Chapter 11: Building Your KM Toolkit

Overview

For HR to play a strategic role in building a knowledge-centric culture one of the areas that it needs to invest in is acquiring and applying the right tools. The previous chapter introduced some of the tools and approaches relating to knowledge mapping. This chapter describes some of the other tools that could be incorporated into HR’s KM toolkit, as well as drawing on some case study examples to further illustrate the use of Storytelling and Social Network Analysis.

The chapter is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of KM tools, but a selection of those that seem most valuable. Many of these tools are not new. What is different, however, is how they are being applied to help organisations manage their knowledge. As with managing change, it is easy to get carried away and think that we need to radically change the way we do things. Often it is a question of adapting existing practices, combined with introducing a few key changes.

As has been raised earlier, in the knowledge economy it is just as important that we reuse what we already have, provided that it is fit for purpose, rather than having to create new all the time.

The next chapter discusses the role of technology in building a knowledge-centric culture, including the different types of IT tools that can be used to help locate people with different sources of information and knowledge, as well as to facilitate collaborative working and learning^[1].

^[1]This article first appeared in CCH Personnel Management Newsletter, July 2001, published by Croner.CCH and available as part of a subscription to Croner.CCH British Personnel Management Service.