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August, 1999
SKILLS FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Patricia Layzell Ward
In July TFPL organised a seminar in London to review the findings of a major international research project carried out for the Library and Information Commission which considered the roles, skills and training required to successfully implement knowledge management. It attracted an audience of information professionals from several countries. An executive summary reporting the project is available at the LIC website at www.lic.gov.uk and this short review highlights some of the findings.
The key conclusions:
- Knowledge Management is already loosing its capital letters. The most common approach is to introduce some identifiable and achievable activities - �quick wins�.
- Most organisations are still defining their KM roles, and some are re-aligning or extending existing posts.
- The CKO role is most likely to be filled by someone within the organisation who knows the business and internal politics, and has the respect of people at all levels.
- The overlap between recognised management competencies and those required for KM are significant, and are associated with change and project management and the need to influence attitudes and management style, and work across boundaries.
- Amongst the enabling skills: knowledge mapping and flows, information structure and architecture, document and information management and workflow, an understanding of information management principles and technological opportunities.
- The survival skills: communication, team working, negotiation, persuasion, facilitation, coaching, mentoring, understanding business processes.
- The core competencies: professional/technical education, training and development, business sectors and work experience.
- There is a need for enterprise wide information literacy.
- The ILS profession can make an impact, but to take advantage of the opportunity individual professionals need to understand the potential of these skills and the business objectives of the organisations that employ them.
The report urges the ILS profession to develop an understanding of KM concepts and the strategies and the skills and competencies needed. Recommendations include the setting up of a virtual professional university and centres of excellence. Anyone interested in KM should read the full executive summary and ponder on its content. There are opportunities, but the ILS profession will do itself a disservice if it assumes that �librarians� can become �knowledge managers� overnight. The information skills already acquired need to be complemented by the appropriate management skills. Evidence given in earlier position papers leads to a questioning as to whether all newcomers to the profession hold the basic attributes.
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