of internal practices by the 17 companies. This very useful document is also provided free-of-charge through the website given in the References. It must be noted that, to the author’s knowledge as of this writing, the U.S. standards- developing community, as generally coordinated by the American National Standards Institute, has not published any nationally recognized standards or guidelines dedicated to KM. However, the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set: An American National Standard, ANSI/NISO Z39.85-2001, developed by the National Information Standards Organiza- tion, is highly useful for KM content management applica- tions. It provides a basic metadata element set of 15 descrip- tors for cross-domain information resource description. This standard has been applied, extended, and adopted by coun- tries and organizations. Simple and easy to apply, the 15 ele- ments describe almost any resource adequately for discov- ery. Additional metadata schemes can be added to the basic set for richer description. The Dublin Core Metadata Initia- tive website (http://dublincore.org) offers a wealth of details about the development worldwide of the use of Dublin core. On July 5, 2005, a brief report was issued as the collabora- tive product of a work group convened under the auspices of the TRB Data and Information Technology Section (ABJ00) (2005). The Library and Information Science Committee (ABG40) from the Research and Education Section (ABG00) was a full partner. At their Section meeting on January 12, 2005, data committee chairs agreed to examine options for a Section-level focus on metadata specifically for transportation- related resources. The work group strongly recommended that a data section, focused on metadata, is needed immediately, and that a staged approach be used to institutionalize a meta- data group within TRB with the aim of eventually issuing a metadata standard for transportation resources. Although not a standard, the Transportation Research Thesaurus (TRT) is a standardized metadata tool to improve the indexing and retrieval of transportation information. The thesaurus covers all modes and aspects of transportation. The TRT’s purpose is to provide a common and consistent language between producers and users of transportation information. Anyone needing keywords, categorization terms, or standard terminology in the field of transportation is a potential TRT user. The TRT is maintained on a regular basis and is available at http://trt.trb.org/trt.asp.