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Knowledge Flow Analysis to Identify Knowledge Needs for the Design of Knowledge Management Systems and Strategies - A Methodological Approach.
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This paper presents a methodological approach to identify knowledge needs in organizational processes. The methodology is oriented to facilitate obtaining requirements to design knowledge management systems and/or strategies. This approach has been applied for different purposes, including identifying relationships between the knowledge and sources involved in the activities of a process, the mechanisms used for managing knowledge in those processes, and the main problems affecting the flow of knowledge. In order to exemplify the usefulness and applicability of the proposed approach, a case study is described, in which the methodology was successfully applied to analyze a software development group. From this case study different possible solutions to some problems observed in the maintenance process were proposed.
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... Finally, Elias et al. (2007) proposed a methodology to identify and analyze knowledge flows in work processes. Such stages are: ...
In Software Engineering, Knowledge Mapping is a process to discover aspects or meanings through the analysis of relationships between artifacts or people. However, to create a knowledge map, we need a process for capturing and analyzing data, so that we can extract information that reflects those aspects. In this paper, we propose a knowledge mapping process that generates a knowledge map and a set of knowledge profiles considering each mapped member. We developed a new technique by improving existing techniques in literature. In addition, we planned and performed a pilot study in a Research and Development (R&D) group. In this paper, we present our findings regarding the application of the proposed technique and the analysis of the knowledge map for that group. Additionally, we generated links between the knowledge profiles and collected lessons learned for one of the projects that was performed by this R&D group.
... Finally, Elias et al. (2007) proposed a methodology to identify and analyze knowledge flows in work processes. Such stages are: ...
In Enterprise Systems, representing the flow of knowledge may indicate how participants work using their knowledge. Such representation allows the understanding of how knowledge circulates between the development team and improvement opportunities. Knowledge Management supports the management of knowledge through techniques that identify how knowledge behaves in projects. One of these techniques is Knowledge Mapping, which supports representing how participants share their knowledge, which sources of knowledge are consulted and which people it helps during a project. However, to draw up a knowledge map, we need a process for capturing and analyzing data that can extract information that reflect these aspects. This work aims at presenting a process for Knowledge Mapping to develop a map indicating what knowledge the participants used, who or what they accessed and indications of its core competencies. Additionally, this paper discusses a pilot study regarding the application of the proposed process. As a result, we generated a knowledge map for a software engineering research and development group, in which contains a set of profiles and features what the main skills that a participant uses are.
... It is important to comment on the fact that the present case was derived from a study in which the development process of the informatics department was analyzed to identify knowledge flows in order to obtain requirements through which to develop a KM system [65]. This previous study was carried out by following a process engineering based methodology [64]. The study was performed through the modelling of the process to identify the way in which knowledge flows through the process; examples of these models can be found in [63]. ...
This paper presents a framework which can be used to analyze information systems as knowledge flow facilitators in organizational processes. This framework may be useful, particularly to small organizations, for two main reasons: it can help them to start seeing the implications of KM in their current technical infrastructure, and as a result, they should be in a better position to know how to include their current working tools in part of a KM strategy, thus facilitating the alignment of such a strategy to the daily work of the organization. Second, identifying the role that their current tools play in the flow of knowledge should help such organizations to identify means by which to improve such tools as KM enablers, before becoming engaged in costly KM efforts that could require the acquisition of new tools and often also big changes in their current work processes. The applicability of the framework is illustrated with a case study conducted in a software development environment in which it was successfully applied.
Integrating Knowledge Management (KM) in organizational processes has become an important concern in the KM community. Development of methods to accomplish this is still being, however, an open issue. KM should facilitate the flow of knowledge from where it is created or stored, to where it is needed to be applied. Therefore, an initial step towards the integration of KM in organizational processes should be the analysis of the way in which knowledge is flowing in these processes, taking into account the mechanisms that could be affecting (positively or negatively) such a flow. Then the goal will be to propose alternatives to improve the knowledge flow in the analyzed processes. This paper presents the use of the Knowledge Flow Identification (KoFI) methodology as a means to improve a manufacturing process knowledge flow. Since KoFI was initially developed to analyze software processes, in this paper we illustrate how it can also be used in a manufacturing domain. The results of the application of KoFI are also presented, which include the design of a knowledge portal and an initial evaluation from its potential users.
Development of methods to integrate Knowledge Management (KM) in organizational processes is an open issue. KM should facilitate the flow of knowledge from where it is created or stored, to where it is needed to be applied. Therefore, an initial step towards the integration of KM in organizational processes should be the analysis of the way in which knowledge is actually flowing in these processes, and then, to propose alternatives to improve that flow. This paper presents the use of the Knowledge Flow Identification (KoFI) methodology as a means to improve a manufacturing process knowledge flow. Since KoFI was initially developed to analyze software processes, in this paper we illustrate how it can also be used in a manufacturing domain. The results of the application of KoFI are also presented, which include the design of a knowledge portal and an initial evaluation from its potential users.
