Knowledge strategies for managers in a networked world

Abstract

As our world becomes more complex and information-rich, the effort needed to share and create knowledge is increasing greatly. Transformation from Industrial Age to Information Age organizations is not simple. But there are strategies managers can use and emulate, to make their organizations more successful in sharing and creating new knowledge, to achieve better performance. Knowledge loss is a significant issue. Demographics may cause the "first-of-type" implementation pioneers to retire, or events such as those of Fall 2001 may cause people to be no longer available -- or no longer able to reach their knowledge support systems, as seen when anthrax attacks closed Congressional offices for weeks. Strategies can be implemented for the different kinds of knowledge -- explicit knowledge, meta knowledge, and tacit knowledge. Processes can be used to enhance knowledge sharing, extending the number of people who know and reducing the risk of loss. The US Army is a learning organization which has spent the past decade becoming "knowledge centric and network centric." Techniques, processes and knowledge lessons learned are presented, including a case study of the Project Management Office for Bradley Fighting Vehicle Systems, as it transformed its people, organization, and vehicles being developed from Industrial Age to internet-work Information Age systems. Rather than focusing on knowledge management, which has become synonymous with archiving what is already known into digital databases, I am focused on the strategies real-world managers can use for knowledge. The goal is to help the organization achieve better performance by sharing knowledge. Technology can help, when supporting instead of driving the goals. Networking, both in person and virtually, can overcome the isolation of knowledge. Many of my examples tap into the experiences I had or observed in the US Army product development community -- but I believe they are valuable and generalizable to other high- performance organizations. "Hope is not a method" -- knowledge sharing is a better technique.