KnowledgeMapping

An ongoing joint quest to help discover the constraints, assumptions, location, ownership, value and use of knowledge artifacts, people and their expertise, blocks to knowledge creation, and opportunities to leverage existing knowledge.

Mapping is a important knowledge practice consisting of education, discovery, survey, audit and synthesis. It aims to track the loss and acquisition of information & knowledge, personal and group competencies and proficiencies, show knowledge flows, appreciate the influence on intellectual capital due to staff loss, assist with team selection and technology matching. This is different from a Knowledge Audit KmAudit which measures and values marketable knowledge assets. Started by DenhamGrey, March 1999

The knowledge map portrays the sources, flows, constraints and sinks of knowledge within an organization. It is a navigation aid to both explicit (codified) information and tacit knowledge, showing the importance and the relationships between knowledge stores and the dynamics.

See sources, flows, and sinks of knowledge between I/T workers in this organization: http://www.orgnet.com/experts.html

• Find key sources and constraints to knowledge creation and flows.
• Encourage re-use and prevent re-invention, saving search time and acquisition costs
• Highlight island of expertise and suggest ways to build bridges to increase knowledge sharing
• Discover effective and emergent communities of practice where learning is happening
• Provide a baseline for measuring progress with KM projects
• Reduce the burden on experts by helping staff to find critical information quickly
• Improve customer response, decision making and problem solving by providing access to applicable information
• Highlight opportunities for learning and leverage of knowledge through distinguishing the unique meaning of 'knowledge' within that organization
• Provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual and intangible assets
• Research for designing a knowledge architecture or a corporate memory

• Location, ownership, validity, timeliness, domain, sensitivity, access rights, storage medium, use statistics, medium and channels used
• Documents, files, systems, policies, directories, competencies, relationships, authorities
• Boundary objects, knowledge artifacts, stories, heuristics, patterns, events, practices, activities and flows
• Explicit and tacit knowledge which is closely linked to strategic drivers, core competencies and market intelligence
• Portray both the codified and the informal stuff, highlight constraints, assumptions, policies, culture, bottlenecks, brokers, repositories and boundary spanners.

• Newsfeeds, contact addresses, network transactions, helpdesks, patent registers, corporate libraries & HR databases, warrantee claims, LAN directory structures, record & document archives, process descriptions, push profiles, meta-data directory, social network patterns, customer notes. Locate the 'mavens', off the radar databases on individual harddrives, check for coporate membership of industry SIGs and thinktanks.

If you are going to be collecting the data, it may be the wrong approach. The art of knowledge mapping is to coach the staff into discovering their own issues, gaps and opportunities. The knowledge mapping exercise needs to be combined with an awareness of what knowledge is, why it is important and how one goes about observing knowledge related behavior and collecting the necessary information. The central idea is to work with the staff to help them to build a joint picture of their expectations of each other (practices), discover knowledge assets and surface constraints. This very different from constructing an interview instrument, fitting your model and delivering a picture back to the firm See Quick & Gavin "The next frontier: Edgard Schein on organizational therapy" Academy of Management Executive 2000 14 (1) 31-48.

• Avoid questionnaires!: http://denham.typepad.com/km/2003/09/mapping_knowled.html
• Coach and model, ask targeted questions, help them decipher the picture for themselves, work as a team to discover the knowledge.
• Explain your logic, provide a framework, keep the process transparent
• Avoid the questionnaire solution: it separates you from the staff, throws up a wall when you need a table to dialog around.
• Observe the work in progress, seek the tacit assumptions that direct & control knowledge flows
• Track bounday objects BoundaryObject
• Obtain the network traffic logs
• Explore the common and individual file structures
• Gather policy documents, organizational charts, process documentation
• Concentrate on formal & informal gatherings, communication and activities
• Move across multiple levels (individual, group, department, organization)
• Gather from internal & external sources
• Collaborative forecasting, MG Taylor style: http://kmmag.com/kmmagn2/km199904/smarta1.htm

• Compile YellowPages, register of boundary objects and templates, record promising heuristics & best practices
• Construct a proto ontology, explore re-use opportunities, look for learning points, identify natural knowledge stewards, gatekeepers, isolated islands, narrow communication channels, informal communities
• Map, flows, sequencies, dependencies, personal relationships. Check for network patterns, critical nodes, high traffic, highly valuable information
• Write your report providing feedback on the objectives and supporting data in the appendices (interview transcripts, boundary object register, file structure, concept maps, ontology, knowledge maps)
• Consider your next move. Knowledge mapping is often conducted in phases: overview to uncover opportunities, details to drill down to specifics or to cover different departments, locations of functional groups.

