When a person looks for knowledge to support their work, they do it in response to their circumstances and the problems or difficulties facing them. This means that knowledge needs to respond to questions such as, “What do I do if (a certain situation arises)”, “What do I do when (a certain event occurs)”, “How do I (complete a certain task)”, “How can I understand how (a certain set of activities inter-relate)”. Consequently, knowledge needs to be classified and presented in a way that provides direct answers to these sorts of questions.
The common characteristic of these ‘knowledge-seeking’ questions is that they relate to people’s activity. They relate to what they are trying to achieve in their jobs and, by extension, for the organisation. The most useful basis then on which to classify knowledge is around the way the enterprise is structured to achieve its purpose – in other words, its ‘business model’.
This begs the question as to whether the organisation has clearly identified and articulated what its ‘business model’ is. It needs to do this first before it can provide a useful context in which to develop and utilise knowledge.
The essential theoretical groundwork for this task was thoroughly prepared by Michael E Porter with his concept of a “value chain”*. Porter’s analysis was focussed on the means by which organisations secure competitive advantage. We can apply the concept to managing the knowledge that supports, maintains, and improves this competitive advantage. By applying this value chain model as the conceptual context for developing and utilising organisational knowledge it is possible to link knowledge directly to the task of maximising value. This approach has the additional advantages that the value chain’s primary and support function categories:
- define the areas of the organisation that need to be covered by knowledge
- align with the way many organisations naturally divide their activity into specialised functions – this allows employees to locate relevant knowledge through their familiarity with its work context
- align broadly with the way management responsibility is allocated within an organisation – this makes it easier to identify who needs to take responsibility for curating the knowledge concerned
Porter’s value chain provides an effective overall context in which to develop and utilise knowledge. It provides the foundation for a dynamic taxonomy for organisational knowledge that ties directly to the organisation’s purpose. As a component of Collective IQ, this is the framework in which ‘atomic units of knowledge’ can be both developed and deployed.
*
Porter, Michael E (1985) “’Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance’, The Free Press