PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS AN

ICEBREAKER

Motivating Contributions to Knowledge Management Systems

Harald Kjellin

Department of Computer and Systems Sciences, Stockholm University, SE - 16440, Kista, Sweden

Department of Mathematics and Science, Kristianstad University, SE - 29188 Kristianstad, Sweden

Terese Stenfors-Hayes

Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, 171 77 Stockholm, Sweden

Keywords: Personal Knowledge Management, Knowledge Management, Motivation.

Abstract: Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) includes a set of techniques that individuals can use to acquire,

create and share knowledge without relying on technical or financial support from the employer. The

purpose of this study is to find indications of detectable value from experimental implementations of PKM

systems in a number of organisations. The study includes 75 implementations of a PKM system in 75

different organisations and evaluations of them all. The results from interviewing all employees that

participated in the study showed that: 1) The implementation of PKM does not require extensive resources

2) The effects can be measured from a personal level, and 3) The employees assessed the positive value of

the descriptions of personalised knowledge.

1 INTRODUCTION

Lack of employee motivation is a well-known

problem related to the implementation of

Knowledge Management (KM) systems. This

motivation includes both motivating employees to

contribute with knowledge and motivating

employees to use the available knowledge.

Motivation can be achieved in three ways:

1) By specifying objectives. This is done by the

management specifying visions and values, with

a focus on the knowledge processes in the

organisation and thereby inspiring the

employees who become conscious of what the

management wants from them. There are many

studies that points to problems with such an

approach (Price, 2004). If people believe that

their contribution is for the management only,

they will be less motivated to participate in the

knowledge sharing processes.

2) By reward systems. Systems range from

monetary rewards for each measured

contribution to rewarding employees by a public

recognition of their contribution. Some authors

claim that knowledge cannot be bought

(Denning, 2000), while others claim that it may

work if it is implemented the right way

(Armstrong, 1999).

3) By workspace design. The third way to motivate

employees to contribute and share knowledge is

to create work situations, which may inspire an

increase in the interchange of ideas. There exist

well known examples of how this can work

(Dixon, 2000) but it is also known that such

strategies require focused initiatives, preferably

by some kind of participating experts or

knowledge champion, before it may work.

Whichever of the three above types of motivation is

used when implementing a Knowledge Management

strategy, the common denominator for all of them is

that they all require considerable corporate resources

in order to stand a chance of success. Before the

management invests in such a KM project, they need

to be convinced that the project will provide enough

pay-off to motivate the investment. It is, however,

difficult to measure return of investments from KM.

Especially since it may take many years before the

Kjellin H. and Stenfors-Hayes T. (2007).

PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS AN ICEBREAKER - Motivating Contributions to Knowledge Management Systems.

In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems - AIDSS, pages 76-81

DOI: 10.5220/0002364800760081

 SciTePress

KM investments may provide any clearly detectable

value.

If Knowledge Management is not implemented as a

global system in the organisation, but instead on a

personal level as a system aiming at improving and

identifying individual competence, motivation can

be created in alternative ways:

1. People are more willing to share what they

know if they get direct and personal feedback

on it (OECD 2000).

2. People get motivated if they experience that

they learn while they reflect on their own

knowledge (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995).

3. Allowing people to describe their situation from

their own perspective helps them to synchronise

their descriptions with the way they prefer to

experience their work situation. If people feel

that what they have a personal value for doing

something they will be less hesitant to

contribute with their knowledge (Jones &

Thomas, 1997).

By being implemented by one person at a time,

productivity and enthusiasm can be increased and

the technological and social barriers of top-down,

‘global’ systems can be overcome (Barth, 2000). We

further assume that it is easier to find indications of

return of investments if Knowledge Management is

implemented on a personal level. KM is believed to

work best when people themselves take the initiative

and responsibility for what they know, don’t know

and need to know. This also enhances the

intellectual capital of the organisation (Barth, 2000).

