Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

OLIVIER SERRAT

Principal Knowledge Sharing and Services Specialist Knowledge Sharing and Services Center Regional and Sustainable Development Department Asian Development Bank

DATA, Data are discrete and objective facts, measurements, or observations INFORMATION, that can be analyzed to generate information. AND KNOWLEDGE
Information is data that have been categorized, analyzed, summarized, and placed in context in a form that has structure and meaning.

Knowledge is a combination of data and information, to which is added expert opinion, skills, and experience, resulting in a valuable asset that aids decision making. Knowledge is what you learn from experiencebefore, during, and after the event.

KNOWLEDGE TACIT KNOWLEDGE IS ASSETS Know-how from deeply personal experience, aptitudes, skills,
perceptions, insights, and intuition. Difficult to communicate in forms other than personal contact and regular interaction.

EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE IS Know-what that has been or can be described, articulated, codified, and stored. Readily shared in formal language, print, or electronic media.

EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE = Media-based

20%

Paper-based, multimedia, digitally indexed, digitally active, etc.

TACIT KNOWLEDGE = In peoples heads

80%
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Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

CORE KNOWLEDGE CORE KNOWLEDGE ACTIVITIES are what activities are widely used ACTIVITIES by an organization to manage knowledge.
REQUIREMENTS 1. Activities should be aligned or integrated into business processes. 2. Activities should be balanced according to the specificities of each organization. A knowledge management solution should not focus only on one or two activities in isolation. CREATE KNOWLEDGE IDENTIFY KNOWLEDGE STORE KNOWLEDGE

USE KNOWLEDGE

SHARE KNOWLEDGE

Identify

Create

Store

Share

Use

Inventorize people and system-based knowledge assets.

Gather knowledge assets from people or systems that hold it.

Organize knowledge assets into codifiable and noncodifiable categories.

Pass knowledge assets between people or systems.

Use the knowledge assets for benefit.

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IS MANAGEMENT The formal and directed process of enabling vital individual

and collective knowledge resources to be identified, created, stored, shared, and used more easily to improve organizational performance. The fusion of information management and organizational learning.

KNOWLEDGE Knowledge agents comprise individuals, groups, the intra-organizational AGENTS

domain, and the inter-organizational domain. Knowledge management often involves a spiral process across knowledge agents.

Knowledge Assets

Individual

Group

IntraOrganizational Domain

InterOrganizational Domain Customer expectations and attitudes toward products and services Patents and documented practices

Tacit Knowledge

Cross-cultural negotiation skills

Team coordination in complex work

Corporate Culture

Explicit Knowledge

Knowledge calculus

Quality circles

Organization charts

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

KNOWLEDGE An architecture must be built to initiate and implement organization-wide knowledge management initiatives. MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE Four pillars are critical to success: (i) leadership, (ii) organization,

(iii) technology, and (iv) learning. Leadership develops the strategies necessary to position for success in an environment. Respect for knowledge must pervade an organization: introducing knowledge management requires organizational change, and knowledge management inevitably acts as a catalyst to transform an organizations culture. Technology is essential to achieving knowledge management strategies; however, any technical solution must add value to the process and achieve measurable improvements. Organizational learning is the ability of an organization to gain insight and understanding from experience through experimentation, observation, analysis, and a willingness to learn from failure, not just success.

Society

Economy Environment Strategic Framework

Leadership Organization Technology

Polity Technology
Learning

Leadership

Organization

Technology

Learning

Multiple Disciplines, including

Management Science Organizational Development Computer Science Cognitive Psychology

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE

Pillar Function Typical Activity Identify knowledge critical to learning. Conduct work-centered analysis. Plan high-level strategic approach. Establish goal and prioritize objectives. Define requirements and develop measurement program. Promote values and norms. Implement strategy. Identify critical knowledge gaps, opportunities, and risks. Develop business process model. Engage key audiences with incentives. Enhance system integration and access. Deploy intelligent agents for people. Exploit semantic technologies. Reuse existing capabilities in new ways. Monitor, measure, and report knowledge performance metrics. Enliven collaboration. Facilitate communities of practice. Encourage storytelling. Recognize and reward knowledge sharing.

