Knowledge Architecture People Designing a Knowledge Architecture Department

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Knowledge Architecture People Designing a
Knowledge Architecture Department

• Tom ReamyChief Knowledge Architect
• KAPS Group
• Knowledge Architecture Professional Services
• http//www.kapsgroup.com

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Agenda

• Introduction What is Knowledge Architecture?
• KA Roles and Functions
• Skills and Backgrounds
• Tools and Technology
• Services and Partners
• Knowledge Architecture Real Life Example
• Organization and Location of the KA Team

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Introduction What is Knowledge Architecture?

• The people, processes, and technology of
  designing, implementing, and applying the
  intellectual infrastructure of organizations.
• What is an intellectual infrastructure?
• The poor neglected cousin of technology and
  organizational infrastructures
• It is just the set of activities that deal with
  creating, capturing, organizing, visualizing,
  presenting, utilizing, understanding, the
  information part of the information age.

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Knowledge Architecture

• Information Contexts Knowledge
• Information Architecture Infrastructure of
  Contexts Knowledge Architecture
• Content Contexts
• Structured views
• Personal / Community Contexts
• Personalization, Virtual and real communities
• Activity Contexts
• Knowledge workers and embedded knowledge
  structures
• Smart Applications

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Roles and Functions

• Chief Knowledge Architect
• Knowledge Analysts
• Knowledge Engineers
• Knowledge Facilitators
• Knowledge Managers
• Additional Roles Supplementary and Support

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Chief Knowledge Architect

• Work with Chief Knowledge Officer
• Build a Knowledge Culture
• Advocate, Evangelize
• Design lead integration of all the elements of
  the Intellectual infrastructure of the Enterprise
• Design measurement and analytics of KM in
  organization
• Define and lead the KA Team
• Research New Ideas and Technologies
• Personas, Stories, Semantic Web and RDF,
  Cognitive Anthropology, Complexity Theory

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Knowledge Analysts

• Corporate Librarians
• Content Specialists
• Knowledge Organization Structures
• Taxonomies, Classification Schemas
• Metadata and controlled vocabularies
• Search and Categorization Software
• Organization of people and activities
• Tacit Knowledge structures
• Living map of communities and information needs

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Knowledge Engineers

• User and task specialist
• Information Architect
• Collect, analyze, organize tacit knowledge
• Interview users, focus groups, persona
• Ethnographic studies
• Work with Business Analysts

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Knowledge Facilitators

• Establish connections between individuals to
  facilitate knowledge transfer
• Facilitate explicit knowledge transfer
• Train people to incorporate KM
• Understand the information needs of individuals
  and communities and work with them to achieve
  business goals.
• Incorporate KM into chat groups, story telling,
  email, collaboration and innovation efforts.

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Knowledge Managers

• Project Management
• Capture the knowledge generated in a project
• Develop knowledge sharing practices
• Capture Best Practices
• Provide training and leadership on projects
• Moderate Communities of Practice

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Additional Roles Supplementary Support

• Information Architects
• Develop information navigation systems
• Usability, user research
• Web Design
• User oriented web sites
• Prototype IA designs
• Business Analysts, Project managers
• E-Learning
• Performance Support, Learning Objects

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Skills Backgrounds

• Interdisciplinary, Generalists, Idea and People
  people
• Library Science, Information Architecture
• Anthropology, Cognitive Science
• Learning, Education, History of Ideas
• Artificial Intelligence, Linguistics
• Business Intelligence, Database Administration

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Tools and Technology Used by the KA Team

• Categorization, Unstructured Data Management
• Search Engines
• Analytics usage, language and activity
• Important to use the information tools of the
  company
• Collaboration, ideas databases, content
  management, etc.
• Polls and surveys
• Spreadsheets
• Brains

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Knowledge Architecture Partners

• IT Applications and System
• Implementation and Evaluation
• Corporate Communication, HR
• Training
• Practical projects and theory Learning Objects
• Research Departments

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Knowledge Architecture Services

• Knowledge Architecture Audit
• Knowledge Creating
• Innovation, E-learning
• Content Management
• Taxonomic Model, Distributed Categorization
• Knowledge Sharing / Transmission
• Collaboration, Retrieval content and experts
• Knowledge Using
• Smart Applications, CRM. Portals
• Data warehouse, text mining, business intelligence

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Knowledge Architecture Services

• Application of Intellectual infrastructure
• People even Amazon is moving away from
  automated recommendations
• Facilitate projects, KM Project teams
• Core group of consultants and K managers
• Facilitate knowledge capture in meetings
• Answering online questions, facilitating online
  discussions, networking within a community
• Design and run forums, education fairs, etc.

