Workflow
Supporting clever workflows is one of these holy grails in IT. And it seems that we are not able to crack this very easily. We have of course at one side of the spectrum the very retrictive transaction processing (I do the payment, my boss approves ...), and here we have made quite some progress (nothing difficult here). But the other side of the spectrum is where it gets more interesting.
More complex is trying to get a handle on the more diffuse ways of working, medical protocols, research, ... In the 1980's we have seen attempts at expert systems, but they never really became mainstream. And also now, 20 years later, all I have seen to date is very basic ... Of course we do very clever stuff with demonstrator robots from Sony (and others) that recognize patterns and know how to react on this (this is a step forward), but in the office domain I am still looking for a breakthrough.
Why is this? Probably because a lot of what we humans do is not easily replicated. Workflows like the analysis of a data set, or writing a report on a difficult subject, or developing an idea are still very fuzzy and hard to define. The only thing we have today for this part is the more control oriented workflow, where we check that we have taken the right steps (i.e. protocols, like used by doctors), or that we have documented what we have defined is mandatory (i.e. tracking of mandatory deliverables related to decision gates). The first one is not main stream yet (so I still expect more developments in this space) and the second one is so basic, that I hardly can call this workflow. So we have to settle for the simpler higher level type of workflow - and still wait for the breakthrough!
Labels: knowledge management
Collaboration tools
As information architects we have a challenge when dealing with the large number of tools emerging the last decade in the space of knowledge management. The worst area of KM is related to the many types of collaboration tools - where for the sake of simplicity I would like to exclude the ones related to direct communication (like e-mail and instant messaging).
I think in short there are roughly three types of collaboration tools; 1) common interest networks (like the old news groups, and newer hypes like MySpace, etc.), 2) collaborative bookmarking & tagging (think del.cio.us) and 3) collaborative authoring (think Sharepoint in the Office area, but this also includes wiki's and blogs).
So when your KM architecture requires collaboration, then define what types of collaboration are required and how they relate. My view is that especially the collaborative authoring world that emerged holds the biggest potential for improving the way we manage knowledge. It moves the focus from approvals to content creation and that's what it should be all about. So when rethinking your collaboration space - think wiki's first.
Labels: knowledge management, Web2.0, wiki
Knowledge management
As soon as you mention the word 'Knowledge management' people will start to become uncomfortable. Maybe they will grin (and stop taking you seriously), maybe they will try to move to a different subject, or even worse, maybe they will have an opionion about document management.
Just as I wrote on 'architecture' I think the world of KM is suffering from a high degree of immaturity and because of this we see a vast number of methods on offer.
What we need is a reference model, a model which describes all aspects of KM. Just try and read the entry in
Wikipedia and you will see how much people have struggled with some definitions (it received more than 500 edits last year, so no wonder ...). Shouldn't we just make it more simple? My view is that we have three types of things in KM - that are all very different: 1) Different types of
Collaborative Content creation (formal / informal), 2) Systems that help you through
workflows (protocols, expert systems) and 3) stores with Knowledge in the form of
reference information (like e.g. Wikipedia).
Around these three families you will find lots of tools & flavours. And also a lot of hype (like all web2.0 stuff). So if you need elements of KM in your architecture, you will definitely get lost! But if you just focus on the three elements (collaboration, workflow protocols and knowledge reference) then maybe you have a chance ...
Labels: knowledge management, Web2.0