• Knowledge mapping is more about inquiry, education and relationship building than about charting or documentation
• Coach, model and share your knowledge about identifying, finding, tracking, discovering, surfacing knowledge in all its forms
• Recognize and jointly locate knowledge in a wide variety of forms: tacit / implicit / explicit, formal & informal, codified & personalized, internal & external, short life cycle & permanent, even heuristics.
• Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context. Your suppliers, competitors and customers have it too!
• Be aware of organizational level and aggregation, cultural issues and reward systems, timeliness, sharing and value, legal process and protection (patents, trade secrets, trade marks, NDAs)
• Remember to obtain & explain the sanction, establish boundaries, respect personal disclosures, knowledge is transient and very colosely tied to individual and group identity.

• What type of knowledge is needed to do your work?
• Who provides it, where do you get it, how does it arrive?
• What do you do, how do you add value, what are the critical issues?
• What happens when you are finnished?
• How can the knowledge flow be improved, what is preventing you doing more, better, faster?
• What would make your work easier?
• Who do you go to when there is a problem?

• YellowPages give the fastest and highest ROI
• Who knows whom is key. (And the most likely to get organized resistance from formal knowledge gathering - people are protective of their friends....emv 010419)
• Knowledge types: FAQ, heuristics, best practices, lessons learned, solutions to common problems, product, market & process knowledge, decision rationale

• Building relationships and educating is the key to making knowledge mapping a discovery rather than an intervention
• A useful way to get a 'foot in the door'. Knowledge mapping can be offered as training, as an information seminar, as an introductory 'free' service
• Helps you to understand the client's needs, gaps, opportunities and competitive leverage at a very fundamental level
• Associated with a major trickle-down effect. There are opportunities for further services in architectural design, specialized KM practices, implementation and culture change
• After completion, you can offer a followup survey to chart progress, send the client information on new tools or offer a benchmarking report

• Helpdesk and customer service
• Data & text mining with data marts, OLAP and other backups\
• Intranets
• Conversation servers
• Groupware and workflow
• Virtual communities, psychographics and e-commerce
• Corporate intelligence, push and scanning applications
• Setting up an integrated knowledge architecture (messenging, repository, documents, discussion, publishing)
• Dedicated KM tools, search engines, text & data visualization
• Training in systems thinking, creative thinking, on-line facilitation
• Technical documentation to clean and abstract critical documents & presenations
• Specialized knowledge engineering services: corporate memory, heuristics, expert systems, ontology development, concept extraction, knowledge structuring, patterns, communities of practice, customer capital, IC management.

BOs are a special group of knowledge object because they cross organizational boundaries and carry meaning, they serve as both containers and carriers. It is around BOs that Communities of Practice (CoPs) are gathered. BOs are 'used' by members of different communities in very different ways, although the representation is shared. BOs are an important class of knowledge artifacts, they are associated with process, meaning, alignment and reification. They are center stage in dynamics of knowledge exchange. When you are identifying & tracking BOs be aware of issues aroound translation, closure, context, shared meaning. BOs are also know as CISs (common information spaces). Here is an interesting article on the subject (a little theoretical): http://www.ul.ie/~idc/library/papersreports/LiamBannon/ECSCW.htm

Examples:

A library catalog, an order entry process, travel assistance request form, an organizational knowledge map,i.e. one of the products from your knowledge mapping project!

Mapping BOs:

• Gather the name (this may change from community to community)
• Describe and record the roles and responsibilities around the BO
• Map the workflow, the path and sequence from node to node
• Look for authorities, signoffs, trigger events, deviation procedures.
• Check for learning points.
• Record your findings in the BO register and on the knowledge map.

