Introduction to Knowledge Management

Frequently Asked Questions

What is this course about? An organization'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 organization. A well-designed and implemented knowledge management program is essential to compile disconnected pockets of information to strengthen the effectiveness of an organization. In this course, you develop the skills and processes to build KM solutions that leverage organizational 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 organization. Often, those involved in knowledge management include directors, program managers, team leaders and department heads. The content of this course can be applied to organizations 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 organization's members to retain it within the organization. The goal of this course is to ensure that an organization 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 organization 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 Program? This course focuses on how to determine which type of knowledge ("know-how" and "know-why") is valuable to your organization, 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 organization. Course 901, Introduction to Business Intelligence: Designing a Successful BI Program, provides a process to design and implement an effective program 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? Content Hours Introduction to knowledge management (KM) 3.0 Building knowledge assets 3.0 Creating communities of practice 3.0 Designing a knowledge management project 4.0 Implementing knowledge management 4.0 Times, including the workshops, are estimates; exact times may vary according to the needs of each class. 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 organization's knowledge deficits Extracting knowledge from experts Creating knowledge assets to support non-experts Facilitating communities of practice to effectively transfer knowledge through the organization Integrating KM into the enterprise Measuring the effectiveness of KM Activities are built around a case study in which participants act as company employees who discover they don't have access to the knowledge they need, and as a result, the company is failing to achieve its goals. Participants develop a solution to move from the company's current process into a knowledge management-driven one that not only gathers company knowledge and makes it available to the organization, but facilitates a new generation of knowledge. How does this course relate to other Learning Tree courses? 901, Introduction to Business Intelligence: Designing a Successful BI Program provides a process to design and implement an effective program 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 analyze initiatives to construct a clear business case that enables organizations to make better decisions 319, Technical Writing: A Comprehensive Hands-On Introduction provides 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 381, Business Process Reengineering for Competitive Advantage offers the critical skills needed to implement business process 912, Building a Successful Business Analysis Work Plan  913, Preparing for the IIBA™ CBAP™ Certification Exam provides an in-depth review of the six knowledge areas included in the exam 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®: Analyzing 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 196, Introduction to Statistics: Making Better Business Decisions provides you with the statistical techniques to support your business decisions

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