Reuse

Definition

Reuse is Utilizing knowledge more than once.

Summary

This standard outline is to be used when authoring articles in Category:Knowledge processes. It fixes the higher level headings and the order in which they appear. The main difference to Standard outline for an article is the replacement of the general section "Description" with a more detailed structure. This standard outline includes some wiki coding to make it easier to link to other related articles. This coding can be found under headings Sub-processes and KM tools.

Reuse is one of the nine main knowledge process categories in the NKM Wiki.

For the nine main knowledge process categories see Fig 1.

Purpose

To find people that can help raise proficiency.

Sub-processes

The sub-processes for this process can be found in the Category:Reuse processes

Connection to other main categories

To see how this process is connected to KM challenges, benefits and tools, please refer to Portal:Reuse.

Contribution to the management system

Recommendation

Use the organisation’s yellow pages, intranet, community directories and social networks to find internal and external people with knowledge relevant to the specific knowledge area(s).

Table of business processes

This knowledge process is embedded in the following business processes in the Integrated management system. Each process has a score commensurate with its relevance to this process.

Business process	Impact
Configuration management	High
Technical skill resources	High
Lessons learned	Low
Information technology	High
Operating experience	High
Peer review	High
Technology development	Medium

Processes not in the management system

Practices to find people include the deployment of organisational yellow pages, social intranets, community directories and the use of social networks. These reference internal and external people’s skills, knowledge, experience and expertise so that individuals with specific knowledge can be found quickly and easily. Where either experts or expertise are not maintained within the business, ready access to similarly constructed directories of alumni employees or experts in external organisations are utilised.

KM tools

For all the KM tools that help implement the knowledge process see Category:Reuse process tools

Case studies

Sellafield

In Sellafield, knowledge possessed by individuals can be inferred by:

• previous employers,
• organisational roles or assignments,
• R2A2’s,
• areas of competence and
• qualifications or
• membership or association with a reputable organisation/body.

Access to:

• role specific network maps reveals important contacts of experts and the
• self-use of a common taxonomy facilitates finding both experts and areas of expertise.
• Skills matrices help with succession planning, training and targeting knowledge diffusion.
• Standardised organisational structures and use of organograms further enable identifying knowledgeable colleagues.

Related articles

Knowledge process (disambiguation)

Description

Organizational knowledge creation and enhancement is a continuous process whereas knowledge application can be infrequent. Unless an organization does something proactive, it may never ‘know what it knows’. The corollary is also true — an organization may not know what it does not know. These areas of unknown are sometimes referred to as knowledge gaps.

When a knowledge gap is identified, it may be possible to implement a system element (resource, process or tool) to ‘fill’ the gap. Clearly, it would good business practice to later evaluate the effectiveness of the action and assess its impact on the knowledge management system.

It may also be possible to measure, in some way, the use of explicit information before and after the adoption of knowledge management techniques. After all, it is the ability to better share knowledge that is the key to success. This type of analysis could also highlight the way in which specific sources of information and knowledge are used which then leads to a better understanding of the non-documented links between sources. This type of analysis can be extended to implicit knowledge if staff are made aware of its existence, for example, the number of times access is given to a corporate level skills and experience matrix or a ‘yellow pages’ could provide an indication of access to undocumented information sources (that is, co-workers).

An organization could, potentially, obtain some sort of qualitative assessment of the ‘before-and-after’ level of worker morale. Improvements to the application of existing ‘knowledge resources’ (for example, routine reporting of the use of current knowledge to improve a particular business process; the reduction in time necessary to find or rediscover existing knowledge) might be considered in order to demonstrate the benefits of adopting knowledge management techniques. Generally, a worker’s morale will be improved if they can quickly and efficiently find the information or knowledge they seek. Where communities of practice are used, it may be possible to measure changes in productivity. Improved efficiency can be measured by recording the number of steps (for example number of staff consulted) to discover a knowledge source compared to a random and untargeted request for assistance.

Measuring and assimilating the benefits of adopting a range of knowledge management techniques is the key to determining the degree of success. Knowledge management is not concerned so much with the action of creation in itself, but creation of the right knowledge at the right time and providing a means of accessing it. The benefits that arise from sharing, identifying gaps, linking sources and improving quality through lessons learned will follow.

Source: Knowledge management for radioactive waste management organisations

References

[1]

Related articles

Utilization

Utilization