Knowledge is a key asset in software engineering. Facilitating access to the knowledge that software engineers require for the task at hand can therefore bring many benefits. To accomplish this, it is important to understand how knowledge flows through the organization, to identify problems that may hinder a suitable flow, and to define strategies with which to address them. Process modeling has proved to be a useful technique for analyzing knowledge flows. Traditional process modeling languages do not, however, provide primitives to explicitly represent the knowledge involved in the processes within the models. In this paper, we illustrate how the Software Process Engineering Metamodel (SPEM) can be adapted, to be used as a process modeling language for analyzing knowledge flows in software processes. We have extended SPEM to represent knowledge and its sources in process models in an explicit way. We also discuss the experiences obtained from using this extension in a software organization and the lesson we have learned from it.
This article proposes a framework for assessing knowledge management system (KMS) success models. The framework uses three criteria: how well the model fits actual KMS success factors, the degree to which the model has a theoretical foundation, and if the model can be used for both types of KMSs. The framework is then applied to four KMS success models found in the literature and is determined to be a useful framework for assessing KMS success models.
Knowledge sharing is a collective process where the people involved collaborate with others in order to learn from them (Huysman & de Wit, 2000). This kind of collaboration creates groups of people with common interest called communities of practice where each member contributes knowledge about a common domain (Wenger, 1998). Communities of practice enable its members to benefit from the knowledge of each other (Fontaine & Millen, 2004). To achieve this, different techniques and technologies can be used, such as shared documentation, groupware tools, lessons learned systems, and so forth. Therefore, to increase and improve knowledge sharing in communities of practice, it is important to study the mechanisms used by a particular community and understand how the knowledge flows through its members (Guizzardi, Perini & Dignum, 2003). This article presents a qualitative approach for studying and understanding how knowledge flows in communities of practice within organizations. The goal is to provide a methodological guide for obtaining useful information for the development of knowledge management tools for supporting knowledge flows in these communities. The content of the article is organized as follows. First the importance of supporting knowledge flows in communities of practice is highlighted. Then, a qualitative methodology for identifying knowledge flows in communities of practice is described, followed by some examples from a study conducted in the field of software maintenance. Finally, we present our conclusions of this work and future research.
The need for an eective management of knowledge is gaining increasing recognition in today's economy. To acknowledge this fact, new promising and powerful technologies have emerged from industrial and academic research. With these innova- tions maturing, organizations are more and more willing to adapt such new knowledge management technologies to improve their knowledge intensive businesses. However, the successful application in given business contexts is a complex, multidimensional challenge and a current research topic. Therefore, this contribution addresses this chal- lenge and introduces a framework for the development of business process-supportive, technological knowledge infrastructures. While business processes represent the organi- zational setting for the application of knowledge management technologies, knowledge infrastructures represent a concept that can enable knowledge management in organiza- tions. The B-KIDE Framework introduced in this work provides support for the devel- opment of knowledge infrastructures that comprise innovative knowledge management functionality and are visibly supportive of an organization's business processes. The developed B-KIDE Tool eases the application of the B-KIDE Framework for knowledge infrastructure developers. Three empirical studies that were conducted with industrial partners from heterogeneous industry sectors corroborate the relevance and viability of the introduced concepts.
The modern enterprise depends upon timely and effective flows of knowledge through its organizations for success. But knowledge is not evenly distributed through the enterprise, and a dearth of information systems is available to enable such timely and effective flows. Further, the few theoretical knowledge-flow models available have not yet been developed to a point where they can effectively inform the design of information systems and business processes to support knowledge flow in the enterprise. A survey of current practice shows that such system and process design is accomplished principally by trial and error, one of the least effective approaches known. The research described in this article builds upon and extends current theory about knowledge flow. It focuses in particular on investigating flow dynamics to inform the design of information systems and business processes to enhance the flow of knowledge through the enterprise. Leveraging the good understanding of flows in other domains, we strive to extend theory that can lead to "devices" of considerable utility in the enterprise knowledge domain. The result is a four-dimensional, dynamic model that can be used to classify and visualize a diversity of knowledge-flow patterns through the enterprise. These patterns can, in turn, be analyzed to inform the design of useful information systems and business processes. The implications of this dynamic model are explored and a number of hypotheses are generated to motivate and guide future research into the phenomenology of knowledge flow.
This article describes the PROMOTE® approach, to define and implement a Service-Based Enterprise Knowledge Management System (E-KMS) that has been developed during the EC-funded project PROMOTE (IST-1999-11658). The aim is to define a modelling language that is used to analyse, document and implement an E-KMS on the basis of so-called Knowledge Management Processes (KMPs). KMPs define the knowledge interaction between knowledge workers in a process-oriented manner and consists of activities that are supported by knowledge management key actions (KA) like searching, categorising or storing information. These knowledge management key actions are supported by Knowledge Management Services (KM-Service). The prototype of PROMOTE® is briefly mentioned to discuss the KMP-models and the service based E-KMS. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.