Course : ISYS 8108 – Knowledge Management

Effective Period : September 2018

Knowledge Capture and

Codification

Session 7 & 8

Prepared by Nuril Kusumawardani

 Acknowledgement

These slides have been

adapted from:

Dalkir, K. (2017). Knowledge

Management in Theory &
Practice, 3rd edition. MIT Press
Chapter 4
 Learning Objectives
• Become familiar with the basic terminology and
concepts related to knowledge capture and
codification.
• Describe the major technique used to elicit tacit
knowledge from subject matter expert.
• Define the major roles and responsibilities that come
into play during the knowledge capture and
codification phase.
• Outline the general taxonomic approach used in
classifying knowledge that has been captured
• Analyze the type of knowledge to be captured and
codified, select the best approach to use , and
discuss its advantages and shortcomings for given
knowledge elicitation application.
 Sub Topics
1. Introduction
2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
3. Explicit Knowledge Codification
 1. Introduction
• The first high-level phase of the KM cycle below, begins
with knowledge capture and codification.
Assess

Knowledge Capture Knowledge Sharing and

and/or Creation Dissemination

Contextualize

Knowledge Acquisition
Update and Application
 1. Introduction
• In knowledge capture, a distinction needs to be made
between the capture and identification of existing
knowledge and the creation of new knowledge.
• In KM, we need to also consider knowledge that we
know is present in the organization, which we can then
set out to capture.
• Knowledge that we do not know about will require
additional steps in its capture and codification.
• Knowledge that we know we do not have need to be
facilitated to create new and innovative content.
 1. Introduction

Information sources
Known Unknown

Know that we Know that we

Known
know don’t know
User
awareness
Don’t know that Don’t know that
Unknown
we know we don’t know

The Known-Unknown Matrix (Frappaolo, 2006)

 1. Introduction
• There is no doubt that knowledge capture may be
difficult, particularly in the case of tacit knowledge.
• Tacit knowledge management is the process of capturing
the experience and expertise of the individual in an
organization an making it available to anyone who needs
it.

blogs.adobe.com
 1. Introduction
• Once knowledge is explicit, it should be organized in
a structured document that enable multipurpose use.
• The best KM tools enable knowledge creation one and
then leverage it across multiple channels, including
phone, e-mail, discussion forums, and any new
channels that come online.

naijassador.com
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
• Individuals in the firm play a
critical role in organizational
knowledge acquisition.
• Learning at the individual level,
however, is widely accepted to be
a fundamentally social process –
something that cannot occur
without group interaction in some
form.

www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
• In KM, this knowledge creation or capture may be done
by individuals who perform this role for the organization
or a group within organization.
• Many of the tacit knowledge capture techniques were
originally used in artificial intelligence, more specifically
in the development of expert system.
• The term “knowledge acquisition” was coined by the
developers of such systems and referred to various
techniques such as structured interviewing, protocol or
talk aloud analysis, questionnaire, surveys, observation
and simulation.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Individual and Group

Level
• Knowledge acquisition from individuals or groups can be
characterized as the transfer and transformation of
valuable expertise from knowledge source (e.g., human
expert, document) to a knowledge repository (e.g.,
corporate memory, intranet).
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Individual and Group

Level

Three Major Approaches to

Knowledge Acquisition from
Individuals and Groups

INTERVIEWING LEARNING BY LEARNING BY

EXPERTS BEING TOLD OBSERVATION
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Individual and Group

Level
• Interviewing Experts
–Two of the more popular means include structured
interviewing and stories.
–Structured interviewing of subject matter experts is
the most often used technique to render key tacit
knowledge of an individual into more explicit forms.
–In many organizations, structured interviewing is done
through exit interviews that are held when
knowledge staff near retirement age.
–Two major type of questions: Open and Closed
questions.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The

Individual and Group Level

• Interviewing Experts
–Stories can be defined as the telling of a happening
or connected series of happenings, whether true or
fictitious (Denning, 2001).
–Conveying information in a story provides a rich
context, remaining in the conscious memory longer
and creating more memory traces than information
not in context.

moeinmosleh.com
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
Tacit Knowledge Capture at The
Individual and Group Level
• Learning by Being Told
–In learning by being told, the
interviewee expresses and refines
his or her knowledge, and the
knowledge manager clarifies and
validates the knowledge artifact that
renders this knowledge in explicit
form.
–This form of knowledge acquisition
typically involves task analysis,
process tracing and protocol
turklishtefl.com analysis and simulations.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
Tacit Knowledge Capture at The
Individual and Group Level
• Learning by Observation
–Learning by observation approve involves presenting
the expert with a sample problem, scenario, or case
study that the expert then solves.
–Although we cannot observe someone’s knowledge, we
can observe and identify expertise.
–Expertise is a demonstration of the application of
knowledge.

