Capturing knowledge: A psychological viewpoint

by Tatjana Gawrilowa (published in: Enterprise Partner, N/8 (25), 30 April 2001)

Knowledge Management

The term “Knowledge Management” (KM) was developed in the 90ies of the last century by large-scale companies where the problem of information processing played an important role. It was very important for the enterprises to use the information which had been collected over years in the right way. Knowledge Management – is something that is needed to strengthen the competitiveness.
Knowledge that has not been useful for a while and that doesn’t bring up new insides anymore is usually labelled as ‘old’ and not used in the development process of new ideas. This process can be nicely compared with money: Money which doesn’t work, looses it’s value. Knowledge, which is used and shared, develops new knowledge.

Following technologies are used to integrate KM-systems into a holistic complex:

• conventional systems of automation and search systems;


• electronic mail, corporative network and internet-service;


• base and data warehouse;


• systems for electronic use of documents;


• special programme for data file processing;


• competent systems (yellow pages) and knowledge bases.

Processing of Knowledge Management-Systems ( KM-Systems)

While processing the KM-Systems, we come across with the questions ‘where?’ and ‘how?’ to find the relevant information..

Corporative information can be stored in two forms:
Material or evident information – these are the data and knowledge that can be found in the documents like letters, newsletters or articles.
Personal or secret (hidden) information – this is knowledge that is connected to the personal experiences.
These two forms of information are equally important for the structure of Knowledge Management-Systems (KM-Systems).

There are the following stages (steps) in the Knowledge Management-Systems-Processing:

• storage of information;


• finding the information and their transfer;


• structure and form;


• projecting of systems;


• realization of programmes;


• service.

This description of processing helps us to understand, what exactly happens while developing the Knowledge Management-System.

The process of capturing the knowledge and its transfer is the most important problem in the engineering area. For analysts it is especially important to understand and differentiate these peculiarities.
We differentiate three important aspects of this process:

A = { A1, A2, A3 } = { psychological, linquistic, gnoseological }.

The psychological aspect of this process is of the biggest importance since it determines the efficiency and the success of the companies’ analysts and experts.

What else is important?… Experts forward to the analysts the most expensive means in the world - knowledge. Sometimes it is even useful to awake a competitive spirit in the expert’s mind. The best would be to talk to the expert privately, in a small room, without getting disturbed by anyone.
The analyst gets the information mostly in his own native language (external language). The most important for the expert is to interpret his own thought and turn them into spoken, understandable words. To do so, experts don’t use only the language as an expression of communication, but also mimic, movement and intonation.

When we speak about Knowledge Management-Systems-Processing, we should not forget the emotional problems. In our opinion, they are the theoretical and practical aspects of Knowledge Management-Systems-Processing.

Tatjana Gawrilowa is a consultant for the information technologies of “Balt – Audit – Expert”.
Read the whole article (in Russian language) here