Learning Outcomes

This assessment is designed to demonstrate the achievement of the following intended module learning objectives:
- Explain the rise of knowledge management, what knowledge management is, why it is important, and why it is complex.
- Classify different approaches to KM and apply these to a small case study.
- Evaluate critically a substantial case study using systems ideas and knowledge management.

Introduction:

You are required to produce an academic report of between 3,000 and 3,500 words, excluding appendices and references. The report should use appropriate concepts taken from the Knowledge Management module to provide critical appraisal of one of the following.

- The organisation, or part of the organisation, or a project or situation at your current place of work.
- The organisation, or part of the organisation, or a project or situation at a previous workplace of yours.
- The organisation, or part of the organisation, or a project or situation at a workplace where you are not working and have not worked previously, but to which you have suitable access for this assessment.

Task

You may choose to approach this assessment in a variety of ways. For example, you might want to focus on issues in the organisation or challenges faced by organisations in starting KM initiatives, which could be resolved with appropriate process improvement or support people learning with the involvement of technology based tools like intranet portals, groupware, data mining and so on in knowledge management and take an overall overview of knowledge management as a whole. For this you could consider using a research tool to support like an information management questionnaire. You might alternatively choose to focus on one aspect of knowledge management, such as
- Knowledge capturing and creation
- knowledge sharing and dissemination or
- knowledge acquisition and application
and use this as your basis for analysis. You may want to study the application of a framework as a solution and provide the necessary research study towards the same.

Additionally you would also need to provide the supporting link between systems thinking and knowledge management.

You must provide an appropriate background of the concepts of knowledge management, using literature in the proper manner, with accurate and complete references. You should provide a brief description of the situation you will be using for your critical appraisal.

These are both necessary conditions but are not sufficient. You must then link the concepts to the situation you are appraising and use the concepts to provide the appropriate appraisal.

Appropriate research methods could be employed leading towards recommendations and conclusions. Whatever you choose, you must justify your choices.

You will have demonstrated ability to:

1. You are required to produce a work proposal briefing the expected deliverables, approach towards the solution, potential risks and timeline.

2. Analyze, Classify and present the concerns within the context of the information. Also distinguish Knowledge management system (KMS) to an Information management system (IMS).

3. Apply research skills to investigate literature relevant to the issues of knowledge management systems and organizational performance improvement in the organizations. Discussion must include the factors of knowledge management system affecting on the performance of organizations.

4. Critically review and analyze the issues with respect to implementing knowledge management architecture. Provide the necessary recommendations or conclusions based on your analysis.

5. Katrina has been appointed as the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) in Public Authority of Small and Medium Enterprises. She wishes to undertake a knowledge audit to understand the organisation status in knowledge management and feels that the organisation needs to have Communities of analysts, programmers, project managers leading towards better productivity.

i. How justified is Katrina in her strategy? What objectives can a k-audit achieve?

ii. How can the Communities of Practice (CoP) help towards organisational growth? Include the definition of CoP in your answer.

6. Presentation of the work.