All entries for Monday 23 June 2014

Difficulties with knowledge sharing

This blog stems from my practical experiences on this module along with information I have read. I think myself and my classmates know all about knowledge sharing methodologies now, and what the benefits of sharing knowledge are. I have read information about the difficulties of sharing knowledge, the main one being creating the right culture for people to actively seek and share knowledge. Several issues I have read in different articles are:

• people don't understand knowledge and any variation
• people don't value knowledge

These theories make sense to me. The stereotypical image I have in my head, which Paul has helped portrayed to me during class, is a big shot CEO sitting in his office with a massive chart indiciating monthly production, but having no idea why this month is 20% lower than the previous month. Knowledge is meaningless if it is not understood. All the knowledge sharing programmes, all the effort to create a culture to facilitate knowledge would be redundant if no one understood what the knowledge and data available means. The reason of variation is a most important aspect of understanding and using knowledge.

Secondly, people don't value knowledge. Paul has illustrated how Lessons Learned documents were used as door stops in organisations he has worked with. I think this has again been prevelant at times during my studies. Blogging is obviously a way of sharing and accessing knowledge, but how many of us can hand on heart say they have used this facility to its maximum potential? I know that I have not. Whilst the further the degree has progressed, the more I have begun to understand the benefits of blogging. I, like a lot of my classmates, viewed blogging as a bit of a chore at the start. Now though I feel I understand the rational and benefit to be had from blogging and reading of other people's blogs.

I think Miriam illustrated this point of MBE students not valuing knowledge inadvertently in one of her blogs. She raised the idea of having a Lessons Learned page for MBE students, but isn't this what blogging should be? It's a good idea, but if everyone was proactively blogging and reading other people's blogs this environment, or at least one of a knowledge network, would have been created.

Benjamin Roberts : 23 Jun 2014 16:29 |  Tags: Kbam |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem