Knowledge Mapping KMForum lpc

1 What is “knowledge mapping?” An ongoing joint quest to help discover the constraints, assumptions, location, ownership, value, and use of knowledge assets, artifacts, people and their expertise (Denham Grey) Data gathering, survey, exploring, discovery, conversation, disagreement, gap analysis, education and synthesis Some maps are social network charts, some are yellow-pages, while others are simply a matrix showing knowledge assets and their relationship to business processes Contrast this with a knowledge audit, which tracks deviations from policy or established process, checks for compliance with standards and procedures, and seeks to measure and value knowledge assets

2 Why map knowledge? To discover and consider knowledge assets, discuss them, argue about them, decide which are important, and take some action. To encourage re-use and prevent re-invention To highlight islands of expertise To discover effective and emergent communities To reduce the burden on experts To improve customer response, decision making, problem solving To provide an inventory and evaluation of intellectual assets To supply research for designing a knowledge architecture To find key sources, opportunities, and constraints

3 What does one map? There is no one answer. Location, ownership, validity, timeliness, domain, sensitivity, access rights, storage medium, use statistics, medium and channels used Documents, files, systems, policies, directories, competencies, relationships, authorities Boundary objects, knowledge artifacts, stories, heuristics, patterns, events, practices, activities and flows Explicit and tacit knowledge which is closely linked to strategic drivers, core competencies, and market intelligence People’s experience, relationships, rules of thumb, culture, and natural talents Constraints, assumptions, policies, culture, bottlenecks, brokers, repositories and boundary spanners Formal and informal, codified and personalized, internal and external, short life cycle & permanent, even heuristics

4 How does one map knowledge? Interviews Walking around Workshops

5 Knowledge mapping principles Before starting to map, ensure the intentions are clear because the map created will depend on its purpose Just like cartographic maps there is never a single map for every purpose Knowledge mapping is more about inquiry, education and relationship building than about charts or documentation Knowledge is found in processes, relationships, policies, people, documents, conversations, links and context Suppliers, competitors and customers have knowledge

6 Ermine, Boughzala and Tounkara

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9 Callahan, Anecdote Web site

10 Following a workshop on knowledge mapping, Jane Turner, Archivist at the University of Victoria, completed a knowledge map of the work required to build or "raise" CAIN (Canadian Archival Information Network). (KnowMap) When Colynn Kerr designed the sitemap for the City of Calgary's Department of Planning and Building web page, he did it as a tree. The result is a user-friendly and highly intuitive map of a complex website. (KnowMap)

11 Grey Denham: Knowledge mapping revisited (Knowledge-at- work, 9/19/04) Callahan, Shawn: Knowledge mapping is sensemaking: appi.html appi.html Critical Knowledge Map as a Decision Tool for Knowledge Transfer Actions Jean-Louis Ermine, Imed Boughzala and Thierno Tounkara from National Institute of Telecommunications, France