Dove Lane

A few months ago, John Maloney reprinted this list for reconsideration. Larry Prusak studied some 100 knowledge projects during the 1990s, and the list represents his and L Fahey’s joint understanding of the problems facing knowledge management in 1998. It’s been quoted often. In researching the list, I found more than 30 applications of it in all kinds of research papers.

The main issue I have with the original list is that it’s a mixed bag of admonitions. I get the sales hook of using “deadliest sins” in the title, but the list is confusingly written. The audience is not clear either. Is it KM professionals? Business people? Newcomers to the field? Some points seem to play to some but not to all. Of course, it was written in 1998, and that was fairly early in KM’s evolution, so this list may have been Fahey and Prusak’s straw man — a first attempt to provide some guidance to a new field — that was never intended to be the rosetta stone for KM eight years later (even though we still face many of the same issues). To make their list easier for myself to understand, I revised it, taking into account the common knowledge of today, and decided to share it:

The 11 Deadliest Sins (Fahey and Prusak, 1998)

1. Not developing a working definition of knowledge
Comment: We’ve had a lot of working definitions of knowledge since 1998, and KM experts are still in strong disagreement about what it is. We’ll get there, but for now the problem is failure to define it.
Suggested change: Failing to define knowledge.

2. Emphasizing knowledge stock to the detriment of knowledge flow.
Comment: These terms have been somewhat superceded and create confusion. Knowledge stock refers to information — objects or artifacts that can be put into a database and retrieved using a search engine. Knowledge flow refers to the process of creating and reusing knowledge.
Suggested change: Emphasizing content artifacts instead of knowledge flow.

3. Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside the heads of individuals.
Comment: Many people believe erroneously that knowledge refers to documents and other information artifacts. Knowledge is not equal to information. Knowledge is only found and created in brains. The rest is information.
Suggested change: Believing knowledge can exist outside the heads of individuals.

4. Not understanding that a fundamental intermediate purpose of managing knowledge is to create shared context.
Comment: Knowledge can be shared when the person having it and the person needing it have the same understanding of the parameters. Creating an environment where contexts are shared is vital to effective knowledge exchange. KM has to do more than provide and catalogue artifacts. It has to help people to talk about circumstances.
Suggested change: Believing that creating shared context is not an important milestone in the process of managing knowledge.

5. Paying little heed to the role and importance of tacit knowledge.
Comment: Tacit knowledge is, by definition, unspoken. If anyone thinks that information captured in a database is the whole story, they are wrong. That point of view neglects the “people” dimension of KM. The knowledge that matters most is often situation-specific variables that are known but not documented.
Suggested change: Failing to understand the role and significance of tacit knowledge.

6. Disentangling knowledge from its uses.
Comment: Knowledge isn’t tangled in its uses, since knowledge only exists in the brain of the knower. Knowledge is de facto separate from its uses, but knowledge can be applied to new situations.
Suggested change: Confusing information creation with applying knowledge to new situations.

7. Downplaying thinking and reasoning.
Comment: Thinking and reasoning are human traits, and are critical to the knowledge creation process. Think about it. Would you rather look up a report in a database, or talk to someone who has experience with the issues? The human component in KM is currently undervalued.
Suggested change: Overlooking the importance of thinking and reasoning to the KM process.

8. Focusing on the past and the present and not on the future.
Comment: The process of documentation is always backward-facing. What’s important is the future — better decisionmaking, improved time to market, faster processes, greater competitiveness, smarter workers. It’s useful to know where we’ve been, but not at the expense of building a road to the future.
Suggested change: Documenting the past and present, and ignoring the future.

9. Failing to recognize the importance of experimentation.
Comment: KM is a new field. All innovation creates change. The KM process is new and requires experimentation to get it right. Experimentation sometimes results in failure. Many businesses have low tolerance for failure. Knowledge results from both success and failure.
Suggested change: Failing to acknowledge the importance of experimentation and failure.

10. Substituting technological contact for human interface
Comment: Posted message boards, email, and online collaborations of various sorts will never fully replace human interaction. Capturing and documenting information can’t replace a live, nuanced conversation that establishes context and facilitates a transfer of knowledge from one person to another.
Suggested change: Substituting technological contact for face-to-face interactions.

11. Seeking to develop direct measures of knowledge.
Comment: “Direct measures” appears to mean quantifiable measures, such as might be used for accounting and valuation purposes. There are many viable measures of knowledge management success today, depending upon which aspect of KM one wants to measure. Some experts have suggested ways to account for the value of KM’s “soft” benefits, and over time these are likely to be more commonly accepted as society keeps moving toward a service economy. Bearing in mind that “knowledge” is not the same as “information”, information can definitely be measured and valued using current balance sheet metrics. Knowledge has to be assessed differently, perhaps as a component of the value of an individual to an organization.
Suggested change: Attempting to measure knowledge using the metrics of balance sheets.

Of course, this is my own interpretation. Did I mistate anything or lose the original intent? Comments and criticisms are welcome, as always…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 at 11:42 pm, and is filed under KM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.