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Ten principles of knowledge management, by Thomas Davenport

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According to a summary in a presentation I saw, researcher, author and thought leader Thomas Davenport maintains that knowledge management (KM):

  1. Is expensive if done well, although I believe there are low-cost initiatives like search software that can make a difference in a legal department
  2. Requires hybrid solutions of people and technology, which in fact may tilt more toward people than software (See my post of April 30, 2010: four ideas from Mintzberg.).
  3. Is highly political, which means that knowledge creates and maintains power
  4. Requires knowledge managers (See my post of Sept. 10, 2005: mentions them at International Paper and MetLife; Aug. 4, 2008: head of knowledge management; and June 4, 2007: five knowledge managers in legal departments.).
  5. Requires a knowledge contract, which is a notion I have not heard about.
  6. Calls for unnatural acts when it comes to sharing and using knowledge, which goes to my belief that unselfish information sharing is hard to sustain (See my post of March 5, 2005: altruistic information sharing.).
  7. Means improving knowledge work processes, which hasn’t been explored on this blog
  8. Only starts with access, which presumably means some relevance tools are also necessary
  9. Benefits more from maps than models, more from markets than from hierarchies (See my post of May 13, 2009: management maps with 19 references and 1 metapost.).
  10. Never ends. Amen
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2 responses to “Ten principles of knowledge management, by Thomas Davenport”

  1. Bill Wilson says:
    May 4, 2010 at 11:33 am

    And people actually pay you to spew this trash? I have the sensation of reliving the movie “Being There” and you’re playing Chance. I guess if you can get away with convincing people you’re deep and wise when you are simply obtuse and glib, more power to you.

  2. Bill Wilson says:
    May 4, 2010 at 12:43 pm

    I am going to amend my comments. Since Mr. Morrison was quoting someone else, perhaps he did not feel it was appropriate to expand on the points Mr. Davenport made. And perhaps, in context, Mr. Davenport’s points might have made more sense.
    I will simply assume that my efforts over the last 30 years to capture, classify and disseminate worthy exemplars of work within the context of three large corporations and several smaller ones are too dated to understand fully the hip new lingo that appears to be the standard for communicating in this field.