Will We Still Be Talking About Knowledge Management in 2025?

1. Engineering Technology Management Tracking the Constant of Change Risk Systems Engineering Economics History Management Legal Aspects Society Supply Chain Logistics Technical Information Multidiscipline Design Product Development Will We Still Be Talking AboutKnowledge Management in 2025? Mr. Gerald Steeman, Technical Information TC Library and Information Services Branch Office of the Chief Information Officer NASA Langley Research Center

2. Outline • Knowledge and Knowledge Management • Explicit and Tacit Knowledge • Getting and Defining Value • Industry and Government Perspectives • Today’s Human Capital Drivers – Tomorrow’s Need For KM • The Aerospace Sector: Poised for KM? • First Steps Toward the Year 2025

3. What is Knowledge? Information Wisdom = Data + Context : Information is data that are organized, grouped, and/or categorized.; Information moves around organizations (Ex: Technical Report outlining data errors and new instrumentation design) Information + Interpretation/ judgment; Knowledge is familiarity, awareness or understanding gained through experience or study. It results from making comparisons, identifying consequences and making contentions. Knowledge also includes judgment and rules of thumb developed over the time through trial and error (Ex: development of new technology for better data collection ) = Knowledge Data, Information, Knowledge, Wisdom = Data Unorganized Facts; data are sets of discrete facts; Data reside in a fixed place (Ex: unanalyzed feed from atmospheric instruments) Explicit = formal, documented knowledge recorded on any type of media Tacit = personal “know how” that is often difficult to articulate in documented form Adapted from: Managing Knowledge @work by Federal CIO Council

4. Some Definitions of KM • Knowledge management… • …includes not only the acquisition, accumulation, and utilization of existing knowledge, but also the creation of new knowledge(Nonaka & Takeuchi, Knowledge-creating company, 1995) • …is the management discipline that focuses on improving the means by which individual and collectively-held knowledge is produced and integrated in organizations (McElroy, http://dir.jayde.com/profile10078843.html, @2000) • … is getting the right information to the right people at the right time, and helping people create knowledge and share and act upon information in ways that will measurably improve the performance of NASA and its partners. (KM at NASA)

5. Full time Part time Contractor Consultant Rehire Retain In person; Groups; Across time and space; Explicit and Tacit Diversity of thought; Get hires from different backgrounds Create opportunities; Remove obstacles Across the organization; cross-fertilization of ideas Evaluation tools; Matching needs with skills base All employees, no pre-set groups “Talk to” not “Talk at”; Promote exchanges of information and development of ideas Employers should commit to what follows the “and.” A Short Definition Hire good people and let them talk to each other. Attributed to Larry Prusak

6. Explicit Knowledge Formally documented knowledge • Books, technical reports, journal articles and conferences, proceedings, newspapers, trade publications, standards and specifications, engineering drawings, employee directories, market and financial data, product information Knowledge creation process Collect Filter Analyze Knowledge JRC

7. Enablers of Explicit Knowledge

8. Tacit Knowledge • Employee knowledge, expertise, and experiences - not formally documented • Cross-industry surveys report almost 75% of corporate knowledge is tacit knowledge* People * Source: “Knowledge Management: Assessing Your Corporate Knowledge,” Mimi Ho, CIO.com, http://www2.cio.com/analyst/report2436.html JRC

9. Enablers of Tacit Knowledge Ramona - http://www.kurzweilai.net/

10. Getting and Defining Value • Value = • Organizations must be able to assign a commodity value to knowledge they produce and retain. • Intellectual capital indices –Skandia Navigator • Annual visualization of corporate intellectual capital • Measuring business outcomes – 3M Example • “15%-rule” measured by involvement, improvement, and outcome • Balance Scorecard - APQC framework • Financial, Customer, Internal, and Innovation & Learning scores

11. Industry and Government Perspectives Industry Government Partnerships Effective Knowledge Management Greater Profits Reduced Taxes Vibrant Economy

12. Today’s Human Capital Drivers – Tomorrow’s Need For KM Engineering Undergraduates down 20% Enrollments Engineering Graduate Students down 18.5% Aerospace Graduate Students down 15.5% Science Graduate Students downturn Late 1980s 2000 Engineering declined by 15% Doctorates Earned Physics declined by 22% Derived from: National Science Board, Nation Science Foundation information Given these trends, the population of future engineers and scientists will need the type of knowledge collection and transfer KM promotes

13. The Aerospace Sector: Poised for KM? • Three questions: • Is your organization losing people to retirement? • Is your organization trying to hire skilled employees? • Does your organization have an Information Technology and Data Management infrastructure where intellectual capital resides?

14. KM as the Connections Between People = 10 nodes = 10 lines of communications = 20 input/output connections = 6 nodes = 12 lines of communications = 24 input/output connections = 6 nodes = 6 lines of communications = 12 input/output connections

15. First Steps Toward the Year 2025 Hire good people and let them talk to each other. From http://km.nasa.gov

16. Engineering & Technology Management Group Questions on this Session?