Is KM dead? John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, and Lang
Davison, all with Deloitte’s Center for the Edge,
argue that passive repositories
of organizational information (i.e., Knowledge Management) have failed to
advance learning. They write:
The
best KM systems succeeded at capturing and institutionalizing the knowledge of
the firm. But for the most part the repositories and directories remained
fragmentary and the resources didn't get used. The folks with the knowledge
were often reluctant to put what they knew into the database. The folks seeking
the knowledge often had trouble finding what they needed.
They go on to say that a new, more problem-solving approach is needed:
In
these circumstances, the last thing the world needs is another knowledge
management scheme focusing on capturing knowledge that already exists. What we
need are new approaches to creating knowledge, ones that take advantage of the
new digital infrastructure's ability to lower the interaction costs among us
all — ones that mobilize big, diverse groups of participants to innovate and
create new value.
Hagel, Brown, and Davison propose the development of “creation spaces” that help people interact around major performance problems of an organization. They use the analogy of the “World of Warcraft” computer game. Its community of advanced gamers helps each player get through to the next WoW challenge. They share information, experiences, and tools with each other for the purpose of anyone in their “guild” reaching higher levels within the game.
Like WoW, “creation spaces” have three elements that need optimization in order to solve performance problems: 1) participants; 2) interactions; and 3) environments. Participants need to have an easy and low cost way of observing and contributing to the conversation. Interaction must be encouraged and rewarded. Environments should be developed that link participants to each other and link participants to external networks.
Storing, sorting, and retrieving information, the characteristics of any good KM system, are not sufficient, contrary to what some software companies that sell KM products would have us believe. Of course, it’s nice to be able to archive lessons-learned and best practices, but without processes and tools for knowledge creation, KM will have little impact on achieving organizational goals. As Hagel, Brown, and Davison suggest, and I have written previously, KM alone will not have much impact on an organization. Learning requires sharing knowledge with others, applying new knowledge to collective problem-solving, and giving and receiving positive and negative feedback. This doesn’t happen in the typical knowledge management system.
