Saturday, December 28, 2002

The Nonsense of KM

The Google cache of "The Nonsense of Knowledge Management". He likens KM (or DKM - Distributed Knowledge Management) to TQM, ERP, CRM, BPR and others (love TLAs).

"These have sometimes been called management fads and fashions, but it would be wrong to assume that, for that reason, they all lacked effectiveness when applied in organizations. Some, however, have been disastrous..it [downsizing] could be a recipe for industrial disaster...in fact, two thirds of BPR efforts are said to have failed...Happily, it is quite easy to distinguish between 'knowledge' and 'information' in such a way as to remove ambiguity and, at the same time, demonstrate the fundamental nonsense of 'knowledge management'." Most of the papers he found used "information" as a synonym for "knowledge". He also pokes fun at major consulting firms like Accenture, Ernst and Young and KPMG and their use of "search and replace" marketing.

In the end, we are left with: "'If getting promotion, or holding your job, or finding a new one is based on the knowledge you possess - what incentive is there to reveal that knowledge and share it?...Organizations need to learn to think about problems, rather than grab at proffered 'solutions' - which often turn out to be expensive side-tracks away from the main issues.'".

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