In september I will be the moderator of a "Knowledge Management Workshop" in switzerland. To give the participants the opportunity to read a little bit upfront a short list with material for the workshop (30 minutes per week would be fine).

Knowledge Management Patterns

The following "knowledge management patterns" are the methods and approaches we want discuss and decide upon in the workshop (in alphabetical order):

1. Communities of Practice: communities of practice (CoP) are according to E. Wenger "groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". In organizations CoPs could be identified and cultivated using a knowledge map. CoPs can be supported by groupware (e.g. SharePoint) or social network systems (e.g. SocialText, elgg).
2. Document Repository: a document repository is an IT-system where one can store documents inside. The complexity can go from simple file systems to complex document management systems with metadata and enterprise search. Concept maps and knowledge maps could be used to design the structure for document repositories, metadata element sets and controlled vocabularies/taxonomies (e.g. a knowledge map can be used as a faceted classification system).
3. Enterprise 2.0: Enterprise 2.0 in general means the adoption or web 2.0 tools inside the enterprise. The most frequently mentioned tools are  Wiki and Weblog but also Microblogs (e.g. Twitter), Social Networks and Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) in general could be of interest. Knowledge maps can be used as tagging systems in wikis, weblogs, microblogs and other tools to bundle information that is normally fragmented.
4. Job Map: a job map is a personal knowledge map that belongs to it's owner, the individual knowledge worker. A job map contains information about work history, roles&tasks and relevant knowledge domains as well as tips&tricks, lessons learned and links to people and content. The job maps can be used in performance reviews and to support the development of the organizational knowledge map. Job Maps can be very useful in exit interviews (when employees leave the organization) or internal job rotation.
5. Knowledge Domain Owner: a knowledge domain owner (KDO) is a person responsible for a knowledge domain. The KDO is responsible for knowledge acquisition, knowledge development, knowledge sharing, knowledge usage and knowledge retention for the related knowledge domain. KDOs should be visibly defined in the knowledge map.
6. Knowledge Map: a knowledge map is a grafical representation of relevant knowledge domains. Knowledge maps can be implemented as mind maps (simple) or as complex as taxonomies an ontologies. A knowledge map does not "contain" knowledge itself, it just points to the relevant knowledge sources like people and content. A knowledge map can be used to navigate (e.g. as clickable knowledge map) and to strategically manage (e.g. with a knowledge strategy process) the knowledge base of the organization.
7. Lean Thinking: lean thinking is a way of thinking that reduces waste (muda) and maximizes value creation in every business process. is the In terms of knowledge management lean thinking is the basic idea that gives organizational learning the right direction.
8. Yellow Pages: yellow pages (YP, often called expertise locator) are the opposite of white pages (WP): in WP you have the name of a person and get some metadata (e.g. phone number, location). In YP you have some metadate (e.g. a knowledge domain) and get relevant persons so YP could be called a reverse search. Three typical ways of implementation: 1.) extension of the existing corporate directory by knowledge domains 2.) visualization of experts inside a knowledge map 3.) mapping of a knowledge map structure to a wiki, each wiki page has relevant experts linked at the end of the page (sometimes called people wiki).

Further Material

If you got interested or want to dive deeper into the topic, here is some food for thought:

1. How comes that we talk about "knowledge management" today? Read about
   1. F.W. Taylor (Scientific Management)
   2. W.E. Deming (Quality and Process Management)
   3. P. Drucker (Management, Knowledge Society, Knowledge Worker
   4. M. Polanyi (Tacit Knowledge)
   5. N. Stehr (Knowledge Society)
   6. I. Nonaka (Tacit-Explicit-Knowledge-Transformation, Information Processing vs. Knowledge Creation)
   7. K. Wiig (Knowledge Management)
2. Knowledge as "justified true belief" (Platon) - It's always "attached" to people not documents! - Do not mix up data, information and knowledge!!! Do not repeat the mistakes a lot of practitioners did before.
3. The vision of a Learning Organization - the ultimate goal of any knowledge management approach (read about Chris Agyris' or Peter Senge's ideas if you want).
4. Intellectual Capital Reporting - controlling has to change to support knowledge controlling as well as financial controlling as well. Read about the approaches in Germany, in Austria (german content) and in Europe.
5. The role of the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) - e.g. in comparison to a CIO (Chief Information Officer.
   
6. Getting Things Done (GTD) - a basic method for knowledge-oriented self management.
7. Scrum - a basic metod for knowledge-oriented team management (especially project teams).
   
8. Knowledge Management and the New ITIL Framework - You'll need KM in V3 anyways!

Web 2.0 tools videos

These 4 videos help to understand what web 2.0 tools (wikis, blogs, twitter, social networking) are all about. If can't see the videos, your company does not allow to watch youtube-videos.