Knowledge Management in Practice

             In the context of KM, CoPs are generally understood to mean electronically linked communities. Electronic linkage is not essential of course, but since KM arose in the consulting community from the awareness of the potential of Intranets to link geographically dispersed organizations, this orientation is understandable and inevitable. The organization and maintenance of CoPs is not a simple and easy undertaking. As Durham, M. [2004] points out, there are several key roles to be filled, which she describes as manager, moderator, and thought leader. They need not necessarily be three separate people, but in some cases they will need to be.

                 If we create a matrix in which the rows are KM Processes and the columns KM Procedures and Practices, and in which the ordering, top to bottom and left to right is roughly in chronological or developmental order, and we check which process a practice or procedure is primarily designed to serve, the matrix looks like:

                 That matrix reveals several interesting things. Almost everything one does in KM is designed
to help find information and knowledge.However, if we assume that the main goal ofKMis to share knowledge and even more importantly to develop new knowledge, then the Knowledge Audit and the Tags, Taxonomies and Content Management stages are the underpinnings and the tools. It is the knowledge sharing and knowledge creation of one on one communications enabled by expertise locators, and the communal sharing and creation of knowledge enabled by communities of practice toward which KM development should be aimed.