Tackling 'messy knowledge': Combining the best of knowledge management with learning and development

In their quest to become ever more efficient, companies are looking to help workers quickly pinpoint and apply relevant knowledge from a growing haystack of corporate content that often includes 'messy' knowledge -- knowledge that is out-of-date, out-of-reach and out-of-touch. The solution to the messy knowledge problem may come from combining the best of two disciplines: knowledge management (KM) and learning & development (L&D).

As work requires ever-faster judgment and decision-making, workers need to find and apply the relevant knowledge from a barrage of content that is larger and more complex than before -- especially difficult because much potentially critical knowledge is 'messy.' Knowledge is often out-of-date (expired or not encompassing today's circumstances), out-of-reach (in someone's head, an obscure database or a co-worker's hard drive) or out-of-touch (not relevant for the individual worker or the task at hand). Meanwhile, managers struggle to improve corporate responsiveness by matching skills and knowledge to activities, even as the required knowledge is fleeting and com petition forces compressed cycle times.

The solution to the messy knowledge problem may come from combining the best of two disciplines: knowledge management (KM) and learning & development (L&D). Historically, KM has focused on addressing out-of-date and out-of-reach knowledge via various capture-organise-store-use/innovate tools supporting the knowledge cycle. Meanwhile, until the recent expansion of 'e-learning' technologies, L&D has focused on preventing out-of-touch knowledge by concentrating on context and form.

Today, these two disciplines are linking creatively as KM practitioners increasingly consider context and form, while L&D practitioners increasingly access and distribute knowledge through electronic means. Only by combining the strengths of each can managers move toward knowledge on demand capabilities that can solve the messy knowledge problem. IBM Corporation has designed a framework that leverages the best of the KM and L&D worlds. Known as 'solutions for messy knowledge,' these approaches address the 'triple threat' -- knowledge that is out-of-date, out-of-reach and out-of-touch.

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