We will investigate the indications of the

participants’ motivation and the return of

investments from PKM in relation to KM. The PKM

system evaluated in this study focuses on the

individual’s knowledge concerning work processes,

personal networks, relations, self-awareness etc. The

evaluated system was presented as a general outline,

all evaluators were, after that, asked to tailor-make

the system in detail for each user. Therefore there is

a slight variation in the different systems used. This

variation shows the width, usefulness and

applicability of the general approach.

2 THE PURPOSE OF THE

INVESTIGATION

The purpose of the study is to find indications of

detectable value from experimental implementations

of PKM systems in a number of organisations. We

will not investigate to what extent PKM may be

useful for the organisation as a whole since this

would require a much larger study. We assume that

if individual employees experience their efforts with

PKM as useful and rewarding, the use of the

approach will be increased within the organisation.

3 PKM IN THEORY

PKM is a way to make use of the value that could be

generated if everyone made the best use of their

knowledge and also felt motivated and empowered

(Higgison, 2004). It is also a tool to help people

reflect and thereby learn; existing knowledge is

identified and can therefore be enriched and

developed. PKM includes a set of techniques that

individuals can use to acquire, create and share

knowledge without relying on technical or financial

support from the employer. The view on PKM can

in certain contexts be somewhat limited. PKM does

not only equate technology and tools, but is rather

about organising thoughts and developing individual

competencies. PKM builds partly on the idea that

KM cannot succeed unless every person takes

personal responsibility for what he or she knows and

does not know. PKM can be said to be a framework

designed for personal use that includes personal

habits, preferences, decisions and networks. Our

personal network is considered our most valuable

knowledge related asset (Grey, 2003) and “the key

to becoming an achiever is to record personal

decisions” (Drucker, 2000). PKM shifts the learning

and sharing responsibility as well as the networking

from the company to individuals and aims to help

people understand how their personal values and

goals relate to these networks and this knowledge.

People’s values and goals are part of their identity

and personal identity is an important aspect in PKM,

by using PKM unarticulated assumptions can be

made clear (Grey, 2003). PKM furthermore aims to

uncover latent potential in people and maximise

their personal effectiveness (Higgison, 2004). Just

like most KM systems, PKM systems aims to

facilitate the share of knowledge but PKM systems

also aims to make the knowledge more explicit to

the owners themselves, on the basis that knowing

yourself might be an as important focus as sharing.

4 IMPLEMENTING AND

EVALUATING PKM IN 75

ORGANISATIONS

There is evidence that KM implementations require

a professional ‘knowledge champion’ to be

PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS AN ICEBREAKER - Motivating Contributions to Knowledge

Management Systems

successful (Skyrme, 1999). By adopting the PKM

perspective and thereby make each individual

personally responsible, everyone becomes their own

champion. In order to be able to test the proposed

PKM in as many organisations as possible we gave

75 master students the task to each implement the

PKM system with one employee in one of 75

organisations. A majority of these 75 employees had

some kind of management position, which we

defined as an employee who has more than four

subordinates. We assumed that such a large

diversified population would result in enough

quantities of collected information to enable us to

draw some conclusions concerning if the proposed

PKM system could be valuable. With valuable we

mean not requiring much effort to be implemented

yet still producing useful results.

4.1 Simulation of PKM and Skills

Training for Implementers

Before implementing a PKM system in an

organisation, the students participated in some

training. The training was carried out as a simulation

of the whole process in smaller cases. The training

prepared and familiarised the students to the role as

assisting mentor, as a knowledge champion and as a

system designer. They were trained to:

1. Motivate a person to reflect on his/her

knowledge in a similar way as a therapist

motivates a patient to tell the most relevant

stories from past experiences. This includes

interview technique and listening technique.

2. Extracting the essence from provided stories

and knowledge descriptions, and from these

extractions create compact descriptions or

useful rules of thumb of for example work

processes. An important part of this process is

valuating the knowledge.

3. Standardise or generalise the rules of thumb by

translating them to domain independent words

that could be easily understood by employees

who are not used to the local ‘buzz words’

within the organisation.

