Most organizations these days recognize the value of knowledge, whether housed in the organization’s formal files, documents or systems, or in the heads of workers.  At the same time, most organizations struggle with creating the culture, processes and mechanisms that will enable workers to share, harvest and build on this knowledge for improvement or innovation.  Meeting this challenge has reached such proportion for organizations, and indeed entire economies, that academic specialists and practicing managers alike are focusing their energies on tackling knowledge management (KM) as one of the most crucial challenges facing our economy in the new millennium.

The process of sharing and building on knowledge within or across organizational boundaries for improvement or innovation is commonly referred to as knowledge management.  The concept of knowledge management therefore incorporates: people and the organization of knowledge; the governance processes of the organization; as well as the knowledge management tools and technology.

There is a great deal of evidence to indicate that organizations that manage their knowledge well are more efficient and are better able to accomplish their vision and mission.  Knowledge often gets trapped in organizational divisions: the vertical divisions of traditional organizational hierarchies; the geographic divisions of dispersed organizational units; or, the boundaries that often exist across various professional disciplines or occupations that make up organizations.  Workers who often carry the means of production around in their heads can feel stifled by the many rules, processes, and procedures that support these divisions.

 Thus, knowledge management includes not only a concern for new organizational forms, structures or systems that allow for greater sharing of knowledge, but also new practices and processes that provide individuals with greater freedom to create and express new ideas.  For these reasons, organizations are seeking to liberate and build on the knowledge that workers hold to create ongoing improvements and innovation.

If knowledge is the chief asset in the knowledge economy and management theorists, economists, and business leaders are unanimous on this point then an approach to managing the knowledge within your organization is an absolute necessity.  But KM is a complex field that includes deep questions of organizational culture, behaviour, organizational design, and enabling technologies.  It is easy to get lost in all the ideas and technologies.

• Assessment of knowledge management in your organization
  HRSG can help you get started.  Our KM team can help you develop the kinds of audit, research, and facilitation tools you need to create a comprehensive knowledge profile of your organization. 

• Develop a framework for moving forward
  HRSG can offer your organization the additional expertise that is required to articulate and communicate a KM strategy based on the profile of your organization and on best practices in the field.   We can help you design a plan that will fit with your organizational profile and culture.

• Support you in achieving your goals
  Based on our extensive experience in developing and implementing change strategies for organizations, HRSG can help you develop the competency frameworks, learning strategies and options, performance management and reward systems, technological architectures, foundations and enabling tools to support a viable, thriving, and enduring knowledge culture.  We can also support you in implementing a regular benchmarking and evaluation process so that you can measure progress in achieving your knowledge management objectives.
  
  For further information on our Knowledge Management services contact:

Suzanne Simpson, Ph.D.
President, Human Resource Systems Group Ltd.
Email:  ssimpson@hrmcanada.com

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