While Knowledge Management continues to be surrounded by hype in the corporate world, HARSH KUMAR feels that the solutions being offered are either too idealistic or too simplistic. He wants knowledge management solutions to take into consideration the practicalities and realities of the real working world

It is very difficult to say whether the buzzword ‘Knowledge Management’ is at the peak of the wave or has crossed it. It’s a term frequently use by most IT professionals, consultants, vendors and companies. No doubt, each one of them understands it a bit differently than the other, but it is certain that most of them have a very definite view on it.

Extreme thinking
On one extreme we have people who think that data, information and knowledge are synonymous, and that as long as one has raw data, knowledge can be extracted. I recently attended a seminar where this view was propounded by the chief guest and supported and furthered by the other speakers as well. On the other extreme, as elaborated in the next paragraph, we have people who think that knowledge is something that exists in a clearly definable frame and can easily be identified by the ‘Gurus’ in the consulting firm, by the vendor, or by the organisation seeking the solution, and made available to everyone for access and utilisation whenever needed. Most of us will realise that both these extreme views are incorrect and infeasible in practical situations. I am sure that I am not alone in this thinking and that there are a number of others like me who would vouch for the fact that the situations in the real world require a very different approach.

The other day I met a “KM Professional”. Believe me, there are a number of people who are totally convinced that they belong to this elite group. He postulated a tenet that I had read many years earlier stated in relation to science—what you cannot quantify and define does not exist. I believe that the thinking in the physical science world too has since changed, but it seems that the world had not changed much for this professional. He said that if you cannot clearly identify and articulate what knowledge is, then “you do not have it and you do not know it”. I wanted to tell him bluntly that the real world was not that simple and wanted to point out to him the blinkers that he was wearing, for he did not recognise ‘tacit’ knowledge at all. However, I adopted a softer approach and tried to explain to him the problems with his line of thinking. Despite my best efforts, I failed to help him identify and do away with the blinkers. I did not want to give up, so I suggested that once he reached home he should try and cook an exotic dish after reading the recipe in a cookbook—a ‘repository of knowledge’—and then try eating what he cooked.

Like with cooking, most sensible professionals will tell you that in a working environment knowledge is not merely confined to the books, manuals, reports and data. It is spread across the organisation and is with a number of working people who may or may not be able to sit and write down all they thought was knowledge. However, given a situation, they would clearly be able to identify knowledge and indicate how and from where it could be acquired, and how to apply it to the situation to get the desired results. Anyone attempting a solution for KM in the real world must understand this and accept that knowledge is often identified, acquired, assimilated and applied in a very different manner altogether than the assumptions made in the ‘Guru’ approach.

The Guru approach
Unfortunately, the professional I had referred to above is not alone. Like him, most of the vendors and consultants who offer Knowledge Management solutions assume that a small group in the organisation will know what knowledge is and their job would only be to digitise it and keep it in such a manner that it could be accessed by the users in a secure and convenient way. This is the essence of the Guru approach, and represents its biggest failing. They do not realise that what they are offering is not a solution for Knowledge Management but just an Information Management system.

The solution offered is often a mere variant of an efficient library management system. The attempts of most of the companies operating in this space fall far short of the need. If they want to be effective, they will have to offer efficient systems to ensure that the knowledge is captured from the normal working, quite like it happens in real life. This will then have to be offered in the context of the work so that it is taken cognisance of and applied for advantage. Till this happens, the attempts of most of the companies offering to provide KM solutions can be summed up as attempts to sell old wine in new bottles through the same old salesman using new jargon.

Harsh Kumar is Advisor - IT at Hindustan Petroleum. He can be contacted at harshkumar@hpcl.co.in