Essentials of Knowledge Management

4.4. Issues

The issues relevant to each phase in the Knowledge Management life cycle depend on the phase as well as the type of knowledge involved. For example, for highly sensitive medical, legal, or financial information, security is a key issue. In contrast, for information that will be published on the web for general consumption, verifying ownership and copyright may be primary concerns. The primary issues in the KM life cycle, each of which is relevant to different degrees at each phase of the life cycle, include:

• Economics

• Accessibility

• Intellectual property

• Information

• Infrastructure

• Management

4.4.1. Economics

Every phase of the KM life cycle has an associated resource requirement in terms of money, time, technology, overhead, and physical space. Costs typically are expressed in cost per quantity of information accessed, manipulated, or stored. In this regard, the value of the data or information handled by the KM system reflects both the cost of replacement and resources already invested in acquiring the information. The economics of the KM life cycle also should provide for unplanned events. For example, a KM initiative must have enough economic reserve to survive data loss due to unavoidable accidents, ranging from human error to hardware failures and software incompatibilities.

4.4.2. Accessibility

The accessibility of information in a KM system is a primary concern of knowledge employees and managers. Accessibility issues include access privileges—who within the organization ...