At the KIN Winter Workshop next week, I’ll be debating the motion “Knowledge assets are dead – long live just-in-time knowledge”. I’ll be arguing for the motion, so thought I’d both explain a little about the topic, and seek input from any readers who care to contribute…
First of all, for those unfamiliar with KM terminology – what does this all mean? Well, a Knowledge Asset (KA) is an information resource based around a common theme, topic or activity. So, for example, an IT company might create a KA for data centres. If implemented successfully, anyone in the company who needed to know something about data centres would use the KA to find the right information and could happily get on with doing their job.
In “traditional” KM, KAs are an essential part of a properly structured knowledge organisation. They’re technology agnostic, so a KA may be a set of paper documents, a manual, a web page, a Wiki… It doesn’t matter. What is essential are some activities to curate & maintain the KA, which should be carried out by its owners or administrators. This role is three-fold; they should seek out new information for the KA, they should ensure the KA is available to everyone who needs it, and they should regularly review existing content to ensure the resource remains current.
As this useful description from KNOCO shows, a good KA shouldn’t just be a collection of documents, but should include any and every useful learning resource around its topic. These may be the outputs from lessons learned activities, interviews with experts, anecdotes from past projects – anything to help the information seeker work in that area more effectively.
OK, so that’s a Knowledge Asset.
Just-in-time knowledge is a different way of doing things.
Just-in-time knowledge (JITK) is all about context. It’s the process of gaining knowledge through dialogue – whether face to face or intermediated through technology. A classic example of JITK would be a craftsman’s apprentice. The apprentice doesn’t know much, but what he can do is seek help and ask questions of the master craftsman. The apprentice doesn’t ask these questions in the abstract – rather, they are entirely within the context of the work being carried out. This is a very effective way for the master to pass on knowledge, as it’s immediately obvious why it’s useful – “show, don’t tell”.
The apprentice model doesn’t scale well. One master can only train a few apprentices, after all. There’s also timeliness. Carpentry or stonemasonry haven’t changed all that much over the past few hundred years – the same definitely can’t be said for, say, web programming languages! These days, experts themselves need to be constantly learning to stay up to speed. Finally, diversity of knowledge also has an impact. For a “knowledge worker” today, there may be an wide range of technical, social or management skills required – today’s expert advisor may be utterly useless in helping with tomorrow’s challenge.
Despite these problems, JITK has always remained popular – many people would still respond to an unexpected challenge by phoning a useful contact for advice. However, recent developments in social technology greatly extend this capability. The ability to create personal networks, to join online communities, or to connect with experts across the globe – these are all powerful enablers of JITK. The fundamental efficiency of this form of knowledge transfer remains, though. It is still context-based dialogue, solving the specific problem being faced.
That’s the infodump section of this post done – thanks for reading this far, if you’re still with me. Now for your part! Of course, for the debate I’ll be arguing for JITK, and against KAs – but I’m not so lazy as to ask you to make my argument for me. (Unless you really want to…)
No – what I’d really like to hear from anyone is examples of where either of these types of learning have helped you out – or failed to do so. I’m already doing some research, but it would be great to have some new examples to use in the debate on Wednesday. Of course you don’t have to stick to examples. If you want to get stuck into a detailed discussion of the differences between these types of knowledge transfer – be my guest! And if you want to just leave a single sentence comment, that would be fine too – any contributions will be very welcome.
I will post an update following the debate on Wednesday to let you know how I get on – should be an interesting experience.
