A
After Action Review (AAR)
A process developed by the US Army to help teams to learn quickly from their successes and failures and share their learning with other teams. Involves conducting a structured and facilitated discussion after a task or project has been completed to review what should have happened, what actually happened and why it happened; this allows participants to learn how to sustain strengths and improve on weaknesses in subsequent tasks or projects.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
A broad term describing the field of developing computer programs to simulate human thought processes and behaviors.
B
Balanced Scorecard (BSC)
The balanced scorecard is a management system (not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. When fully deployed, the balanced scorecard transforms strategic planning from an academic exercise into the nerve center of an enterprise.
Best Practice (or: Good Practice)
A process or methodology that has been proven to work well and produce well results, and is therefore recommended as a model. Some people prefer to use the term 'good practice' as in reality it is debatable whether there is a single 'best' approach.
Business Process Reengineering (BPR)
Analysis and redesign of workflow within and between enterprises.
C
Case-Based Reasoning (CBR)
A technique for problem-solving which looks for previous examples which are similar to the current problem. This is useful where heuristic knowledge is not available. It is a promising candidate for the knowledge management infrastructure.
Collaboration, Collaborative working
A generic term that simply means teamwork or a group effort. It also has a more specific meaning in knowledge management, where it is often used to describe close working relationships involving the sharing of knowledge.
Competitive Intelligence (CI)
Data gathered by a company and used by it to learn about its competition in a given market.
Computing and Information Systems (CIS)
Study of computation and information processing, both in hardware and in software.
Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO)
A senior position with strategic responsibility for knowledge management.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
A business strategy based on selecting and proactively managing the most valuable customer relationships. It requires a customer-focused philosophy to support effective marketing, sales and customer service processes.
D
Decision Support Systems (DSS)
A decision support system (DSS) is a computer program application that analyzes business data and presents it so that users can make business decisions more easily. It is an "informational application" (in distinction to an "operational application" that collects the data in the course of normal business operation).
E
Explicit Knowledge (EK)
Knowledge that can be easily expressed in words or numbers, and can be shared through discussion or by writing it down and putting it into documents, manuals or databases.
F
Firewall
Software that protects an organization’s computer systems from problems such as viruses that can be carried by Internet technologies or hackers seeking to gain unauthorized access.
G
Graphical User Interface (GUI)
A program interface that takes advantage of the computer's graphics capabilities to make the program easier to use. Well-designed graphical user interfaces can free the user from learning complex command languages. On the other hand, many users find that they work more effectively with a command-driven interface, especially if they already know the command language.
H
Human Capital (HC)
The knowledge, skills and competencies of the people in an organization. Human capital is one component of intellectual capital.
Human-computer intelligent interaction (HCII)
The HCII main research theme seeks to enhance human-machine interface design through the optimization of state-of-the-art technology development and engineering of multimodal interface design concepts.
I
Intellectual Capital (IC)
The value, or potential value, of an organization’s intellectual assets (or knowledge assets). An attempt by organizations to place a financial value on their knowledge. Intellectual capital is often defined as the combination of three sub-categories: human capital, structural capital and customer capital.
Information Management (IM)
A method used to organize information to avoid information overload and to keep information in a format that is efficient to retrieve whenever needed. Filing systems, cognitive maps, manuals, and electronic databases are examples of devices that can prove useful in information management. A network of consultants is an additional way to ensure that necessary information will be readily available.
Information Technology (IT)
Includes all matters concerned with the furtherance of computer science and technology and with the design, development, installation, and implementation of information systems and applications. Information technology architecture is an integrated framework for acquiring and evolving IT to achieve strategic goals. It has both logical and technical components. Logical components include mission, functional and information requirements, system configurations, and information flows. Technical components include IT standards and rules that will be used to implement the logical architecture.
J
K
Knowledge Assets (KA)
Those parts of an organization’s intangible assets that relate specifically to knowledge, such as know-how, best practices, intellectual property and the like. Knowledge assets are often divided into human (people, teams, networks and communities), structural (the codified knowledge that can be found in processes and procedures) and technological (the technologies that support knowledge sharing such as databases and intranets). By understanding the knowledge assets an organization possesses, the organization can improve its ability to use them to best effect and also to spot any gaps that may exist.
Knowledge-Based Organization (KBO)
The fundamental body of knowledge available to an organization, including the knowledge in people's heads, supported by the organization’s collections of information and data. An organization may also build subject-specific knowledge bases to collate information on key topics or processes. The term 'knowledge base' is also sometimes used to describe a database of information.
Knowledge-based Software Engineering (KBSE)
KBSE aims to provide a forum for researchers and practitioners to discuss the latest developments in the areas of knowledge engineering and software engineering. Particular emphasis is placed upon applying knowledge-based methods to software engineering problems.
Knowledge-Centric View (KCV)
A view that is focused on knowledge and knowledge management
Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD)
KDD extracts potentially useful and previously unknown knowledge from huge amounts of data, and creates techniques adapted to such a problem.
Knowledge Life Cycle (KLC)
Knowledge in business can be seen to have a lifecycle of its own. (Adapted from http://www.processrenewal.com/files/def-km.doc).
- It must be created either within or outside the organization. This is typically comprised of iterative tacit and explicit loops until the knowledge is ready for distribution to those outside the creating group.
- It can then be stored somewhere, either tacitly or explicitly so that it is accessible for others to find and use.
- Those who need the specific knowledge must then find out where it is, when they need it, by searching in the right places and / or asking the right people.
- Once the knowledge source is found, the user will then go through the act of actually acquiring it. This will involve gaining personal knowledge from other humans or documented sources.