The key is to use audio or

video to record what the
expert knows.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The

Individual and Group Level
• Other methods of Tacit knowledge capture
– Ad hoc sessions
– Road maps
– Learning histories
– Action learning
– E-learning
– Learning from others through business guest speakers and benchmarking
against best practices.
– Peer assists
– Knowledge and innovation jams
– Knowledge continuity process
– Critical knowledge transfer
– Master class
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The

Individual and Group Level

Tacit knowledge capture

using e-Learning
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

• Below picture, summarizes the key steps involved in knowledge

acquisition at the individual and group level.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Organizational Level

• Organizational knowledge acquisition is a qualitatively

different process from those that occur at the individual
and group levels.
• Organizational knowledge captures take place on a
macro level.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture

Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Organizational Level

• Maholtra (2000) proposes a good approach by outlining
four major organizational acquisition processes.

Grafting

Vicarious learning

Experiential learning

Inferential processes
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
Tacit Knowledge Capture at The Organizational Level

• Grafting involves the migration of knowledge between

firms – a learning process whereby the firm gains access
to task – or process-specific knowledge that was not
previously available within the firm.
This is typically achieved
through mergers,
acquisitions, or alliances
in that there is a direct
passing of knowledge
between firms (Huber,
1991).
www.spinifexit.com
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
Tacit Knowledge Capture at The
Organizational Level
• Vicarious learning processes occur through one firm
observing other firm’s demonstrations of techniques or
procedures.
• For example, benchmarking studies where companies can
adopt the best practices of other industry leaders.

www.topcareermagazine.com
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
Tacit Knowledge Capture at The
Organizational Level

• Experiential knowledge acquisition involves knowledge

acquisition within a given firm – knowledge that is
created by doing and practicing.
• Inferential knowledge acquisition processes, learning is
within the firm and occurs by doing; however knowledge
acquisition occurs primarily through interpretation of
events, states, changes and outcome relative to the
activities undertaken and decisions that were made.
 2. Tacit Knowledge Capture
Tacit Knowledge Capture at
The Organizational Level
• The results of all four types of organizational knowledge
capture will ultimately reside in some type of knowledge
repository.
• This is the recipient of organizational memory and
containers are usually some form of database on
intranet or extranet.

openpreservation.org
 3. Explicit Knowledge
Codification

• Knowledge codification is the next stage of leveraging

knowledge.
• By converting knowledge into a tangible, explicit form
such as a document, that knowledge can then be
communicated much more widely and with less cost.
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

• The codification of explicit knowledge can be achieved

through a variety of techniques:

Cognitive Mapping

Decision Trees

Knowledge Taxonomies

Task Analysis
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Cognitive Maps

• Cognitive Maps is representation of the “mental

model” of a person’s knowledge and provides a good
form of codified knowledge.
• Cognitive mapping is based on concept mapping,
which allows experts directly construct knowledge
models.
• Concept maps represent concepts and relations in a
two-dimensional graphical form with nodes
representing key concepts connected by links
representing propositions.
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification
Cognitive Maps
Knowledge
worker Originator/
Location
Shares creator
Accesses
Sources

EXPLICIT TACIT
References
KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE
OBJECT OBJECT
Subject
Codified Matter
expert
Experiences with
Format
Practitioner

Language Print/electronic Example of a Concept Map

 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Decision Trees

• Decision Trees is typically

in the form of a
flowchart, with alternate
paths indicating the
impact of different
decisions being made at
that juncture point.

https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/decision-tree
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Decision Trees

https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/decision-tree
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

• Knowledge Taxonomies allow knowledge to be

graphically represented in such a way that reflects the
logical organization of concepts within a particular field
of expertise or for the organization at large.

Taxonomies are basic

classification systems
that enable us to
describe concepts and
their dependencies –
typically in a
hierarchical fashion.

www.members.optusnet.com.au
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Knowledge Taxonomies
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Knowledge Taxonomies

boxesandarrows.com
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Knowledge Taxonomies

www2.imm.dtu.dk
 3. Explicit Knowledge Codification

Knowledge Taxonomies

• It is vitally important to identify content owners when

creating the knowledge taxonomy of the organization to
help ensure that content will always be kept up to date.
• This knowledge taxonomy (also referred to as knowledge
map or corporate organizational memory) should also
make use of metadata tagging on “information about
information.”
manpowergroupblogs.us