Communities of Practice

In this post I would like to touch upon the concept of communities of practice.  To recap we have talked about getting started in knowledge management, creating a value proposition, a business case, assessing your knowledge management efforts,etc.
So say you decide knowledge management is the way to go.  Now you need to decide what is going to be the most effective solution for your organization's challenges in the area of knowledge management. 
One that I would recommend is Communities of Practice.  I know there is a lot of debate on communities.  What are communities of practice?  How are they different from networks? Is this just another organizational fad? Yes, we have heard it all! 
Simply put communities of practice refers to a group of individuals who share a common interest and who come together to discuss and share information about their interest area because they want to, not because they have to. 
So how do you get communities started, do they already exist in your organization, if so how do you recognize them?  These are all questions I will address in my upcoming posts.
Have a great weekend!

Managing Knowledge in an Unmanageable World

What a cool tag line!  Reality is that not only is the world unmanageable, knowledge is unmanageable too.  When we really think about it, you can't really manage your knowledge but you can put some structure around it so that its easily available and transferable.  Easier said than done of course.
I wanted to highlight this article today because it proves old is still gold.  There are some solid concepts in this article written by our Chairman, Dr. Jack Grayson.  He does a great job of surmising the factors that effect knowledge management, its relationship to TQM and the benefits of knowledge management.

A Roadmap to Knowledge Management

An invaluable resource for those of you starting out in knowledge management.  Our senior consultant Wesley Vestal put on his thinking hat and put down an awesome paper that will provide you with a comprehensive overview of knowledge management.  Checkout our KM Road map Overview.