- Once acquired, the knowledge can be put to use towards some productive purpose.
- Having been used, perhaps repeatedly, the user will learn what worked well and not so well as a result of applying the knowledge gained. This can then be taken as significant input into further iterations of the knowledge creation and distribution process.
Knowledge Management Diagnostic (KMD)
The Knowledge Management Diagnostic is an invaluable tool for identifying organizational knowledge strengths and weaknesses, put together by Wendi Bukowitz and Ruth Williams, authors of The Knowledge Management Fieldbook.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI)
Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPI or Key Success Indicators (KSI), help an organization define and measure progress toward organizational goals. Once an organization has analyzed its mission, identified all its stakeholders, and defined its goals, it needs a way to measure progress toward those goals. Key Performance Indicators are those measurements.
Knowledge Revolution (KR)
The way in which knowledge has become critical to the way that we do business is nothing short of a revolution.
Knowledge Velocity (KV)
Knowledge velocity is one of the dimensions of knowledge transfer performance. Velocity, as in physics, measures both speed and direction. The speed concerns how quickly the knowledge moves. The direction of the transfer concerns whether the knowledge gets to the appropriate organizational members.
Knowledge Worker (KW)
An employee whose role relies on his or her ability to find and use knowledge.
L
Learning Organization (LO)
An organization that views its success in the future as being based on continuous learning and adaptive behavior. It therefore becomes skilled at creating, acquiring, interpreting and retaining knowledge and then modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.
M
N
O
Organizational Intelligence (OI)
Organizational intelligence represents the collaborative problem-solving ability of people and technical artifacts within and beyond complex enterprises. An organization is a socio-technical system, and may be composed of many interoperating systems, each containing some intelligence. Thus, the human intelligence of many employees is combined with the artificial intelligence of machines, contained in intelligent buildings, and distributed through intelligent cyberspace. In an intelligent organization, the complementary capabilities of people and technology are deployed to the full. Organizations can become more intelligent. To increase organizational intelligence:
identify and remove what stupefies an organization
identify and strengthen the elements of intelligence
develop structures and processes that promote and enhance intelligence
P
Peer Assist (PA)
A process pioneered by BP-Amoco, in which an individual or team calls a meeting or a workshop in order to tap the knowledge and experience of others before embarking on a project or activity.
Portal
A special web page that organizes access to all of the online resources about a topic, providing a one-stop shop of sorts, a gateway to your organizations databases.
Procedural Knowledge (PK)
Procedural knowledge or know-how is the knowledge of how to perform some task. Know-how is different from other kinds of knowledge such as propositional knowledge in that it can be directly applied to a task. Procedural knowledge about solving problems differs from propositional knowledge about problem solving. For example, in some legal systems, this knowledge or know-how has been considered the intellectual property of a company, and can transferred when that company is purchased. One limitation of procedural knowledge is its job-dependence; thus, it tends to be less general than propositional knowledge. For example, a computer expert might have knowledge about a computer algorithm in multiple languages, or in pseudo-code, whereas a Visual Basic programmer might only know how to run a specific implementation of that algorithm, written in Visual Basic. Thus, the 'hands-on' expertise and experience of the Visual Basic programmer might be of commercial value only to Microsoft job-shops, for example. One advantage of procedural knowledge is that it can involve more senses, such as hands-on experience, practice at solving problems, understanding of the limitations of a specific solution, etc. Thus, know-how can frequently eclipse theory.
Personal Productivity Tools (PPT)
Tools that enhance one’s life by providing one with more connectivity and access to the world.
Q
Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a structured approach to defining customer needs or requirements and translating them into specific plans to produce products to meet those needs. The "voice of the customer" is the term to describe these stated and unstated customer needs or requirements. The voice of the customer is captured in a variety of ways: direct discussion or interviews, surveys, focus groups, customer specifications, observation, warranty data, field reports, etc. This understanding of the customer needs is then summarized in a product planning matrix or "house of quality". These matrices are used to translate higher level "what's" or needs into lower level "how's" - product requirements or technical characteristics to satisfy these needs.
R
Return on Knowledge Investment (RoKI)
A measure of the benefits a firm receives from its investments in knowledge and knowledge management. Conventional metrics fail to do complete justice to the measurement of RoKI, so instead non-conventional approaches such as Balanced Score Card (BSC), Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and benchmarking are often used to determine RoKI.
S
Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT)
A SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning tool used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. Strengths and weaknesses are internal to an organization, and measure internal capability. Opportunities and threats originate from outside the organization, and refer to how the external environments affect your team/business/group. A SWOT analysis, usually performed early in the project development process, helps organizations evaluate the environmental factors and internal situation facing a project.
T
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
A protocol for communication between computers, used as a standard for transmitting data over networks and as the basis for standard Internet protocols.
Tacit Knowledge (TK)
The knowledge or know-how that people carry in their heads. Compared with explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge is more difficult to articulate or write down and so it tends to be shared between people through discussion, stories and personal interactions. It includes skills, experiences, insight, intuition and judgment. Note: Some authors draw a distinction between tacit and implicit knowledge, defining tacit knowledge as that which cannot be written down, and implicit knowledge as that which can be written down but has not been written down yet. In this context, explicit knowledge is defined as that which has already been written down.
U
V
Virtual Team (VT)
'Virtual' is a term used to describe something that exists or is brought together via electronic networks, rather than existing in a single physical place. For example, a 'virtual team' is a team whose members are not located together and who utilize electronic networks for communication, collaboration and work processes.
W
X
Y
Z
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