Monday 28 November 2011


Another KM Boston Square


Here's another potentially useful Boston Square for looking at different KM situations and approaches.

On one axis we have Push and Pull of knowledge. On the other axis we have centralised approaches, where knowledge comes from a defined central place or group of people, and dispersed approaches, where knowledge comes from the dispersed workforce.

Centralised Push represents knowledge being spread from the centre - manuals, training courses, official documents, newsletters and so on. Decentralised push is push from the workforce - blogs, wikis, microblogs.

Centralised Pull represents Pull from a central source such as a help desk or an expert pool. Dispersed Pull represents pull from the community or from the crowd.

Every KM system needs both Push and Pull, despite the tendency to underestimate the value of Pull.

However the choice between Centralised or Dispersed depends on where the knowledge lies in your organisation, which may be related to Demographics. If there are few experts or experienced staff, then go for a centralised system. If there are many experienced staff, then a dispersed system may be more appropriate.

No comments:

Blog Archive