KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION

Vladimír Bureš

Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Rokitanskeho 62, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic

Keywords: Knowledge management, Implementation, Methodology, Czech Republic, KM-Beat-It.

Abstract: Recently, knowledge management (KM) has become a very popular business concept. Unfortunately, there

are still problems connected with the incorporation of KM into an organisation in the Czech Republic.

Examples of these problems are a lack of utilisable methodologies of KM implementation in the Czech

Republic that are described in sufficient details, strong technological orientation of KM implementation,

different perception of KM by different people, where KM is mostly substituted by information

technologies, absence of methodologies that would take into consideration of a specific business and culture

environment in the Czech Republic, etc. That is why, a new methodology was developed at the Faculty of

Informatics and Management at the University of Hradec Kralove. This paper briefly describes the situation

of KM in the Czech Republic and basic features of the methodology KM-Beat-It.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, many organisations focus their attention

on KM with the hope of better competitiveness or

performance. Unfortunately, most companies with

successful KM are huge organisations like BP

Amoco, British Airways or Chevron as it is

described for example in (Ahmed, 2002). In the

Czech Republic there is also an endeavour to

implement KM in several organisations. The

government of the Czech Republic has integrated

knowledge aspects in to basic strategic documents as

a reaction to the so called “Lisbon Strategy”

(Council, 2000). In spite of this effort, successful

implementation of KM is still very sporadic. That is

why, a new methodology, with the purpose to

improve this situation, was created.

2 SITUATION IN THE CZECH

REPUBLIC

On a national level, the Czech business environment

has very appropriate conditions and opportunities to

work with knowledge assets and knowledge as an

important organisations’ resource. The current

situation, in the best way, is visible in the

Programme Declaration of the Government of the

Czech Republic, the Strategy of the economic

growth of the Czech Republic, the Strategy of the

development of human resources for the Czech

Republic or the Strategy of the Government of the

Czech Republic in the EU framework.

The Programme Declaration of the Government

of the Czech Republic mentions the importance of

knowledge in the second part that is related to basic

aims and priorities. It is written here that “…the

Government will help within the framework of the

European model to develop the Czech Republic as a

democratic and modern social State with advanced

market economy based on knowledge and able to

guarantee stable economic growth…” (Paroubek,

2005). This strategic document also pays attention in

one chapter to information and knowledge society.

When the Strategy of the economic growth of the

Czech Republic was published, it evoked

discussions that were conducted by many people

from many fields. The evidence can be the huge

number of articles published in journals and

newspapers or reports in different mediums.

Interesting is the knowledge orientation of this

document that is supported for example by the first

chapter with the title “Czech Republic – knowledge-

technological centre of Europe with growing living

standard and high employment” (Jahn, 2005). This

document also suggests to “…support the creation of

centres for KM and its education at universities and

public research institutions” (Jahn, 2005).

115

Bureš V. (2006).

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND ITS IMPLEMENTATION.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and

e-Government / e-Learning, pages 115-118

DOI: 10.5220/0001241401150118

 SciTePress

Although the national level seems to create

suitable conditions for Czech companies, the

organisational level of KM is still very weak in

achieved results. Only three problems as examples

will be introduced. Firstly, case studies in literature

highlight successful KM implementation in different

organisations. As already mentioned, many of them

are great companies with turnovers in millions of US

dollars. Such companies have usually only their

subsidiaries in the Czech Republic. The vast

majority of Czech companies are small or medium

size enterprises. Therefore, experiences and the best

practices available in these case studies are usually

very difficult to utilise. Secondly, KM is generally

perceived in different ways. The Czech business

environment is not an exception. Different

perceptions cause problems in communication and

cooperation. Regrettably, these perceptions are

usually based on substitution of a complex KM by

partial technological solutions. Of course,

technological support is necessary, however, KM is

not only about implementing advanced technologies.

The last problem is connected with implementation

of KM in single organisations. There is a lack of the

methodologies of KM implementation available in

the Czech Republic. Organisations have to either

utilise expensive services provided by consultant

companies, or if they want to implement KM

without any external help, use foreign

methodologies created in different environments

with different conditions. These methodologies

either do not reflect the needs and specificity of

Czech companies or are mostly not described in full

details with sufficient guidelines.