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Knowledge Architecture Services

• Infrastructure Activities
• Integrate taxonomy across the company
• Content, communities, activities
• Design content repositories, update and adapt
  categorization
• Package knowledge into K objects, combine with
  stories, learning histories
• Metrics and Measurement analyze and enhance
• Knowledge Architecture Audit
• Enterprise wide
• Project scale

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• A set of reports, catalogs, recommendations, and
  components characterizing the current state of an
  organizations intellectual infrastructure.
• A foundation and planning document for improving
  the intellectual health of the organization by
  incorporating knowledge architecture into a range
  of projects.
• Can be done in a little as two days, five days,
  or 10 days
• And for the rest of your life.

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• Preliminary Information Gathering
• CKA design approach, identify people, work with
  primary project owners
• Knowledge Analyst catalog content repositories,
  high level characterization, identify content
  issues
• Knowledge Engineer identify representative sets
  of people to interview and study, select set of
  approaches
• Knowledge Facilitator gather available
  documentation
• Knowledge Manager arrange interviews, meetings

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• Stakeholder Interviews
• CKA, knowledge engineers, business analysts
• executive sponsors, steering committees, content
  owners, publishers, technical and business
  support teams, representative user groups, and
  others.
• Map the strategic landscape
• Map and engage components of the process and
  procedures of information creation and
  application

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• Content Repository Catalog
• Knowledge Analyst
• Structured and unstructured content repositories
• Source, publishers and authors, procedures
  where add structure
• Metadata, vocabularies, taxonomies, dictionaries
  (formal and informal users)
• Taxonomy and metadata Evaluation

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• Community Catalog
• Knowledge Engineer
• Formal and informal communities
• Virtual and Real communities
• Type collaboration, communication, etc.
• Business functions
• Internal and external communication channels
• Primary and secondary content repositories

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• User and Task Analysis
• Knowledge Engineer, Facilitator
• Usability plus information behaviors
• Frequency and depth of access
• Known item, research, activity
• Interviews, focus groups, ethnographic studies
• Knowledge Architect
• Search and usage log analysis

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• Technology Needs Assessment
• CKA, Knowledge Mangers
• In partnership with IT and business owners
• Map infrastructure elements for each technology
• Evaluation plans and design projects
• Recommendations and real cost estimates

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Knowledge Architecture in Real LifeKnowledge
Architecture Audit

• Practical Foundation Life After Audit
• Seed taxonomies and/or controlled vocabularies
• Metadata schemas, Persona Candidates and methods
• Project recommendations
• Prototype screens, applications, web sites
• Monitor usage and design responses

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Why Knowledge Architecture?

• Knowledge Management Foundation
• Immanuel Kant
• Concepts without percepts are empty
• Percepts without concepts are blind
• Knowledge Management
• KM without applications is empty (Strategy Only)
• Applications without KA are blind (IT based KM)

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Knowledge Architecture Sight to the Blind

• Search Retrieval Is anyone happy?
• Trends more articles on taxonomies, CM
• New tools and approaches
• Need an infrastructure team of general
  specialists
• Anyone can organize information card sorts,
  etc.
• Web masters to information architects
• Develop taxonomies cant be done by software or
  SMEs
• Metadata, vocabularies keywords dont work
  why?

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Knowledge Architecture Taxonomies

• Need a combination of formal and informal
• Difference between browse and formal taxonomies
• Hierarchy, lattice, semantic networks, folders,
  etc.
• Important to know the differences
• Quality Metrics
• Corpus, Coverage, Nomenclature, terminology,
  dependency
• Mixed classes, verbal forms, bad speciation, etc.
• Bell Curve, balance of depth and width
• Cognitive Difference Geography of Thought
• Panda, monkey, banana

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Place in the Enterprise Intellectual
Infrastructure

• Would you try to run your company without
  organizing it?
• Or let each project redefine the organization,
  jobs and pay, reporting structures, etc.?
• Would you try to run your computers without a
  networked infrastructure?
• Or let each person or team have a standalone, own
  software, own operating system, etc.?
• Why do you think you can run your company without
  organizing your content in an integrated,
  systematic way?

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Organization and Location of the Team

• Central, Dedicated Department
• Cross Organizational
• IT, HR, Corporate Communication, Library,
  Training
• Internal vs. Professional Services
• How much can be done at the beginning and then
  maintained by small staff and how much ongoing?
• Answer from Knowledge Architecture Audit

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Summary

• In information age, need to treat information as
  central
• Information organization is an infrastructure
  element
• Knowledge architecture people need to be
• Generalists, good with people and ideas
• Smart, funny, and can dance real good
• Knowledge architecture will
• Bring about the end of history
• Usher in the third age of mankind
• Help organizations work smarter and cheaper