Questions and answers of Knowledge Management

Question: 1

            The case study is written on the topic of knowledge management by Stephanie Overby. In this case, study writer discussed the knowledge management system in Naval Sea System Command (NAVSEA) of the United States. Basically, NAVSEA is the organization of military that is responsible to manage, builds, and support the navy of the United States. According to the case study, NAVSEA is the parent program of 130 subsidiaries or acquisition programs. Staff working in these programs are enriched with the confidential and important military data that the navy cannot lose at any cost.

          In the past, the navy was not using any kind of digital data storage bases for such important knowledge and information. The staff of 45,000 employees working on different job positions in NAVSEA had different but important information and knowledge about processes. In 1999, NAVSEA recognized the need for data storage as their experienced employees were going to be retired. While the junior staff was not familiar with the required knowledge and information to replace old ones appropriately. In such a situation, they held a meeting and asked their senior staff to share their knowledge and experience to support other employees. The case study presents that no one was ready to share his/ her knowledge.       

          In such condition, the navy took a new turn. They developed a KM battle plan. NAVSEA introduced a KM program with rewards for sharing knowledge. Then shared a digital platform with their employees and the added their information (in the form of discussions, edits, and reports) at that platform. Data management team saved all the information and thus NAVSEA stored all important knowledge in their databases for future use (Maier, 2007).    

Question: 2

            Nowadays, organizations are showing great interest in the use of communication technology to support the overall knowledge management system of the organization (Maier, 2007). Somehow, these technologies are assumed as knowledge management systems. The key communication technologies that can be used at the workplace or within the organization with the purpose to provide support to the knowledge sharing system within an organization are emails, teleconferences, telephones, databases, software, and web portals. In addition, organizations can also share knowledge through their domains and websites as knowledge about customer’s database can be managed through the websites and social media communication. In this case of NAVSEA, communication technologies used for knowledge management are email and KM database.   (Gold, Malhotra, & Segars, 2001).

Question: 3

            NAVSEA was seeking for the appropriate solution to collect and store data from their experienced staff members. They took steps two main steps for knowledge management. At first, they held a meeting and asked these employees to share information and knowledge for future use. After an unsuccessful experience, they took a second step. They organized a reward-based knowledge management system in the organization. Moreover, in front of their employees, they threw light on the possible benefits of acquisitions knowledge database (introduced for knowledge sharing). As they said that KP program will make work easier for them. They shared and analyzed that collected information to summarize it in the desired form.  

Question: 4

             Yes, I agree with the comments and analysis of Jerry Ash (presented at the end of the case study). According to him, NAVSEA needs to focus on knowledge sharing rather than just collect information and knowledge. According to his views, the success of a database depends upon the use of its data. I agree with this analysis as in my views NAVSEA Company took a great step to make the database of the knowledge but the problem is that they were mainly emphasizing on the data collection while they also need to pay focus on the use of collected data and knowledge.

             Moreover, Jerry Ash also highlighted a weakness of this KP program. According to KM program, NAVSEA offered knowledge in return of knowledge that doesn’t seem a good return. In my views, NAVSEA could provide other offers e.g. monetary or non-monetary advantages. NAVSEA could offer incentives and bonuses to their employees for sharing that information.      

Question: 5

If a company is interested to develop a knowledge management strategy then at the first they need to identify the need. Then they need to answer these questions to get better information for appropriate plan development. What kind of knowledge is desired? From where we can collect that knowledge. How we can get that knowledge? What we have to pay in return for this knowledge? Then management should take a look of available resources to find out whether all resources are available or not. If the strategy has the potential to give proper and desired return (and resources are available) then the organization can recommend that knowledge management strategy.

References

Donate, M. J., & Pablo, J. D. (2015). The role of knowledge-oriented leadership in knowledge management practices and innovation. Journal of Business Research, 68, 360-370.

Gold, A. H., Malhotra, A., & Segars, A. H. (2001). Knowledge management an organizational capabilities perspective. Journal of management information systems, 18(1), 185.

Maier, R. (2007). Knowledge Management Systems: Information and Communication Technologies for Knowledge Management. Springer. Retrieved 2019