FHTM

Delivered by:
musliha.ahmed@mnu.edu.mv

This session is supposed to

cover:

Knowledge management;

Learning organizations;

Quality management

What is knowledge management (KM)?

Unfortunately, there's no universal definition of knowledge

management (KM), just as there's no agreement as to what
constitutes knowledge in the first place.

For this reason, it's best to think of KM in the broadest context.

Succinctly put, KM is the process through which organizations
generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets.

Most often, generating value from such assets involves codifying

what employees, partners and customers know, and sharing that
information among employees, departments and even with other
companies in an effort to devise best practices. It's important to
note that the definition says nothing about technology; while KM is
often facilitated by IT, technology by itself is not KM.

Think of a golf caddie as a simplified example of a

knowledge worker. Good caddies do more than
carry clubs and track down wayward balls. When
asked, a good caddie will give advice to golfers,
such as, "The wind makes the ninth hole play 15
yards longer. " Accurate advice may lead to a
bigger tip at the end of the day.

On the flip side, the golfer having derived a

benefit from the caddie's advice may be more
likely to play that course again. If a good caddie is
willing to share what he knows with other caddies,
then they all may eventually earn bigger tips. How
would KM work to make this happen? The caddie
master may decide to reward caddies for sharing
their tips by offering them credits for pro shop
merchandise.

Once the best advice is collected, the course

manager would publish the information in
notebooks (or make it available on PDAs), and
distribute them to all the caddies. The end
result of a well-designed KM program is that
everyone wins. In this case, caddies get
bigger tips and deals on merchandise, golfers
play better because they benefit from the
collective experience of caddies, and the
course owners win because better scores lead
to more repeat business.

KM has assumed greater urgency in

American business over the past few
years as millions of baby boomers
prepare to retire over the coming
decade. Tens of millions of baby
boomers turned 60 in 2005, so those of
them who arent already retired are
certainly planning to do so soon. And
when they punch out for the last time,
the knowledge they gleaned about their
jobs, companies and industries over the
course of their long careers walks out
with themunless companies take
measures to retain their insights.

In addition to an immanent mass

retirement, theoutsourcingtrend has forced
CIOs who have entered into outsourcing
agreements address the thorny issue of
transferring the knowledge of their full-time
staff members, who are losing their jobs
because of an outsourcing deal, to the
outsourcers employees in order to smooth
the transition to the newly restructured IT
organization.

What constitutes intellectual or knowledgebased assets?

Not all information is valuable. Therefore, it's up to

individual companies to determine what information
qualifies as intellectual and knowledge-based assets.

In general, however, intellectual and knowledge-based

assets fall into one of two categories: explicit or tacit.

Included among the former are assets such as patents,

trademarks, business plans, marketing research and
customer lists. As a general rule of thumb, explicit
knowledge consists of anything that can be
documented, archived and codified, often with the help
of IT.

Much harder to grasp is the concept of tacit

knowledge, or the know-how contained in
people's heads. The challenge inherent with tacit
knowledge is figuring out how to recognize,
generate, share and manage it.

While IT in the form of e-mail, groupware, instant

messaging and related technologies can help
facilitate the dissemination of tacit knowledge,
identifying tacit knowledge in the first place is a
major hurdle for most organizations.

Although tourism and hospitality, with their

geographically dispersed units, can profit from enhanced
knowledge management, only a small number of firms
have implemented knowledge management techniques.

A recent study shows that although managers in many

hotels consider knowledge management and information
transfer to be 'relevant concepts,' they report being
confronted with too many and unclear knowledge
management strategies, activities, and implementation
techniques. As a result, they are not sufficiently familiar
with knowledge management and reject implementing it.

Learning Organisations

The Learning Organisation is a concept that is

becoming an increasingly widespread philosophy in
modern companies, from the largest multinationals
to the smallest ventures. What is achieved by this
philosophy depends considerably on one's
interpretation of it and commitment to it. The quote
below gives a simple definition that we felt was the
true ideology behind the Learning Organisation.
"A Learning Organisation is one in which people at
all levels, individuals and collectively, are
continually increasing their capacity to produce
results they really care about. Richard Karash

A learning organisation learns and

encourages learning among its people.
It promotes exchange of information
between employees hence creating a
more knowledgable workforce.

