A Corporate Knowledge Structure

What if the board of directors could see a picture of the entire corporate knowledge resource and at the same time manipulate it to reveal knowledge risk? What if they could also see common knowledge structures or critical knowledge and more? If they could do this during meetings where corporate decisions are made, then this would represent a significant step forward in corporate management.

But this requires a structure which would be easy to understand and share. It requires a method which would allow constant update of information. It would need to show what people need to know to work effectively. In addition, the same structure would need to be available throughout the business so that decisions made at corporate level could be clearly translated at local level. Changes and updates to the knowledge at local level could alter the overall view which is seen at corporate level.

In other words, what is needed is something which can truly bring that most abstract of concepts, the knowledge that people hold into the open throughout the business. Something like the structure shown in the figure below:

Here a visible knowledge resource lies at the heart of a system which allows contributions to be made to it and information taken from it at all business levels. A Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) maintains overall responsibility for the visible knowledge resource and holds a key position in ensuring information taken from the resource is accessible to the board of directors. The CKO ensures that decisions made about the resource are filtered to all staff with reference to the central structure and that the resource itself is constantly refreshed by staff who value the knowledge they hold.

Such a system, based on KSM, is available. It can be done!