Leadership

Cross-cultural negotiation skills

Organization

Organize to support values for knowledge management.

Technology

Collect and connect knowledge.

Learning

Cultivate and utilize virtual teams and exchange forums for knowledge management.

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

BALANCED The architecture of knowledge management must be strenghtened KNOWLEDGE in support of organization-wide initiatives. Its four pillars require MANAGEMENT balanced interconnectivity.

Leadership

Organization

Technology

Learning

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

THE WHAT, WHY, Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, AND HOW experience, or instruction. OF LEARNING

Learning is an integral part of knowledge management. Its ultimate end is to raise performance. In the corporate world, learning is driven by organization, people, knowledge, and technology working in harmony.

LEARNING FROM EXPERIENCE

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

LEARNING LOOPS In single-loop learning, people spend the bulk of their time detecting
and correcting deviations from the rules and procedures. In double-loop learning, people continuously challenge assumptions (status quo), categorize second-order problems from patterns, and rethink underlying strategy based on insights. They are able to reflect on whether the rules might need to be altered. In triple-loop learning, the highest order of organizational learning, people question the raison dtre of organizations; reconsider its principles and policies; and arrive at renewed statements of identity, values, culture, and worldview (learning about learning) that may even impact their external environment. Capacity to think creatively and act innovatively is multiplied. People deliberate at length on the meaning of rules, not just whether the rules should be changed.

Context

Assumptions

Actions

Results

Single-Loop Learning (Are we doing things right?) Double-Loop Learning (Are we doing the right things?) Triple-Loop Learning (How do we decide what is right?)

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

LEARNING LOOPS
Single Loop Adaptive Learning Apply existing rules/ procedures Coping Deal with symptoms of problems Efficiencies Improved application of rules/procedures Double Loop Generative Learning Examine underlying causes Question assumptions and rules/procedures Triple Loop Radical Learning Examine core values and identity Rethink fundamental purpose and principles Renewed statement of core values and purpose Renewed identity

New knowledge and insights Revised rules, systems, and strategies

Quadruple-loop learning is rarely associated with organizational learning: reflective and comparative, it analyzes systemic options and evaluates the foundational claims of each. Quadruple-loop learning investigates the deep assumptions of paradigms and the principles they are built on, ethics, horizons, and approaches to knowledge creation. The payoffs are breakthroughs by perpetual practice in humane, built-for-change organizations.

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

MODEL OF LEARNING PROGRESSION

Data

Information

Knowledge

Wisdom?

Know What

Know How

Know Why

Reductionist

Systemic

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MOTIVATIONS BEHIND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT EFFORTS

Typical considerations include: Making available increased knowledge content in the development and provision of products and services. Achieving shorter product development cycles. Facilitating and managing innovation and organizational learning. Leveraging the expertise of people across the organization. Increasing network connectivity between internal and external individuals. Managing business environments and allowing staff to obtain relevant insights and ideas appropriate to their work. Solving intractable or wicked problems. Managing intellectual capital and intellectual assets in the workforce.

To clarify vision, purpose, values, and organizational behavior For client relations For innovation For an energized committed workforce

To produce a wide range of solutions to organizational issues To balance the demands of stakeholders

To reduce the likelihood of repeated mistakes To understand risks and diversity more deeply To expand the horizons of who we are and what we can become

To reconcile the pressures of long-term effectiveness and short-term efficiency To increase ability to manage change

For independence and liberty

To engage in community For awareness of the critical nature of interdependence To avoid decline

For superior organizational performance and competitive advantage

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CULTURAL ROADBLOCKS TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SUCCESS

Culture has been characterized as the glue that holds organizations together. Culture is critical to Setting and executing strategy. Determining the success or failure of operations. Establishing employee satisfaction, job commitment, and turnover. Managing knowledge, for example through knowledge sharing.

Psychological Factors
Reciprocity Repute Altruism

Knowledge Sharing

Social Factors
Organizational culture Social networks

WHERE ARE YOU IN THE JOURNEY?

