Intensive Knowledge Collaboration Online
The world of business is almost alike to the world of gadgets. As soon as new gadget appears, all previous become outdated. The only thing to be sure about – there’re no guaranteed schemes. No silver bullet that makes business run 37% more effective.
Same about project management. Combining processes, people and technologies is an art, not a craft. But there’s another phase of the subject. Those management possibilities that failed once due to lack of communication, now are open. This is no more a problem but a difficulty.
Lets take a look at what’s called business of the future. What are its features. How to succeed in the world of constant speed-up. In the world where market transparency and complexity are constantly growing.
The members of «Enterprise 2.0 2008» conference say this way about Business 2.0 features:
1. Flat organization: there’re minimum layers between the top-management and common workers
2. Ease of organization flow
3. Agility: minimum bureaucracy
4. Flexibility: how quickly your company adapts to external changes
5. User-driven technology
6. Bottom up: control and information flows often originate from any layer
7. Distributed: team is distributed both geographically and in time. Teams are global.
8. Fuzzy boundaries, open borders: there’re no definite departments inside a company
9. Transparency: your company state is always visible from outside
10. Information systems are emergent, and not forced from top-management
11. Folksonomies replace taxonomies. It’s no use making people think the same you do.
12. Simple. Nothing to add here.
13. Open: the best description is given by Jonathan Nolen, hope it helps
14. Works on demand: for each new request, company invents new solutions. I recommend checking an intersting article about business-on-demand.
15. Short time-to-market cycle
Seeming simplicity of new organization is actually based on complexity of people and technologies. When saying ‘people’ I mean, new business is possible only when people characteristics are very high. Responsibility, creativity, communication skills, inner mobility. People become more demanding to themselves and business creates new people. The technology aspect of new business is: all those innovations become possible with new communication and knowledge management techniques.
But this is still not a difficulty. Difficulty lies in combining people and technology growth. It comes out that ideally technology should be one step ahead of people. Technology as a way to transmit achievements from more advanced participants to other. It’s like two endpoints of same spring. In such a way business system evolves.
OK, what do we have on the intellectual systems market that
1. Solve project management automation tasks
2. Empower managers’ flexibility in building teams and processes
3. Create an environment for knowledge sharing in a team
Let me note that these three things are connected with one another and support each other. There are systems that solve each of the problems perfectly. But only one.
Corporate Wikis for knowledge storing and sharing; ERP and «professional» project management tools like Microsoft Project; standard development and management methodologies. GTD programs are good for short-term teams that gather for one project (some communication management systems look like it’s GTD for teams, yes).
The balance between complexity of all those three tasks and usability is a challenge for many software companies: SalesForce, BaseCamp, Zoho.
You may review a comparison of well-known systems, I don’t want to stop on this issue right now.
Balanced solution that includes all needs of ‘business 2.0′ still does not exist. So many companies are now trying to build their own technical basis for growth.
We at NewtonIdeas were dissatisfied with those possibilities current systems provide. Thus we are constantly looking at top-edge developments in this field, and consider our 8 years experience in IT and business. And built our own, where we put principles of Enterprise 2.0 in the way we understand it.
So, that’s what drives us at developing Comindwork – a system for project management, team communication and knowledge sharing. Three-in-one and a bit more.
Watch the video related to Knowledge Management
Nick Milton of www.knoco.com discusses Knowledge Management in a downturn. Blog at http
Help answer the question about Knowledge Management
A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge?
What is the different between -
– A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge 2000 (216 pages) and
– A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide) (390 pages) 4th Edition.
Saw that both are still current editions.
Like to know which is the correct to buy. I want to read the correct book to have a proper understanding of the world of PM.
About Author
Newtonideas is a software developing company, concentrated on business process automation, extranets, web and multimedia solutions. The company was founded in 1999, the main office is located in Kiev, Ukraine.
http://www.comindwork.com
http://www.newtonideas.com
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Someone needs to spend time with the assigned reading homework.
Use your mind. Think. Push those gray cells to communicate and share their thoughts with each other to form new ones. Or choose to be mediocre; the latter course will put you in a very large group.
2 approaches.
1, try and keep the technology proprietary, through patenting or through keeping it secret.
2, accept that you will eventually lose the advantage, but put in place learning systems and processes so that you always are one step ahead. By the time they have adopted our technology, you will already have learned an even better approach
HTH
Nick
Ask your tutor for help. I am sure they would prefer it if you went to them because you do not understand rather than not attempt it at all.
Sorry it is way above me, but good luck
if an organization develops a skill which can give a competitive advantage. like you mentioned welding of aircraft . how can an organization keep it from its competitor’s.
Before attempting to address the question of knowledge management, it's probably appropriate to develop some perspective regarding this stuff called knowledge, which there seems to be such a desire to manage, really is. Consider this observation made by Neil Fleming
A collection of data is not information.
A collection of information is not knowledge.
A collection of knowledge is not wisdom.
A collection of wisdom is not truth.
The idea is that information, knowledge, and wisdom are more than simply collections. Rather, the whole represents more than the sum of its parts and has a synergy of its own.
in summary the following associations can reasonably be made:
Information relates to description, definition, or perspective (what, who, when, where).
Knowledge comprises strategy, practice, method, or approach (how).
Wisdom embodies principle, insight, moral, or archetype (why).
The value of Knowledge Management relates directly to the effectiveness with which the managed knowledge enables the members of the organization to deal with today's situations and effectively envision and create their future. Without on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed based on what the individual or group brings to the situation with them. With on-demand access to managed knowledge, every situation is addressed with the sum total of everything anyone in the organization has ever learned about a situation of a similar nature. Which approach would you perceive would make a more effective organization?
Data are mixed up.
No, it is not needed. Companies survived for hundreds of years without it.
Try ibm.com for statistics.
It is an interesting speciality, sort of a cross between a business degree and a library degree. The upside is that it will prepare you very specifically for a certain niche in an organizational hierarchy. The downside is that it might not give you enough big-picture training to move up that hierarchy. But like most undergraduates degrees what you do with it depends mostly on you, not on the degree.
Good luck.
There's some really good articles on management at http://management.hammocksurvivalguide.com/
I don't know if it will solve your issues but there's some good stuff there.