Knowledge mappingExploring the benefits, practice, tools and standards. What is knowledge mapping? An ongoing joint quest to help discover the constraints, assumptions, location, ownership, value and use of knowledge assets, artifacts, people and their expertise, uncover blocks to knowledge creation, and find opportunities to leverage existing knowledge. Knowledge mapping may involve developing an ontology, conducting social network analysis, executing a survey, engaging a group of people in sensemaking, action research or ethnography. The process of making the knowledge map is as important as the final product because its impossible to create a single map which will meet the needs of every situation. Agreement is required by decision-makers regarding the purpose of the knowledge mapping exercise and a map or maps created to meet those objectives. A key distinction Knowledge mapping is data gathering, survey, exploring, discovery, conversation, disagreement, gap analysis, education and synthesis. It aims to track the loss and acquisition of information & knowledge, personal and group competencies and proficiencies, show knowledge flows, appreciate the influence on intellectual capital due to staff loss, assist with team selection and technology matching. Contrast this with a knowledge audit which tracks deviations from policy or established process, checks for compliance with standards and procedures, seeks to measure and value knowledge assets and marketable intangibles. Knowledge audits A knowledge audit focusses on finding, itemizing and putting values to knowledge assets and checking compliance with approved processes. The key activity is determining the worth and market value of intellectual property and capital and spotting policy and practice deviations. Mostly this activity is concerned with portfolio management and tangible (hard) assets. "A knowledge audit covers, legal and security (protection) issues, ownership, market value, portfolio dynamics and synergies, potential for realising capital gains and enhancing revenue streams. The k. audit looks at conformance and compliance, concentrates on objects which are marketable or nearly so, rather than the enviroment for new knowledge creation. Every audit attempts to locate, measure and evaluate assets with some potential market value and checks for deviations from accepted processes." Finding deviations KM audit takes place after your organizational knowledge policies and processes are put in place and practices have been established. The audit meaures how faithfully the organization is following these authorized practices, lists departures, suggests revisions, controls and reviews to bring things back in-line. Using audits vs. mapping KM mapping is often done at the start of a major project to collect baseline data, although I think mapping is useful as an on-going exercise. The emphasis is on exploration, discovery and opportunity finding. Knowledge audits are scheduled to value intangibles (intellectual property, social and intellectual capital) and mostly are done on an annual basis, before mergers and acquistions and as part of ‘accounting‘ reviews or strategic due diligence exercises. What exactly is a knowledge map? A knowledge map portrays a perspective of the players, sources, flows, constraints and sinks of knowledge within an organization. It is a navigation aid to both explicit (codified) information and tacit knowledge, showing the importance and the relationships between knowledge stores and the dynamics. The final ‘map‘ can take multiple forms, from a pictorial display to yellowpages directory, to linked topic or concept map, to inventory lists or a matrix of assets against key business processes. Rationale, or why should I bother to map knowledge?
OK then what do I need to map?
It can be very difficult sometimes to quickly identify important knowledge assets because people forget about what they know until they need to know it. Consequently it can be useful to collect stories of how people work to remind others of the knowledge they rely on. This story base provides evidence which helps the knowledge mapper know where to look and what to include in the map. What should I be looking for? This depends on the mapping brief and may vary from recording existing explicit information sources, to understanding complex knowledge flows or evaluating industry competitiveness and innovation. Here is a checklist:
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