Building a Knowledge Management System

What Is Knowledge Management?

Businesses profit from knowledge and so knowledge, and data, are considered an asset. Assets need to be managed and protected in order to sustain and grow a business. Knowledge is managed to make sure everyone is working from the same, accurate set of parameters, sharing information and learning and documenting their experience. There is not one way to build a knowledge management system. Each business must delve into the process of building its own knowledge management system.

Knowledge Management System Structures

An organization's overall objectives are what steer the building of a management system---innovation, performance, the desire for improvement and the need to document. Business processes, training personnel in those processes and initiatives surrounding processes should also be examined and incorporated. There are several management perspectives that are being used when designing these systems. Structures can center around technology (hardware, databases and particular software needs), organizational charts (departmental structures and how they might relate and assist one another), or what is being called an ecological approach (examines how employees interact instead of departments).

Core Components

Although perspectives or philosophies about structure are important to examine, there are core components that anchor the building of a knowledge management system. Those include people (employees, vendors, customers), processes (accounting, procurement, sales, fulfillment), culture (attitudes, goals, values, practices), structure (entity relationships), and technology (machines, computers, transmission of data). A knowledge management philosophy might emphasize each component differently.

Mapping Knowledge Management

Some components may outweigh others in the data they require and generate. Some may actually overlap. By mapping businesses processes, the interaction of core components will be better understood. Mapping involves diagramming a business (from what comes in the door of the business, what happens while it is there, and what form it is in when it leaves) and thereby creating an overall map of daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly processes.

What Tools Are Required?

Knowledge management systems must be available at all times. Databases are often at the core of many knowledge systems. Large companies incorporate products from Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and other companies that design integrated software for data management. Software applications that interact with the databases can be custom designed or purchased off the shelf and modified to reflect a set of business processes. But the development of a knowledge management system goes far deeper than the software tools used to facilitate it. A commitment to understanding how the business works and what best benefits that business must be understood before choosing software.