• 1) It is not a personally sensitive area, gives you time to meet the staff on neutral ground.
• 2) BOs quickly highlight, bottlenecks, repositories and communities of practice.
• 3) Prepares the way for the more detailed personal interviews, you already have an understanding of the main objects, i.e., 'what' the staff are working with. Documents are more than text: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue1/documents/index.html

The failure with most information surveys is they forget or ignore the people involved. We recognise the central role that people play in knowledge management by taking particular trouble to document their roles. Our strategy is to move from boundary objects to 'who knows who' and end with 'who knows what'. This logical progression helps the whole k. mapping process.

The 'yellow pages' or expertise directory is often regarded as the heart of a knowledge mapping exercise. It yields the fastest and in most cases the largest ROI (return on investment) of all the k. mapping activities. You may be requested to map the people first or only to do this activity.

Mapping people:

• Make this a joint discovery rather than an inquisition
• 1) Start with middle management, they are the most connect staff in the firm.
• 2) Ask questions to elicit whom they interact with, how often, what is exchanged, how they get feedback, where their work and directions come from and whom they are responible to and deliver to.
• 3) Concentrate on people and relationships (who knows who), look at internal and external, look for strong relationships that span organizational levels (gatekeepers)
• 4) Record perceptions of how connected the target person is (to elicit weak links)
• 5) Pay attention to roles and people 'who know why' (locates tacit knowledge and organization memory)
• 6) Ask staff if they 'know where' start with your list of BOs (locates repositories)
• 7) End by asking them if they 'know how or what' (to elicit personal competencies) This can be tricky and is best done after establishing a rapport.

These are very interesting. They are the short cuts, the rules of thumb, the personal tricks and the informal ways to get things done or take decisions. Very often these are tacit, almost always undocumented (cognitive skunkworks!), often 'illegal' as in not sanctioned, but very effective. They arise through the almost magical association between a pattern in context and a solution that works. They are the uncharted waters of trial and error. Staff are reticent to divulge them and often do not appreciate they even exist, 'It's just my special way of doing things', is something you often hear.

Heuristics represent a very fertile field for the knowledge mapper. I suspect this where most of the current tacit knowledge prospecting is taking place. Vendors and consultants who claim to be able to capture tacit knowledge using generic software tools are talking hogwash! It takes great relationships, specialized cognitive tools and much sweat equity to mine even a few deeply tacit gems.

Heuristics are far easier to spot, and can be gathered by observation and 'talk aloud' (playback) models. Watch for context categorizations, some of these may be tactile or olifactory. We had soil scientists who put the clay between their teeth to feel the silt and 'heard' or felt the surface soil structure by listening to the crunch their boots made on the bare soil.

Knowledge mapping articles:

• NHS (k audits): http://www.nelh.nhs.uk/knowledge_management/km2/audit_toolkit.asp
• Intellix, Knowledge Analysis and Mapping: http://www.intellix.com/pdf/uk/KE-doc_UK2.pdf
• Hansen and Kautz: Knowledge Mapping: A technique for identifying knowledge flows in organisations: http://w3.msi.vxu.se/users/per/IRIS27/iris27-1037.pdf
• Metis, Knowledge Mapping Advances, 2003: https://doc.telin.nl/dscgi/ds.py/Get/File-39897/G1734-Rapport-Metis-Taak-Knowledge-Mapping-2003-v2004-03-01.pdf
• Plumley, Process-based knowledge mapping, 03/03: http://www.destinationkm.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=1041
• US Aid presentation: http://knowledge.usaid.gov/KfD_Seminar_2.pdf
• KMMM, Oct, 2002: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/doclibrary/knowledgeboard/kmmm_article_siemens_2002.pdf
• Earley report, 2002: http://www.earley.com/Earley_Report/ER_Knowledge_Mapping.htm
• H. Nohr: Knowledge codification: http://www.iuk.hdm-stuttgart.de/nohr/publ/KWN.pdf
• Knowledge audit must be people centered, Hylton, 2002: http://www.knowledgeboard.com/doclibrary/knowledgeboard/role_of_k_audit%20in_assessing_value.pdf
• Building a knowledge map, 2002: http://www.kmadvantage.com/docs/KM/11%20Steps%20to%20Building%20a%20K%20Map.pdf DEAD LINK
• knowledge mapping as sense making: http://www.uws.edu.au/iskomo/publications/cecez_Dalmaris.pdf DEAD LINK
• Earley Mapping and metaphor: http://www.earley.com/development/easwebsite/eaweb2001.nsf/Content/Knowledge+Mapping+-+a+fast+way+to+the+heart+of+the+organization+
• Earley, April 2001: http://www.infotoday.com/IP/mar01/earley_intro.htm
• Horn 2001: http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/SpchPackard.html
• Conceptual graphs and the semantic www, 2001: http://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/CG.html
• Information Builders, 2001: http://whitepapers.zdnet.co.uk/0,39025945,60095590p-39000539q,00.htm
• Mapping value exchanges, Allee, 2000: http://www.vernaallee.com/library%20articles/A%20ValueNetApproach%20white%20paper.pdf
• Oxbridge: http://www.tfpl.com/about_TFPL/reports___research/information_audits_article/information_audits_article.html
• Knowledge mapping magazine: http://www.knowmap.com/
• Building a knowledge universe: http://www.universimmedia.com/topicmaps/form.htm
• Mitre and knowledge mapping research, April 2000: http://www.mitre.org/pubs/edge/april_00/damore.htm
• Mapping expertise: http://www.ragingknowledge.com/
• Knowledge management: getting started with knowledge management fall 1999. Ed. Vail III, Information System Management 16 (4) p16-23 :http://www.auerbach-publications.com/today/july/vail.htm
• The Knowledge Audit, Jay Liebowitz, etal 2000, Knowledge and Process Management, 7 (1) 3-10: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~buchwalt/papers/KMaudit.htm
• Fisher K. mapping overview feb/2000: http://www.sci.sdsu.edu/CRMSE/Fisher_aaas2000.html
• link collection: http://www.teach-nology.com/currenttrends/alternative_assessment/knowledge_mapping/
• Rander's link collection, feb/2000: http://www.ardedv.de/rander/nico/knowledge/kmllkm_mapping.shtml
• Multicentric mapping: http://www.multicentric.com/whatis.htm#2
• Process Edge: http://www.processedge.com/store/maps.htm
• Visualizing conversations: http://www.ascusc.org/jcmc/vol4/issue4/donath.html#fig3
• K. mapping in industry KAW '99: http://sern.ucalgary.ca/KSI/KAW/KAW99/papers/Speel1/index.html
• Gordon K. dependencies: http://www.nwaiag.com/knowledge/reports/es99a/
• Teleos, knowledge mapping (July, 1999): http://www.knowledgebusiness.com/kmapping.htm
• Shah, P., N., etal Knowledge audit of the call center 1998: http://amy.ma.home.mindspring.com/mindspr.htm
• Concept mapping: http://www.conceptsystems.com/ConceptMapping/ConceptMapping.cfm
• Information mapping seminars: http://www.infomap.com/
• Data mapping in RDMS: http://www.ambysoft.com/mappingObjects.html
• Victoria Ward's Brainpool article (1998): http://www.poolonline.com/archive/iss3fea2.html
• Davenport 1997 has written a case study on TelTech who have the largest and most successful expert network: http://www.bus.utexas.edu/kman/telcase.htm
• Information Mapping (structuring info for learning): http://www.informationmapping.com/method/method.htm

• ValdisKrebs, social network expert: http://www.orgnet.com/
• Sue Henczel Author: http://www.madscotsman.freeserve.co.uk/articles/informationaudits/informationaudits.htm
• Anecdote, Shawn Callahan: http://www.anecdote.com.au/
• Ann Hylton: http://www.annhylton.com/
• Arian Ward: http://www.workfrontiers.com/bio.html
• Robert Horn: http://www.stanford.edu/~rhorn/
• EKI: http://www.strategy1st.com/knowventory.htm
• Delex: http://www.delex.com/knowmap.html
• tfpl: http://www.tfpl.com/consultancy/information_and_knowledge_audi/information_and_knowledge_audi.cfm
• Stanford Solutions: http://www.cadvision.com/xenias/
• David Skryme: http://www.skyrme.com/services/kmaudit.htm

• Earley: http://www.earley.com/development/easwebsite/eaweb2001.nsf/Content/Mapping+Organizational+Knowledge
• Stanford: http://www.cadvision.com/xenias/
• Kekma: http://www.kekmatraining.com/