4. Evaluate different implementations of PKM.

5. Evaluate the estimated availability of the

knowledge in the system by testing the

descriptions on third party subjects.

4.2 Evaluating PKM

All students were provided with templates for asking

questions for acquiring and structuring knowledge.

The template consisted of four headers where each

header was followed by large set of proposed

questions. The headers were:

1) Your present situation?

Including for

example current work processes, best

practices, core competencies, personal

network, goals, values, skills and attitudes.

2) Your preferences

? Including ideal design of

work processes, need for knowledge, how

to achieve improved control, how to

acquire personal effectiveness.

3) How can you get information?

Including

knowledge and information providers,

incentives for receiving knowledge, how to

present a need for knowledge.

4) What kind of information/knowledge do

you have that you can share? Including

feedback and response to it from superiors,

colleagues, subordinates and preferences

for sharing knowledge.

Each of the students then adjusted this template to

the situation at the organisation where he or she

would test the system. The students were asked to

carefully consider the aim and objectives of their

PKM system, and some freedom concerning these

issues was given here. Suggested objectives included

helping people structure his or her personal

knowledge, externalise tacit knowledge, bring out

knowledge to be shared or motivate by showing the

uniqueness of that particular persons knowledge.

The template might be said to represent a view

on PKM that even more strongly emphasises

socialisation for all steps of the KM process and

focuses less on tools and technology, our template is

not especially designed for independent knowledge

workers. Before the template was provided to the

students they had received teaching concerning how

to search for knowledge, define it, classify it, name

it, evaluate it, in a similar fashion as is done in the

Anderson Edge Workshop (Frand & Hixon, 99).

4.2.1 Design

The students were to some extent free to design the

contents of their PKM systems. The systems could

be based either on a personalisation strategy and/or a

codification strategy (Hansen, Nohria & Tierney,

1999). A few systems were designed as expert

locator systems aiming to facilitate the company’s

use of existing competence rather that buying similar

services from external consultants. An expert locator

would also be useful when putting together project

groups. Most systems were designed so that some

information and knowledge could be stored in a

database and thereby be accessible to all. However,

ICEIS 2007 - International Conference on Enterprise Information Systems

several students discovered that some knowledge

could not be explicitly expressed. A concern among

the students about the risks with a too static system

was also identified, therefore some students

concluded that the system should include some kind

of personalisation strategy. The students usually

described a system with a database as well as other

activities such as seminars, discussion groups etc.

The design of the implementation of the system built

on individuals together in pairs, to mentor each other

in their championship. Having a critical friend that

supports the reflective process by for example

asking questions can be a great support in a person’s

professional development (Dahlgren et al, 2006,

Handal, 1999).

4.2.2 Evaluation

The following evaluation criteria were proposed for

evaluating the implemented PKM system, but the

students were given some freedom to adjust these

criteria to the individual organisations.

1. Personal experience of PKM

1.1. Do you find answering the PKM questions

and using the PKM approach useful to

you?

1.2. Have you learned or realised something

new about your professional situation

through these interviews?

1.3. Would you recommend the PKM approach

or a similar system to your colleagues or

friends?

2. The general usage

2.1. How could these interviews and the

answers be used?

2.2. To what extent could the PKM be

practically used by other employees?

3. Cost and benefits, i.e., how do the costs relate to

assumed benefits from using the PKM

3.1. How can the system be implemented?

3.2. What resources are needed?

In all 75 organisations the students asked a number

of questions about the aspects above. The summary

of all answers was interpreted and conclusions were

drawn for each of the categories.

