7 - Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research

The process architecture covers those processes that are necessary to manage various KM
functions and that will facilitate the KM movement. The fundamental KM processes are
acquire, disseminate and utilize. One important guiding principle is to integrate and
leverage to the extent possible, existing reporting processes to extract information for
potential reuse across the organization and thus limit the creation of additional process
exclusively for KM. The technology architecture facilitates online submission, review and
publication of various knowledge assets and integration with various organizational
applications such as HR, Finance, Projects etc. The content architecture facilitates the
utilization of knowledge assets by various users.
7. Assessment of Benefits of KM
The benefits of KM can be assessed based on various parameters such as the number of
knowledge artifacts available in KM repository, the number of knowledge artifacts used
in various projects, the number of Knowledge Workers, the quantum of rewards etc. KM
benefits can also be assessed based on the increase in productivity, quality, customer
satisfaction etc. Internal survey also can be conducted to assess the benefits of KM.
8. Challenges in Implementing KM
The main challenge in implementing successful KM is convincing employees to the
benefits of KM and motivating them towards the sharing culture. Those people who do not
like to share knowledge can be divided into two groups . One group do not like to share
because they think “knowledge is power” and by sharing knowledge they loose their
power. The second group think that by using someone else’s knowledge they become
inferior. Both these groups can be motivated by the incentive scheme suggested.
9. Second Generation Knowledge Management Systems
Hitherto the focus was on explicit knowledge. The following part of this paper focuses on
tacit knowledge , the interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge and the resultant
knowledge creation.
Organizational knowledge creation is defined as the capability of an organization as a
whole to create new knowledge, disseminate it through the organization, and embody it in
products, services and systems. Organizational knowledge creation is the key to
innovation. The ‘Second Generation Knowledge Management Systems’ are basically
‘Knowledge Creation’ systems. The distinction between explicit knowledge and tacit
knowledge is the key to understand the difference between the ‘First Generation
Knowledge Management Systems’ and ‘Second Generation Knowledge Management
Systems’ . The former places emphasis on explicit knowledge and the latter on tacit
knowledge. The approach taken in a typical organization which implements ‘First
Generation Knowledge Management System’ is “What is important is to find useful
knowledge, bottle it, and pass it around”. On the contrary the approach taken in ‘Second
Generation Knowledge Management Systems’ is “There is a great big river of data out
there; rather than building dams to try and bottle it all up into discrete little entities,
people are given canoes and compasses”. These systems address the knowledge creation
and knowledge dissemination process that are participative and anticipative. Instead of a
formal step-by-step rational guide they favour a set of guiding principles for people to
understand “not how it should be done” but “how to understand what might fit the
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