Knowledge has an expiry date

Knowledge has a half-life, and therefore an expiry date.

This is the intriguing premise behind a new book by Sam Arbesman, called "the half life of facts". 

The book, described in the video below, focuses primarily on academic facts and on science, and finds a half-life of 44 years, for example, for medical knowledge about hepatitis.

Business knowledge has an even shorter half life.

Probably half the things you knew about your business ten years ago, are wrong now. And expired knowledge, like expired food, is dangerous. It can lead to wrong decisions, wrong judgments, and big errors.

The implication for Knowledge Management is important.

• As well as creating, discussing and storing new knowledge, we need to be able to remove and delete the old knowledge

• Our knowledge bases need a regular overhaul and spring clean, which is why it is better to house them as a wiki - continually updated - than as a folder full of files, many of which become obsolete

• Our lessons systems should be lessons management systems which pass lessons through to completion, and then archive them, rather than passive databases clogged up with lessons beyond their expiration date.

• Knowledge,once captured, needs to be owned and maintained, which means out with the old, as well as in with the new.

I posted a while ago about "knowledge management as gardening", and part of gardening is Pruning.

So be aware of the knowledge half-life, and beware of the knowledge which is too old to be safe.

When knowledge "goes off"

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Knowledge has a half-life. This is the intriguing premise behind a new book by Sam Arbesman, called "the half life of facts". 

The book, described in the video below, focuses primarily on academic facts and on science, and finds a half-life of 44 years, for example, for medical knowledge about hepatitis.

Business knowledge has an even shorter half life.

Probably half the things you knew about your business ten years ago, are wrong now. And old knowledge, like old food, is dangerous. It can lead to wrong decisions, wrong judgments, and big errors.

The implication for Knowledge Management is important.

As well as creating, discussing and storing new knowledge, we need to be able to remove and delete the old knowledge.

Our knowledge bases need a regular overhaul and spring clean, which is why it is better to house them as a wiki - continually updated - than as a folder full of files, many of which become obsolete.

Our lessons systems should be lessons management systems which pass lessons through to completion, and then archive them, rather than passive databases clogged up with lessons beyond their expiration date.

Knowledge,once captured, needs to be owned and maintained, which means out with the old, as well as in with the new.

I posted a while ago about "knowledge management as gardening", and part of gardening is Pruning.

So be aware of the knowledge half-life, and beware of the knowledge which is too old to be safe.

Knowledge Management after the change

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We know that knowledge management is a change program; that is pretty well established.

We know that the introduction of Knowledge Management requires cultural change, as well as implementing an organisational framework. The focus on culture change is absolutely vital if KM implementation is going to succeed.

Sometimes that leads people to think that once the change program is over, the job is done, and that Knowledge Management becomes something that "just happens". They think that everyone will then be naturally sharing and reusing each others knowledge, and that the need for KM professionals, a KM department, or a KM organisational framework will then disappear.

This is not true. The change program will deliver a changed organisation, and that will be an organisation with KM built not only into the culture, but into work practices, roles, technologies, and governance structures. The KM components of this changed organisation are what we describe as a Knowledge Management Framework, and like any management framework it needs it's own roles and processes to drive it, embedded into the business structure, and a small group to monitor and maintain it.

The change program is not over until the framework is in place, and until the implementation team have handed the framework over to an operations and maintenance team for KM.

Without this operation and maintenance, and an embedded framework, an organisation can all too easily tip back into a pre-KM state, and KM will be declared as another "failed initiative".