3 KM-BEAT-IT

To overcome these and other obstacles, a new

methodology called KM-Beat-It was created. The

design of the methodology was based on the detailed

analysis of existing methodologies (e.g. A. Tiwana’s

KM Toolkit, K. Wiig’s building blocks, Y.G. Kim’s

P2-KSP, Standardized KM Implementation,

APQC’s Road Map, M. McElroy’s K-Stream,

Ibermatica’s methodology, On-To-Knowledge,

PRORAD, CORMA, Nabla Per Partes, etc). The

process of creation was composed from several

stages. Activities that were performed in these stages

were, for example, the analysis of existing

definitions of KM, the identification of particular

strengths and weaknesses of existing methodologies

or the definition of basic attributes, which should be

possessed by the new methodology.

3.1 Particular Phases and Activities

The KM-Beat-It consists of several phases. The

description of every phase comprises of the main

goal, purpose and content, basic prerequisites of

initiation, a criteria of completion, key documents,

critical success factors, and activities and

relationship of these activities. It is obvious from

this description that every phase consists of several

activities. Since KM-Beat-It works with this level of

resolution, there is also the brief specification of a

single activity including the main goal and

description, inputs, outputs and examples of

utilisable methods, techniques and tools. In the

following paragraphs, there is a brief outline of

single phases. Detailed desctiption with resasoning

or concrete examples can be found in (Bureš, 2005).

Assembly of a realisation team is the initial

phase of the KM-Beat-It methodology. The main

objective of this phase is to acquire the support of

the top management and/or owners of the

organisation and assembly of a realisation team, that

will deal with, and will be responsible for the whole

process of KM implementation. In this phase, it is

necessary to conduct the following activities: 1)

creation of an interest about KM by top management

and/or owners of the organisation, 2) weighing up of

the real possibilities and capabilities to start up the

process of KM implementation, 3) decision about

implementation of KM, 4) nomination of team

members from the top management, employees and

external environment, 5) explanation of the presence

of single team members and definition of their team

role, and 6) definition of time of employment for

each member.

Analysis of the initial state is the second phase.

The main objective of this phase is to create an

integrated view on the current state in the

organisation from KM perspective and specification

of its strengths and weaknesses. The phase of

analysis of initial state comprises of the following

basic activities: 1) creation of a survey of knowledge

resources, 2) description of knowledge comprised in

identified knowledge resources, 3) definition of

knowledge processes, 4) analysis of current state of

knowledge processes in an organisation, 5)

description of organisational processes, 6) finding

out the current state of organisational culture, 7)

linkage of acquired results, and 8) analysis of

strengths and weaknesses of the current state in an

organisation.

The third phase is a creation of a knowledge

strategy. The main objective of this phase is to

create a knowledge strategy that will support the

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business strategy and identify particular knowledge

activities, which will support the achievement of

business and KM goals. It is necessary to conduct

these activities: 1) definition of a required state (i.e.

KM goals), 2) comparison of the current and

required state and identification of main gaps, 3)

creation of the list of KM activities, 4) selection of

activities, 5) elaboration of plans and projects, 6)

creation of a knowledge strategy, and 7)

identification of KM metrics and their relations to

the system of organisation’s metrics.

The last phase is a realisation of KM activities.

The main objective of this phase is to conduct

different activities, projects or plans leading to KM.

It is obvious that these activities will differ in their

amount, forms, time and resource requirements,

orientation, or particular objectives that should be

achieved in every organisation. The order of their

realisation will depend on the priorities assigned in

the previous phase. As examples of activities, they

can be named as creation of a motivational program,

establishing of a CKO (knowledge manager),

implementation of intranet knowledge portal,

changes in position and content of human resources

management, the start of communities of practices,

the implementation of an expert or knowledge

system, adjustment in working places descriptions,

identification of social and individual barriers of

knowledge sharing, training of employees, etc. The

main mutual goal should be quantitative and

qualitative changes in a current state of knowledge

resources and implementation or support of

knowledge processes.