This produces a very flexible

organisation where people will accept
and adapt to new ideas and changes
through a shared vision.

Background
It is said that the importance of learning was first put
forward by a Chinese philosopher,Confucius(551 - 479
BC). He said:
"Without learning, the wise become foolish; by learning,
the foolish become wise.""Learn as if you could never
have enough of learning, as if you might miss something."

The underlying cause for recent emphasis on

organisational learning is because of the increased pace
of change.

Classically, work has been thought of as being

conservative and difficult to change.

Learning was something divorced from work and

innovation was seen as the necessary but disruptive
way to change.

The corporation which is able to quickly learn and then

innovate their work will be able to change their work
practices to perform better in the constantly changing
environment.

Change is now measured in terms of months not years

as it was in the past. Business re-engineering used to
concentrate on eliminating waste and not on working
smarter and learning.

History
Major research into `the art of learning' did not actually
start until the 1900's. In the 1950's, the concept of
Systems Thinking was introduced but never
implemented. Gould-Kreutzer Associates, Inc. defined
Systems thinking as:
"A framework for seeing interrelationships rather than
things; to see the forest and the trees.

This means that organisations need to be aware of both the

company as a whole as well as the individuals within the
company. Up until the introduction of this concept, companies
concentrated on their own needs not the needs of their
workers. Systems Thinking tries to change the managerial view
so that it includes the ambitions of the individual workers, not
just the business goals.

A company that performs badly is easily

recognisable. Canyouspot the signs?
Do your employees seemunmotivatedoruninterestedin
their work?
Does your workforcelack the skillandknowledgeto adjust to
new jobs?
Do you seem to bethe only oneto come up with all the ideas?
And does yourworkforcesimplyfollow orders?
Do your teamsargueconstantly andlack real productivity?
Orlack communicationbetween each other?
And when the "guru" is off do things getput on hold?
Are you always the last to hear aboutproblems?
Or worst still the first to hear about customercomplaints?
And do thesame problemsoccur over and over?
If any of these points sound familiar the answer for you could be
aLearning Organisation.

The golden rules

Thrive on Change don't be scared Learning

Organisationsfeedon change go all the way (no half-way
house); committed; focused know objectives; plan

Encourage Experimentation experimentation is a

necessary risk individual input rewarded encourage
throughout the company

Communicate Success and Failure review assessment

(continuous/self)

The Learning Cycle Diagram - monitor, review, conclude,

change

Facilitate Learning from the Surrounding E

nvironment
find internal and external sources of information
learn from experience of other companies (open
your eyes)above all discuss customer needs

Facilitate Learning from Employees

encourage participation and experimentation
(linked to point 2)invest in training multi skilling
(getting most from employees), morale
empowerment/responsibility remove hierarchy

Reward Learning
everybody's wants their work to be appreciated - boost
morale !!benchmarks for performance appraisal
rewards

A Proper Selfishness
clear goals/abjective shints on clarifying abjectives

A Sense of Caring
care for the individual ways of implementing this care

Why Learning Organisatio

ns
Work
The People
Develop

Greater motivation
The workforce is more flexible
People are more creative
Improved social Interaction

Teams and Groups Work Better

Knowledge sharing
Interdependency

The Company Benefits

Breakdown of traditional communication barriers

Customer relations
Information resources
Innovation and creativity

Quality management

History

The history of quality management, from

mere 'inspection' to Total Quality
Management, and its modern 'branded
interpretations such as 'Six Sigma', has led
to the development of essential processes,
ideas, theories and tools that are central to
organizational development, change
management, and the performance
improvements that are generally desired for
individuals, teams and organizations.

The roots of Total Quality Management can

be traced to early 1920's production quality
control ideas, and notably the concepts
developed in Japan beginning in the late
1940's and 1950's, pioneered there by
Americans Feigenbum, Juran and Deming

quality management gurus and theories

Quality Management resulted mainly from the work

of the quality gurus and their theories:
the American gurus featured in the 1950's Japan: Joseph
Juran, W Edwards Deming, and Armand Feigenbum;
the Japanese quality gurus who developed and extended
the early American quality ideas and models: Kaoru
Ishikawa, Genichi Taguchi, and Shigeo Shingo;
and the 1970-80's American Western gurus, notably Philip
Crosby and Tom Peters, who further extended the Quality
Management concepts after the Japanese successes

Total Quality Management (TQM)

Total Quality Management features centrally the

customer-supplier interfaces, (external and internal
customers and suppliers).

