Keel - Knowledge Management

Why Knowledge Management (KM)?

Knowledge Management is a transversal discipline that enables organizations to share the right knowledge with the right people at the right time in order to improve performance.

“The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the knowledge and the ability of its people. The productivity of that capital depends on how effectively people share their competence with those who can use it.” – Andrew Carnegie

Organizations that fail implementing Knowledge Management face common pitfalls, among which: reconstructing the past, reinventing the wheel, repeating the same mistakes, wasting precious time searching for valuable information or looking for the experts, while all needed answers were already available with each departing member.

Practical examples

A senior expert employee can share his knowledge with junior employees to help them learn, improve their skills and be more efficient. This knowledge transfer will improve the support service, and will have a direct impact on clients' satisfaction.

Sharing lessons learned and best practices with the relevant teams helps in optimizing the production quality and delivery, by reducing errors and improving the production cycle. This will reduce production costs, and enhance the global performance of the company.

A short list of Knowledge Management benefits

Strategy

Innovation
Flexibility
Decision-making
Expertise retention
Client satisfaction

Learning

Problem-solving
Improve individual learning
Speed up the learning curve
Facilitate newcomers coaching
Capitalize on existing knowledge

Performance

Reduce support
Reduce errors
Create new knowledge
Improve collaboration
Stop reinventing the wheel

What is knowledge?

Knowledge is often confused with Data and Information. Hereafter are definitions and examples to clarify the difference.

Data is raw content, which by itself has no meaning or value.

A restaurant sales check including two large burgers and two bottles of soft drinks, this is data: if not put into context and understood by the reader, it has no value.

Information is data that was put in context.

For the restaurant manager, the data in the sales check has a meaning: it helps him evaluate and compare the daily sales of burgers and soft drinks.

Knowledge "is information combined with experience, context, interpretation, and reflection. It is a high-value form of information that is ready to apply to decisions and actions" (Davenport et al. 1998).

The daily sales of burgers can be used to take the right decisions and actions, such as predicting the correct amount of bread to purchase. The relationship between the quantity of bread to be ordered, the quantity of bread currently in the inventory, and the daily sales of burgers, this is knowledge.

What is Knowledge Management (KM)?

Knowledge Management is about creating and managing the activities and processes in order to get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time. Knowledge activities help organizations create, store, retain and share their knowledge, and use it in order to improve the performance of the organization.

What is a Knowledge Management System (KMS)?

"KMS is a class of Information Systems which objective is to support construction, sharing and application of knowledge in organizations" (Alavi and Leidner, 1999), and to facilitate Knowledge Management.

How we can help

Awareness

Raise the awareness on the role of knowledge management, as a key success factor and a competitive advantage.

Culture

Create and promote a Knowledge Sharing Culture as part of a Knowledge Management initiative.

Trainings

Give presentations, trainings and workshops on the different phases of Knowledge Management implementation.

Objectives

Set the Knowledge Management objectives, and determine the requirements.

Implementation

Implement Knowledge Management systems and tools adapted to the relevant knowledge activities.

Control

Set measures to assess the impact of Knowledge Management on performance.

About us

Founder and consultant: Pascale Hatem

My experience in Knowledge Management started in 2001 at Murex Services where I contributed to the knowledge management implementation and to the development and implementation of the corporate Knowledge Management System.

My interest and passion for this subject went beyond my professional activities, so I started an executive doctorate program at Dauphine Paris (EDBA) to learn what the scientific studies on Knowledge Management have uncovered and to share my experience on the field with the academic community.

Academic research topics within the EDBA (Executive Doctorate in Business Administration) program at Universite Paris Dauphine:

Knowledge Management, implementation, requirements, tools.
Knowledge Management systems, implementation, contribution to knowledge management.
Communities of practice, Transactive memory systems or simply “who knows what”.

Professional workshops attended on Knowledge Management

KM workshop at Ecole Centrale (Paris 2007).
KM Institute – knowledge manager certification (San Diego March 2014).

Speaker at presentations and seminars

Lebanon Soft Shore Cluster, supported by IRI and ELCIM (Beirut, Ecole Supérieure des Affaires ESA, 2013).
Rotary Club de Beyrouth (Beirut, 2014).

International academic conferences attended

Doctoral seminars at Shanghaï Jian Tong University (SJTU) (Shanghaï, October 2010).
Global Wealth Management Conference, World Expo 2010 (Shanghaï, October 2010).
First International Conference on Engaged Management Scholarship - Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland Ohio, June 2011).
ECIS 2012 20th European Conference on Information Systems - ESADE (Barcelona June, 2012).
IADIS 2013 International Conference Information Systems (Lisbon Portugal, 2013).
KMIKS 2013 Knowledge Management, Information and Knowledge Systems (Hammamet Tunisia, April 2013).
ICIS 2013 International Conference on Information Systems (Milano, 2013).