All activities in single phases are depicted in

figure 1. It is possible to see all the iterations and

loops among activities. The relative width of the

rectangle refers to the time needed to perform the

acitivity. These time estimations are only

approximations due to different needs and

conditions in every organisation. This principle can

not be followed only in the last phase because of

diversity of possible activities.

Utilisation of KM-Beat-It methodology is the

first step on the long journey to KM. Obviously, it is

necessary to go back to the beginning of the

methodology after realisation of all phases and

perform more cycles, i.e. conduct all the phases

again. Otherwise, all the used resources were

consumed for no purpose. The aim of the first cycle

is to “allow things to move”. Only other performed

cycles lead to desirable changes. In this way,

continuous KM is secured in organisation.

Therefore, continuous KM is presented by its

neverending introduction. Naturally, with relation to

the extent of implementation of KM, the existence of

particular phases, along with their content will

change in subsequent cycles.

3.2 Benefits of KM-Beat-It

Although existing methodologies have strong points

and are utilised in practice, they contain several

weaknesses that were identified during the process

of their analysis. Examples can be orientation on

particular areas of organisational activities (e.g. new

product development), strong focus on technological

solutions, dependence on pilot project and

consequent interest of other departments based on

acquired results, creation of a realisation team when

the process of implementation is already in progress

or absence of an attention paid to organisational

culture. In comparison to these weaknesses the KM-

Beat-It methodology brings new benefits and

advantages. Among these it is possible to find for

example:

Figure 1: Phases and activities of KM-Beat-It.

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 KM-Beat-It fulfils general requirements on

methodologies or requirements posed on

methodologies of KM implementation (e.g.

McElroy, 2004);

 complexity – KM-Beat-It pays attention to all

KM perspectives as descibed by (Beckman,

1999) and is not based only on a technological

perspective; KM-Beat-It assumes the utilisation

of information, communication or knowledge

technologies, but does not rely on them;

 attention focused on an organisational culture

and its influence on success of KM realisation;

 linkage with economical aspects and business

objectives;

 possibility to use existing conventional methods,

techniques and tools; KM-Beat-It is not based on

specialised tools that are not common nowadays;

 applicability by medium and small enterprises

that usually do not take the effort to implement

KM nowadays;

 generality, i.e. KM-Beat-It did not originate in

the context of any organisation or branch of

industry;

 deployment of both approaches to KM

realisation, i.e. “top-down” that is used at the

beginning of KM implementation, and “bottom-

up” that can be used in further cycles of this

process;

 openness – every methodology should be able to

absorb new findings and knowledge in its own

domain; KM-Beat-It fulfils this requirement;

 discretion in the realisation phase, where the

users are not pushed to any activities that could

be useless (e.g. unnecessary investments to

information and communication technologies).

4 FUTHER RESEARCH

According to (Řepa, 1999), every methodology has

its own life cycle consisting of development,

implementation, utilisation and further expansion,

and replacement (either by new methodology or by a

newer version). The first important step has been

done. Now, it is necessary to continue and

implement this methodology in selected Czech

organisations. Therefore, other improvements and

adjustments of the KM-Beat-It are not planned on a

theoretical level. They will be performed in the third

stage of the life cycle, i.e. during an accommodation

of a little bit more general methodology to specific

needs of concrete organisations. Also, there is no

reason for an increasing of a level of resolution that

is compassed in the methodology, i.e. dividing every

activity into detail steps. The purpose of a new

methodology is not to describe the implementation

process in all details and in all possible variants. The

main purpose is to stress all the significant aspects

and principles and focus on the process of

implementation from the beginning to the end.

Methodology does not have to be detailed but

complete.

5 CONCLUSION

There are several problems with implementation of

KM in the Czech Republic. One problem is also a

lack of published details that would describe

available methodologies of KM implementation in a

sufficient way. Therefore, the new methodology was

created. Now, the effectiveness of this methodology

has to be proved by its usage in and accommodation

to a concrete organisation.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper was supported by AMIMEDES the

GAČR project No. 402/06/1325.

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