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A Process Framework to Capture Tacit Knowledge Using Storytelling

Khairul Shafee Kalid and Ahmad Kamil Mahmood

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia,

Done by : Abdullah Alhroub Submitted to : Dr. Ahmad Shraideh

Knowledge Management International Conference (KMICe) 2012, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, 4 – 6 July 2012

Presentation Outline

Introduction Problem Statement Objective Related Work Research Method Findings – Knowledge Story

Construction Process Framework

Discussion Limitation of Study Conclusion

Introduction• One of the main challenges of KM is to capture tacit

knowledge (Linde, 2001)

• Tacit knowledge is defined as personal knowledge embedded in individual experience.

• One of the way to capture and communicate tacit knowledge is storytelling.

• Storytelling is defined as orally communicating ideas, beliefs, personal experiences and lessons learned (Groce, 2004)

• Stories provide a bridge between the tacit and explicit (Gabriel, 2000)

Problem Statement

• Storytelling is a powerful mean to share knowledge (Denning, 2000)

• Some of the challenges of storytelling are: Lack of understanding on what storytelling

is and how it can be used in the organization (Iofredda and Angelo, 2008)

The more-experienced might have difficulties in transferring their tacit knowledge to less-experienced colleagues (Awad and Ghaziri, 2010)

• Lack of emphasis on how knowledge story is constructed.

Objective

• To understand the process of constructing knowledge story.

• To identify the roles and phases involved in constructing a knowledge story.

• To develop a process framework that guides KM people to construct knowledge stories.

Related WorkSource Application Construction

Santoro and Brezillon (2005) TellStoryContext Framework5W1HStructured

Acosta et al (2004) StoryMapper Concept MapsEach node represent events

Katzeff and Ware (2006) The Well Video recordUnstructured

Other related storytelling literature from literary work

Main charactersSettingsPlot ProblemResolution

Research Method• Exploratory approach• Group semi-structured interview

5 groups with 4-5 participants in each group Students in Knowledge Management classes

Research Methods• Data are collected from the interview

sessions and the knowledge story that has been written.

• The interview questions generally revolves around their approach in constructing the story.

• Interview sessions were transcribed and analysed hermeneutically.

• Nvivo8 were used in organizing and analysing the data.

Knowledge Story Construction Process Framework

the broad processes that help in discovering, capturing, sharing and applying knowledge.

•Provides purpose of knowledge story

•Identify knowledge•Embed knowledge into story

•Capturing Knowledge •Source

•The term “understanding” and “familiarize” was used

Knowledge Articulation

• Preliminary discussions between participants involve understanding the knowledge source

• They attempted to familiarize themselves with the subject of the knowledge and to comprehend the content of the knowledge source.

•List and organize of ideas and events

Develop Story Sequence

The articulation of knowledge source yields a list of• items,• events or phases.

These lists are further organized which results in the flow of the story, story components and structure.

•Wrap knowledge into narrative form.

•Manager•Editor•Colleagues

Embed KnowledgeKnowledge is embedded in story in two ways.

• Firstly, knowledge can be wrapped in the form of lessons learned in which the story includes undesirable settings or events that the readers can learn from it.

• Secondly, stories provide knowledge with context

The knowledge wrapper is responsible in identifying the knowledge and ensures that the knowledge is embedded in the story.

a link that connects the purpose of the knowledge source to the story.

A knowledge story should have a purpose which needs to be stated in the story

Review• It is absolute necessary for a knowledge story to be

reviewed and edited to ensure that knowledge is embedded in the story

• The editor checks the accuracy of the events, grammatical errors and coherency of the story

Knowledge Story StructureKnowledge Transfer Factors in an IT Organization

What should I write about Mr.Abdullah ? Well, I tell you a story about Mr.Abdullah significant contribution in my eyes. I remember Mr.Abdullah just came back from a knowledge management course. When he got back, he introduced changes.

.

Mr.Abdullah spear headed the knowledge portal project. In this portal, I am able to know who knows what in the department. I know what are the expertise and the skills that each personnel has in the IT department.

Overall, I think that Mr.abdullah, has done a lot in terms of promoting knowledge transfer in the organization. Even though he is retired, but his contributions will always be remembered.

•Knowledge Story Title

•Begin (Introduction)Settings, context and charactersIntentProblems/Conflict.

•Begin (Introduction)Settings, context and charactersIntentProblems/Conflict.

•Ending (Reflective)Lessons learnedSolutionsOutcome

Discussion &results

Limitation of the Study• The knowledge stories constructed

are written-based therefore the process framework could be biased towards written knowledge story.

• The participants of this study are students. Thus the story is not really organizational type.

• The type of knowledge that was storytized' in this study are experiential, declarative and procedural.

Conclusion• This process framework guides KM personnel

to construct stories that are used in the context of KM.

• The findings of this exploratory study has identified the roles and the phases. Knowledge articulation, Develop story

sequence, Embed knowledge and Review Knowledge owner, story constructor,

approver/editor, knowledge user