Knowledge management involves developing, recording and making available the tacit and explicit knowledge in an organization.
Explicit knowledge includes matters such as patents, copyrights, product, customerand competitive information. Implicit knowledge is the knowledge stored in the minds of employees, such as experience, professional know-how, skills, own processes and methods, creative solutions and personal insights.
Knowledge management comes down to the structured collection, structuring, organizing and making applicable of all this knowledge. This is often done through a knowledge base or knowledge management system, where information is continuously kept up to date and made available for application. Employees themselves contribute to feeding the system. Knowledge managers and content managers are involved in larger knowledge systems.
The main goal of knowledge management is to share and reuse knowledge sources that already exist within the organization, so that people within the organization do not have to spend time on 'reinventing the wheel'. In addition, a uniform working method is an important argument for sharing knowledge.
Knowledge management is a human process in which technology only adds something if employees are willing to share knowledge and embrace knowledge from others.
See Knowledge management system,Knowledge base, Learning Organization