Knowledge Management – Management is Prediction

This presentation web video discusses the idea of managing corporate information: Seamless Information Capture and Discovery for Corporate Memory [the broken link was removed]. The video focuses on discussing technical solutions.

The most important factor to me, is the value to improving management. The technology discussed here eventually could help lead to the adoption of Dr. Ackoff’s ideas on capturing corporate decision making. Then that will allow evaluating decisions for systemic weakness and strengths to improve decision making. Ackoff’s ideas in this area tie very closely to Dr. Deming’s ideas on the theory of knowledge and the importance of prediction to management.

There are several reason these ideas have not been adopted but one is that they require some effort to document and then evaluate (and often those are missing). So many see any time spent improving the system as waste (based on their actions not that they would say such a thing) – they are only happy when producing today or fire fighting to enable producing today.

This video touches on some ideas that might help better adopt Ackoff and Deming’s ideas. A good deal of thought is needed on how to use the technology tools to implement the ideas, but new technical solutions are providing options. Blogs, Wikis, improved search for stored data, the ease of creating intranet applications…. are some additional tools that can be used to improve.

The technology itself is fine but not itself the important factor in my opinion. The potential to better apply the management improvement ideas using the technology is where I see the power. My initial idea is to use an understanding of Deming’s ideas on theory of knowledge and Ackoff’s decision documentation process and then figure out how to use the technology to create a practical process (that is easy to use and get the desired benefits).

Related: Making Better Decisions – Ackoff’s F-laws: Common Sins of Management – articles and podcats by Ackoff – posts on Deming’s ideas – Toyota IT Overview – Who Influences Your Thinking?