Difference between revisions of "Capture"

Revision as of 17:14, 30 December 2013

Template:Zoltan Template:DavidBeraha

,

Definition

Capture is The knowledge process that brings data, information, or knowledge into the organizational knowledge base. A process of capturing the knowledge available within an organization and making it available. Source: Comparative Analysis of Methods and Tools for Nuclear Knowledge Preservation Capture is Template:Capture 2 Source: Planning and Execution of Knowledge Management Assist Missions for Nuclear Organizations

Summary

Knowledge capture may be either internal or external knowledge in any form (for example, tacit know-how or explicit technical information). Capture processes should consider the life cycle and may need to address factors such as media, format, speed, costs, volume and intellectual property issues. Capture may also need to include alternatives for source capture and guidelines for hard copy publication (to enable subsequent imaging), preservation of historical documents, as well as standards and quality control procedures.

Description

Knowledge capturing refers to collecting all information available in the organization, and making it retrievable in a knowledge base. While capturing explicit knowledge is quite straightforward, the capturing of tacit knowledge usually is more involved, and may require specific provisions by the organization.

Capturing explicit knowledge

Customarily, documented knowledge is stored in a document management system. Such systems are able to handle of a wide range of media and formats, and usually offer a rich set of features for managing all document related processes. The capturing of tacit knowledge results ultimately in documents which are stored in the document management system, and thus made available to everybody having access rights to the documents.

Capturing tacit knowledge

Integrating knowledge capture in everyday work

A very efficient way of capturing tacit knowledge consist in integrate knowledge capturing into work processes. Indeed, much tacit knowledge is captured by documentation as an inherent part of many work activities. However, more effort may be requested in order to capture the knowledge generated in work processes in a systematic way. Appropriate methods are well established by now, and include capturing personal experience (debriefing), collections of process of project experiences (lessons learned), and distillation of good experiences (best practices). If the work process is well defined and appropriate procedures are specified in the workflow, the capturing process will not be seen as causing additional work load, but will be acknowledge as an inherent part of the work process

Debriefing

Lessons learned

Best practice

Capturing specific knowledge

In cases where risks of losing critical knowledge have been identified, such as key people retiring or leaving, or reliance on a single expert, targeted measures and tailored tools may be required to support a facilitated process of knowledge capture.

In the case of capturing specific knowledge, the extent of the knowledge to be externalized, the knowledge holders and the circle of recipients are usually well known. Therefore, the capturing process may be specified more precisely, often in form of a project. This will start from choosing appropriate methods and tools, and may include appointing a facilitator, scheduling a series of face-to-face sessions, and determining and inviting attendants of the sessions (one or more experts, facilitator, recipients). As a result, the knowledge should be available in the document management system in a form best suited to the needs of knowledge recipients.

Capture tools

Description

Techniques for knowledge capture

Special consideration to be taken while capturing knowledge

1. This is perhaps most significant and most difficult element of full KM cycle, as the tacit mode of knowledge permeates all procedures.. To make it proper, inside company motivation for capturing knowledge should established and maintained. In fact, this should be a part of organizational culture.
2. While preparing to knowledge capture, an extent of the knowledge to be captured should be known in advance. It is also related to the scope of knowledge subject. To make it controlled, it is better to slice information on complete parts and provide capturing consequently or in connection to particular parts of information.
3. Before starting the process, relevant guidelines (procedures) and supportive IT solutions should be in place and all stakeholders should be instructed (or even formally trained) in a subject. Names of persons who own the same knowledge to be captured should know to all stakeholders. In guidelines (procedures) special attention should be made for cases when some knowledge would be processed not identified earlier.
4. While preparing the capturing, do not forget to monitor external experience (conferences, workshops, meetings, shared information, etc.) as a source for own KM database. Exit interviews, mentoring, shadowing, debriefing, training are examples of the methods for capturing knowledge.

Debriefing of experts

Alumni programme

Source: National approaches and strategies for Nuclear Knowledge Management

Description

More than ever before, organizations need to find ways to capture employee knowledge and best practices and ensure that they are shared and used throughout the workplace. To achieve this, organizations must uncover and address the gaps between their goals and their current knowledge-transfer practices. New tools and technologies must be supported with process and cultural changes and populated with high-quality structured content. A complete solution requires:

• effective architectures, techniques, and standards for organizing and presenting content effectively;
• new skills to help personnel understand what knowledge to capture, and how to document it, in order to maximize its usefulness to others;
• revised goals and expectations that make knowledge capture a high-priority in everyone's job;
• efficient systems and tools that centralize knowledge content and make it easy to store, access, and maintain.

Source: Planning and Execution of Knowledge Management Assist Missions for Nuclear Organizations

Description

To make knowledge held by individuals better available and less prone to loss.

Description

Make important personal knowledge explicit that has not yet been written down. Although the capture of knowledge is an inherent part of day-to-day activities, such as writing reports, there is personal knowledge that is hard to turn into a written form. For those circumstances tailored tools may be required to support a facilitated process of knowledge capture that is embedded into formal company practices and systems.

Recommendation

Capture knowledge in a number of forms to meet the needs of different Knowledge Recipients.

KM practices

Capture typically follows a systematic screening all individuals for critical knowledge and, depending on the risk of knowledge loss, determining a timetable for capture. An expert (the knowledge holder), recipients and a facilitator (the knowledge analyst) work together in a series of facilitated face-to-face sessions in which a variety of capture templates are populated with knowledge about the why, how, who, what and when of the knowledge held by the expert.

The knowledge is captured in a form best suited to the needs of Knowledge Recipients. The knowledge analyst selects one or more elicitation tools and applies a structured questioning technique.

Tools

Tools typically include

1. Personal network mapping,
2. Concept mapping,
3. Causal mapping,
4. History mapping,
5. Process mapping,
6. Plant configuration experience capture,
7. Thinking aloud,
8. Storytelling and
9. Video capture of task execution with commentary.

The outputs, knowledge artefacts, are shared through on-line repositories and training courses. The knowledge is structured at a level appropriate for the user. Its level of detail may need to reflect the knowledge base and experience of the workforce.

Sellafield practices

In Sellafield, the capture of expert knowledge is organised by the ROCK (retention of critical knowledge) process, which consists of a risk assessment, followed by the implementation of an action plan, in which a ROCK facilitator works with the expert and knowledge recipients to both capture and transfer relevant expertise. The capture results are stored in a Sharepoint expertise library. The capture tools are described in a Sharepoint ROCK resource centre.

References

[1]

Related articles

Capture tools

Transfer

Sharing

Knowledge process

Best practice

Lessons learnedCapture

Explicit knowledge