Have you started discussions on knowledge management?

Have you developed a knowledge management strategy?

Have you been deploying knowledge management solutions?

Organization, People, Knowledge, and Technology for Learning

Do you have knowledge management pilots underway?

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EARLY SIGNPOSTS Knowledge products and services are strategic and must be accounted for and valued accordingly. TO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Knowledge management requires integration and balancing

of leadership, organization, technology, and learning in an organization-wide setting. Knowledge management must both meet the requirements of and conditions for success and the desired benefits and expectations of the organization. Organizational culture affects knowledge management, especially at lower levels of corporate hierarchies. Streamlined organization with strong organizational culture have a higher chance of success in knowledge. An atmosphere of trust is a precondition to knowledge sharing. Proposals for knowledge management should include both soft and hard measures if managers are to support knowledge management initiatives. The success factors for knowledge management are dominated by management concerns for people, process, and outcome orientation. They are interspersed throughout the knowledge management architecture of leadership, organization, technology, and learning.

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KNOWLEDGE Knowledge Management in ADB moves ADB to improve its MANAGEMENT AND organizational culture, management systems, business processes LEARNING IN ADB and information technology solutions, communities of practice,
and learning and development mechanisms. Enhancing Knowledge Management under Strategy 2020: Plan of Action, 20092011 delivered knowledge solutions and knowledge services from four strategic thrusts: Sharpening the knowledge focus in ADBs operations. Empowering communities of practice. Strengthening external knowledge partnerships. Further enhancing staff learning and skills development.

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RESULTS-DRIVEN MANAGEMENT MODEL

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THE PROMISE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

PERFORMANCE TOMORROW ORGANIZATION

PEOPLE

KNOWLEDGE

PERFORMANCE TODAY

TECHNOLOGY

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FURTHER READING

ADB. 2008. Building Communities of Practice. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/building-communities-practice ADB. 2008. Notions of Knowledge Management. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/notions-knowledgemanagement ADB. 2008. Picking Investments in Knowledge Management. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/picking-investments ADB. 2009. Glossary of Knowledge Management. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/glossary-of-knowledgemanagement ADB. 2009. The Roots of an Emerging Discipline. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/roots-emerging-discipline ADB. 2009. Building a Learning Organization. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/building-a-learning-organization ADB. 2009. Enhancing Knowledge Management Strategies. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/enhancingknowledge-management-strategies ADB. 2009. A Primer on Organizational Culture. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/primer-organizational-culture ADB. 2009. A Primer on Organizational Learning. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/primer-on-organizationallearning ADB. 2010. Seeding Knowledge Solutions Before, During, and After. Manila. Available: www.adb.org/publications/seedingknowledge-solutions-during-and-after ADB. 2012. Knowledge as Culture. Manila. Available: www.adb. org/publications/knowledge-culture

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ABOUT THE ASIAN DEVELOPMENT BANK

ADBs vision is an Asia and Pacific region free of poverty. Its mission is to help its developing member countries reduce poverty and improve the quality of life of their people. Despite the regions many successes, it remains home to two-thirds of the worlds poor: 1.8 billion people who live on less than $2 a day, with 903 million struggling on less than $1.25 a day. ADB is committed to reducing poverty through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth, and regional integration. Based in Manila, ADB is owned by 67 members, including 48 from the region. Its main instruments for helping its developing member countries are policy dialogue, loans, equity investments, guarantees, grants, and technical assistance.

For more information, contact Knowledge Sharing and Services Center Asian Development Bank 6 ADB Avenue, Mandaluyong City 1550 Metro Manila, Philippines Tel +63 2 632 6710 Fax +63 2 632 5264 knowledge@adb.org www.adb.org/knowledge-management/

Knowledge Primers serve as quick introductions to knowledge management and learning applications in development work. In an attractive package, they are suitable for interactive presentations and self-learning for action. They are offered as resources to ADB staff. They may also appeal to the development community and people having interest in knowledge and learning.

2012 by Asian Development Bank. All rights reserved.

July 2012