If organizastions want communities to become an integrated,influential and pevasive force for learning and innovation , they will need to measure and manage them.Communities of practice create value by stewarding highly prized knowledge resources.It is in the best interests of both community members and managers to see that the value of this stewardship is fully realized and widely recognized.Many claim that knowledge resources cannot be measured and managed;and their partly right because the nature of knowledge is tacit,dynamic and socially distributed.We cannot treat knowledge as if it were a thing or a property.However what we can do,is we can measure and manage "the knowledge system"through which it flows and creates value.A knowledge system includes two highly interdependent processes by which knowledge is produced and applied. The knowledge-development process takes inchoate knowledge assets—such as undeveloped ideas, latent skills, or isolated techniques—and converts these into visible, accessible knowledge resources.These resources are then applied in business processes to deliver products and services to customers. The application process, in turn, generates new problems, ideas, and innovative approaches that can be developed into knowledge resources.
Measuring Value Creation
Some say that efforts to measure the value of knowledge will hurt more than help.the risks of measures are well known—witness the distortions of behavior that result when teachers “teach to the test” or when a team focuses on an ill-conceived productivity target to the detriment of customer and profitability outcomes.Measures of value are instrumental for communities to gain visibility and influence, and to evaluate and guide their own development.
How to Measure: Systematic Anecdotal Evidence
You have to go
through the entire knowledge system, starting with the activities of
communities of practice and following their effect through the application
of knowledge resources in business processes, to create value for
customers and other stakeholders.
