Knowledge Management - The Connection Between Knowledge and Context

Lichtenfeld
Mar 1, 2003
3 min read

Updated: Jun 22

Digital icons: lightbulb, binary code, graph, calendar, pie chart, and checkmark, on blue background. Text: "CONTEXT INFORMATION".

What is the connection?

Knowledge = Understanding the meaning of information/events/processes

Do I need knowledge to manage?

The more a manager understands/knows, the better their ability to make fast and good decisions with less information becomes.

Managers without domain knowledge will struggle to make accurate and timely decisions without exposure to all the relevant information. In contrast, experienced managers will be able to make the right and fast decision with very little information.

Why do organizations need knowledge?

Organizations that make decisions through existing information systems face a difficult problem: the availability of information and the ease with which competing organizations can obtain it puts everyone on the same level playing field and doesn't allow experienced organizations with "knowledge" to leverage their advantage. An experienced and knowledgeable organization needs to leverage its knowledge to act more quickly and accurately, staying ahead of its competitors. Additionally, it must preserve its advantage by passing on the knowledge embedded within it to future generations by embedding it in work processes and business "culture."

I already have information systems, why invest in knowledge systems?

The organization's information systems are primarily concerned with facts: who is the customer, what did they purchase, when did they make the purchase, and how much did it cost them? How much inventory do I have? The systems don't deal with understanding the existential questions for the organization: why did they buy from me? How much inventory should I hold? How to price the product?

What's the problem?

Information systems reflect business processes, but don't allow for preserving knowledge around the process. The knowledge resides with experts and isn't embedded in the work process. Information systems typically operate in a specific domain, such as customers, orders, inventory, and human resources, and don't provide a continuous and comprehensive picture of the business process.

Need to find a way for everything to talk to everything!

Need to find a way to preserve and distribute relevant knowledge during the work process. Need to find a way to connect knowledge to information and to the systems that operate business processes (Line of Business). Need to enable the manager and organization to see a comprehensive and continuous picture of the process or event.

For example, suppose we have information about orders and inventory in our ERP system. As an advanced organization, we also have customer information in our CRM system, and we utilize a BI (Business Intelligence) solution that enables us to view and report on various consumption trends.

How do we connect the relationship between exceptional order quantities (detected from BI reports) to exceptional pricing that resulted from excess inventory that came from a specific customer who just won a lucrative government contract? There is no system in place for us to report the conclusions from such an event or even the story of the event as it unfolded. This way, it'll happen that the next time there's a similar event, we'll need to investigate and coordinate again, which will take time and increase the risk of analysis errors.

What do we do?

Need to enable preserving connections between transactions, customers, products, employees, processes, and events, as well as allow specifying details about the connection to ensure that all knowledge, the context, is preserved. After capturing knowledge, it must be consumed in the context of relevant entities, both through general search and by embedding it in work processes.

Connecting existing entities to describe context:

Four labeled boxes: Contact, Partner, Deal, Partnership Agreement. Each box has descriptive text. Thin green borders, white background.

How do we do it?

Understand the essence of the problem.
Identify the business entities we want to connect.
Identify the contexts relevant to business processes.
Embed the knowledge capture and refinement processes into the organization's work processes using an appropriate technological system.
Continue to advance and refresh knowledge of processes through a supportive organizational culture, technological improvements, and the creation of competitiveness.