5 RESULTS FROM THE

EVALUATIONS

We used the results from the 75 evaluations in order

to determine to what extent the estimated benefits

were greater than the needed resources for

implementing the PKM system. We interpreted the

results from each evaluation according to if it

claimed that the evaluation criteria above were

satisfied, and then we added all results in order to

determine the general trend for each criterion. There

was much variation among the results. In 27 of the

75 reports we had to discuss the results with the

authors in order to clarify the validity of their

classifications. This also provided us with an

opportunity to probe deeper into their reported

experiences. Finally we summed up all positive and

all negative answers concerning the interpretation to

what extent the criteria were satisfied

5.1 Personal Experience of PKM

In all evaluations the reactions of the employees

were positive to the PKM system. Some experienced

an increased awareness concerning their competence

after having participated. Participation also led to

reflection of the current state of things. Most

employees stated that they enjoyed the actual

interview.

5.2 The General Usage

The evaluations showed that the respondents found

it easy to produce the type of knowledge

descriptions that were used in the PKM systems,

although some kind of introduction or ‘warm-up’

could be recommended. Most evaluations showed

that the respondents would read their colleagues

knowledge descriptions and that the system thereby

would be used. The classic KM problem that all

people might not be as willing to share their

knowledge with others is still valid here, but with

the personal approach, the responsibility put on each

employee increases the sharing. An implemented

system provides an overview over how knowledge

and information is used and made available for the

organisation. This is most useful according to some

of the interviewed managers. The systems also

showed possible critical knowledge gaps or

redundancy in the organisation.

5.3 Cost and Benefits

The evaluations showed that due to the personal

approach the implementation of the system can be

made gradually and therefore no major disturbance

to the normal activities in the company are

necessary. The evaluations also showed that the

employees claimed that they would benefit from

having similar types of descriptions accessible. One

PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS AN ICEBREAKER - Motivating Contributions to Knowledge

Management Systems

of the implementation was based on four steps:

Gathering, organising, refining and disseminating

information. Several respondents found the system

so beneficial that the students presenting it to them

have been called back for discussions about running

an implementation on a larger scale in the company.

5.4 The Validity of the Evaluation

The weakness of the evaluation is that it is based on

personal estimations of the subject. However,

several or even a majority of the participants were

knowledge workers and many of them where well

familiar with KM and had earlier tried other

approaches to knowledge sharing and learning.

6 DISCUSSION

The list below illustrates how the PKM system

relates to conventional KM concerning planning,

motivation, costs and risks.

Planning needed before the system can be

initiated

KM: Long time

PKM: Short time

The need for extrinsic motivation

KM: High, since the individual employee cannot

relate the knowledge to his/her own needs

PKM: Low, since more personal satisfaction

when discussing knowledge related topics from a

personal perspective

Implementation Costs

KM: Requires extensive resources, similar to what

is needed for implementing any large system in an

organisation

PKM: Requires less resources since the

implementation is done as an addition to existing

report routines

Risks

KM: High, since the whole project requires

extensive resources before it can be implemented

PKM: Low, since it can be tested on a small scale

and successively enlarged

The results indicate that employees approve of the

proposed PKM system and are willing to use it. The

results also shows that the proposed PKM system

can be implemented incrementally in an organisation

with limited costs which in turn shows that the

proposed PKM system could produce enough return

of investments to motivate an implementation in the

daily routines of an organisation. A PKM system can

be used not only to share knowledge but also to help

people verbalise and validate unarticulated

assumptions, tacit knowledge, core competencies,

goals, visions etc. This will support the user’s

personal as well as professional development and

thereby their lifelong learning. By working in pairs

as mentors/mentees or critical friends during the

implementation process this development is further

supported and personal networks strengthened.

Since the PKM activities that are described here

are closely related to the type of educational and

development sessions that are common in most

organisations today, we assume that this will make

them even less resource demanding than other types

of KM activities. However, we have not yet done

any extensive calculations concerning the demand

for resources to implement a global PKM project as

proposed in this paper.

The basic findings presented in this paper are

part of the findings for a licentiate thesis (Stenfors-

Hayes, 2005) presented at Stockholm University.

In the future the authors intend to evaluate to

what extent the proposed PKM system could be used

in larger implementations including the routines of

planning work tasks and stating objectives for

employees.

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Management Systems