Introduction to Knowledge Management

What is this course about?

An organisation's true competitive edge is the knowledge it holds--knowledge that is often stored only in the minds of individuals where it can't be shared or improved and, frequently, is lost when those individuals leave the organisation. A well-designed and implemented knowledge management program is essential to compile disconnected pockets of information to strengthen the effectiveness of an organisation. In this course, you develop the skills and processes to build KM solutions that leverage organisational and individual knowledge.

Who will benefit from this course?

This course benefits those responsible for the management and distribution of knowledge or tasked with implementing a knowledge management initiative within an organisation. Often, those involved in knowledge management include directors, program managers, team leaders and department heads. The content of this course can be applied to organisations of any size.

What background do I need?

There is no prerequisite knowledge for this course. No previous knowledge management or IT experience is required.

I've heard about knowledge management, but I'm not sure what it is. Will this course give me practical tools that I can take back to my business?

Yes. This course covers the key knowledge management skills, competencies and processes. Through immersive, real-world activities, you gain the practical skills to perform a knowledge audit to determine what your company needs and what is missing, develop the processes to ensure that necessary knowledge is available to the people who need it, and capture key knowledge from an organisation's members to retain it within the organisation.

The goal of this course is to ensure that an organisation gets the greatest benefit out of its most valuable resource--the knowledge that its employees have brought into the company or developed through experience.

Do I need a technical background to understand knowledge management?

No. Successful KM teams recognize that the critical elements in building a KM infrastructure for their organisation are the people and processes. Technology is only a support tool. The course briefly reviews how to use common tools for implementing knowledge management solutions and discusses how they would fit into developing a KM solution. However, this course is not about knowledge management technology. Learning Tree does have courses on using common collaborative tools, including SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange. Please see the SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange Curriculum Q&As for more details.

I am a manager at a small/medium organization. Will I be able to apply knowledge management tools or are KM tools only for large organizations?

KM is applicable to any organization of any size. This course provides an in-depth look at designing and implementing KM at the team, department and enterprise levels.

How does this course differ from Course 901, Introduction to Business Intelligence: Designing a Successful BI Programme?

This course focuses on how to determine which type of knowledge ("know-how" and "know-why") is valuable to your organisation, both to ensure that the expertise is available to the people who need it and to ensure that it isn't lost when people leave the organisation.

Course 901, Introduction to Business Intelligence: Designing a Successful BI Programme, provides a process to design and implement an effective programme for gathering targeted information and putting it into the hands of decision makers.

Knowledge management includes ensuring that decision makers have the expertise (or access to the expertise) to make good decisions.

How much time is spent on each topic?

How much of this course is activity-based?

More than 60 percent of the course is spent participating in interactive activities and hands-on exercises, which include

• Developing a KM model that incorporates best practices
• Performing knowledge audits to determine an organisation's knowledge deficits
• Extracting knowledge from experts
• Creating knowledge assets to support non-experts
• Facilitating communities of practise to effectively transfer knowledge through the organisation
• Integrating KM into the enterprise
• Measuring the effectiveness of KM

Activities are built around a case study in which participants function as knowledge management consultants who must first develop a KM model and then use it to work with their major client to develop an effective solution for the organisation. Participants develop a set of criteria for selecting successful KM projects, perform a knowledge audit, write a knowledge asset based on interviews with an expert, and both create and use a set of community of practice "yellow pages."

Is this course applicable toward a Project Management Institute (PMI) certification?

Yes. Though this course is not designed as preparation for an exam, it is beneficial to anyone working toward, or maintaining, a PMI certification. Most PMI certifications require a specific number of PDUs in order to obtain and maintain the credential. Completion of this course provides 17 professional development units (PDUs).

Learning Tree offers several courses that help you prepare for PMI certifications, including Course 276, Preparing for the Project Management Professional (PMP)^® Exam, which prepares you for PMI's most popular certification. For more details on these courses and PMI certifications, please see the Learning Tree PMI Registered Education Provider Q&A.

Is this course endorsed by the IIBA^TM?

Yes. Learning Tree is an Endorsed Education Provider (EEP^TM) by the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). This course has been approved by the IIBA as supporting core concepts and knowledge outlined by IIBA's Business Analysis Body of Knowledge^® (BABOK^®). Completion of this course counts as 17 continuing development units (CDUs). For more information about CDUs and how to register them with the IIBA, please see the Learning Tree IIBA^TM EEP^TM Q&A or http://www.theiiba.org.

The IIBA, an independent, nonprofit professional association for business analysts, created the BABOK^®, which is a collection of knowledge for professional business analysts. The BABOK^® reflects generally accepted practices and describes business analysis areas of knowledge, their associated activities and tasks, and the skills necessary to be effective in their execution.

How does this course relate to other Learning Tree courses?

• 901, Introduction to Business Intelligence: Designing a Successful BI Programme, provides a process to design and implement an effective programme for gathering targeted information and delivering it to decision makers
• 211, Introduction to Business Analysis: Defining Successful Projects, provides the foundational knowledge of the role and function of the business analyst
• 212, Building an Effective Business Case, provides the knowledge and skills to analyse initiatives to construct a clear business case that enables organisations to make better decisions
• 3505, Implementing Business Process Improvement (BPI) in Your Organisationoffers the skills to integrate continuous process improvement strategies and techniques within your business
• 319, Technical Writing: A Comprehensive Hands-On Introductionprovides the knowledge and skills to assess the needs of your users and create documents that explain technical information
• 218, User and System Requirements for Successful Software Development, provides the knowledge and skills needed to capture software requirements using clearly defined processes
• 315, Developing User Requirements: The Key to Project Success, offers the knowledge to enhance your requirements development processes and develop individual skills for getting the right information from your stakeholders
• 912, Creating a High-Impact Work Plan for Business Analysts
• 381, Business Process Re-engineering for Competitive Advantage, offers the critical skills needed to implement business process
• 146, Introduction to Microsoft® Tools for Business Intelligence: Hands-On, provides the knowledge and skills to build and integrate Microsoft tools into an end-to-end solution in order to achieve business advantage
• 195, Power Excel®: Analysing Data to Make Business Decisions, offers the skills to perform "what-if" analysis, apply functions, manipulate PivotTables and present your results to make better decisions for planning, budgeting and more

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