A number of processes sit at each interface. Central

also is an organizational commitment to quality, and
the importance of communicating this quality
commitment, together with the acknowledgement that
the right organizational culture is essential for
effective Total Quality Management.... More about the
fundamentals and structures of the TQM model ,
including the people, processes and systems in the
organization.

processes - understanding processes

and methods for process improvement

Understanding processes is essential

before attempt is made to improve them.
This is a central aspect to Total Quality
Management, and also to more modern
quality and process improvement
interpretations and models such as
Six Sigma

Six Sigma

A method that provides organizations tools to

improve the capability of their business
processes. This increase in performance and
decrease in process variation lead to defect
reduction and improvement in profits, employee
morale, and quality of products or services. Six
Sigma quality is a term generally used to
indicate a process is well controlled (within
process limits 3s from the center line in a
control chart, and requirements/tolerance limits
6s from the center line). (see details from the link on
the previous slide)

quality process improvement tools and

techniques

A wide range of tools and techniques is used for identifying,

measuring, prioritising and improving processes which are
critical to quality.

Again these ideas and methods feature prominently in

modern interpretations of Total Quality Management
methodology, such as Six Sigma. These process
improvement tools and techniques include: DRIVE (Define,
Review, Identify, Verify, Execute), process mapping, flowcharting, force field analysis, cause and effect,
brainstorming, Pareto analysis, Statistical Process Control
(SPC), Control charts, bar charts, 'dot plot' and tally charts,
check-sheets, scatter diagrams, matrix analysis,
histogramsetc.

developing people and teams

People are a fundamental component within any

successfully developing organization. Take away the
people and the organization is nothing.

Take away the people's motivation, commitment and

ability to work together in well-organised teams, and
again, the organization is nothing. Conversely, inspire
the people to work well, creatively, productively, and
the organization can fly. Logically therefore, the
development and proper utilization of people are vital
to the success of all quality management initiatives.

There are a wide range of models that are

used inselecting, assessing, training,
developing andmotivating people. Among
them are:
Belbins Team Role Assessment
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Bruce Tuckmans Forming, Storming, Norming
and Performing model
John Adairs Action Centers Leadership model

quality management systems

A 'Total Quality organization' generally benefits from

having an effective Quality Management System (QMS).
A Quality Management System is typically defined as:

"A set of co-ordinated activities to direct and control an

organization in order to continually improve the
effectiveness and efficiency of its performance."
Customer expectations inevitably drive and define
'performance' criteria and standards. Therefore Quality
Management Systems focus on customer expectations
and ongoing review and improvement....

performance measurement and management

There are many ways to measure

organizational performance other than
financial output or profit.

Modern measurement focuses on the

essential activities, resources and other
factors - many less intangible than
traditional indictors - that impact on final
outputs. These include modern methods
such asBalanced Scorecard...

Kaizen
Kaizen is a very significant concept within quality
management and deserves specific explanation:
Kaizen (usually pronounced 'kyzan' or 'kyzen' in the
western world) is a Japanese word, commonly translated
to mean 'continuous improvement'.
Kaizen is a core principle of quality management
generally, and specifically within the methods of Total
Quality Management and 'Lean Manufacturing'.
Originally developed and applied by Japanese industry
and manufacturing in the 1950s and 60s, Kaizen
continues to be a successful philosophical and practical
aspect of some of the best known Japanese corporations,
and has for many years since been interpreted and
adopted by 'western' organizations all over the world.
Kaizen is a way of thinking, working and behaving,
embedded in the philosophy and values of the
organization. Kaizen should be 'lived' rather than imposed
or tolerated, at all levels.

The aims of a Kaizen organization are typically

defined as:

To be profitable, stable, sustainable and

innovative.
To eliminate waste of time, money, materials,
resources and effort and increase productivity.
To make incremental improvements to systems,
processes and activities before problems arise
rather than correcting them after the event.
To create a harmonious and dynamic
organization where every employee
participates and is valued.