The most important advantage that any organization can have over another is in the organization’s knowledge workers. Workers that can create inventive processes and solutions to problems can improve the organization’s everyday functions as well as its planning for future goals and objectives. The exploitation of this advantage can mean a reduction in the expenditure of both time and capital on the organization’s projects, thus improving margins in both respects. However, this goal requires that the knowledge worker, whose main job is to assemble ideas rather than sellable products, be given the resources and time to solve new problems, rather than having to reinvent solutions to old, and often previously solved, problems. Within the Information Technology sector is a growing area of development focused on creating programs to reduce the amount of time knowledge workers must spend creating, recreating, learning, and relearning the processes and solutions to past problems. This area is known as Knowledge Harvesting, or more technically, Information Capital Management.
Knowledge Harvesting can be most simply defined as a set of processes or systems designed to capture and preserve the knowledge of an organization. In this case a process is considered a codified set of rules or guidelines designed to elicit certain key pieces of information, from the entity it is used on, and organize this information into a uniform and consistent package. This allows a knowledge worker familiar with the structure of the packages to extract the useful information they may need without having to search for it. Secondly, a system is considered the physical technologies and techniques used to facilitate or support the Knowledge Harvesting processes. Some examples of technology systems include servers or computer terminals while system techniques could be exit interviews or electronic answer and question databases. Though these two pieces of Knowledge Harvesting exist and can be used by themselves, they are most effective when combined together. In this way they make up the fundamental building blocks for the harvesting of knowledge from the employees of an organization.
In order to analyze this subject to the fullest possible extent we have divided it into five major areas of discussion: the demand for Knowledge Harvesting within organizations, the affect Knowledge Harvesting has on knowledge workers, the effects from and impact on organizational culture, current Knowledge Harvesting practices with specific focus on a major case study, and finally, recommendations we have developed for the improvement of the Knowledge Harvesting functions in each of these areas. This structure allows us to progress through an organization from the bottom up and thus gives clear insight into the importance that Knowledge Harvesting is playing now and will play in the future.
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