Presentation on converting tacit knowledge into explicit.

1. presents
CAPTURING TACIT KNOWLEDGE
INTO KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
NITIN POTDAR, PARTNER
nitin@jsalaw.com

2. BASICS …BY ALBERT EINSTEIN
1. Information is not knowledge…..
2. The only source of knowledge is experience….

3. DATA! DATA!! AND DATA!!!
• Millions of books/ periodicals/ newspapers/ research
reports/ interviews/ videos/ movies.
• 23 Crores web pages indexed in 2009, and 7.03
Crores websites indexed by Yahoo! as of August
2005. Approx billions of emails sent everyday,
billions of images & videos uploaded on several
servers.
• As we talk hundreds of new books are being written,
thousands of interviews/ news items are being
reported and lakhs of webpages are being uploaded
on the internet!

4. WHY MANAGE DATA?
• To avoid resources & time in identifying
right information.
• To help creating latest/ updated solution.
• Avoid duplication of work or ‘reinventing
the wheel’
• To identify new opportunities, and build
on previous work.

5. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT VALUE
CHAIN
DATA
RELEVANT INFORMATION
EXPLICIT TACIT
How does a bicycle work? Theory How to ride a bicycle?

6. EXPLICIT
(easily collected, organized and transferred)
• Documents,
• Correspondence,
• Reports & interviews,
• Diagrams,
• Database,
• Audio & Video Visuals,
• Webpage.

7. TACIT
(context-specific, personal & hard to formalize)
• Skills sets
• Observation
• Comments
• Insights
• Experience
• Perspectives
• Judgment
• Wisdom
• Attitude.

8. WHY TACIT KNOWLEDGE IS CRUCIAL
• Mere information of law is no longer an USP…..
• Clients pay for ‘solutions’ not ‘information’
• Information imperfections do not exist in the practice
of law
• Real-time transactions require firms to offer real-time
solutions
• Practice of law requires firms to adapt and replicate
knowledge into readily usable form

9. KNOWLEDGE VARIANTS
• EXPLICIT
 Can be codified in tangible form
 Can be easily communicated and shared
 Characteristics – “Know-What”, “Know-Why” and
“Know-Who”
• TACIT
 Highly personal and therefore inexpressible
 Not easy to visualize and hard to express
 Characteristics – “Know-How”
 Is highly elusive

10. TACIT KNOWLEDGE: CHALLENGES
• ARTICULATION CHALLENGES
 Tacit knowledge is a mixture of deliberations, subjective
insight, intuition and judgment
 Difficult to articulate and store
 Requires extensive personal contact and mentoring
• CULTURAL CHALLENGES
 Sharing not part of corporate culture
 Insecurity / Lack of Trust
 Lack of absorptive capacity
 Intolerance for creativity
 ‘Not-invented-here’ or ‘proprietary’ syndrome

11. TRANSFERRING TACIT KNOWLEDGE
MOVEMENT OF TACIT KNOWLEDGE
“Movement of tacit knowledge within the
organization is a distinct experience, not a
gradual process of dissemination, and depends
on the characteristics of everyone
involved…..more of a mindset issue!”

12. TYPICAL DAILY INFORMATION FLOW
• Business News Papers
– News/ Reports/ Opinions/ Interviews/ images.
• Books/ Periodicals
• Documents received
– Emails/ Agreements/ Opinions/ Research Memos.
• Phone & Video Calls
• Official Meetings/ Discussions
• Social meetings.
How much do we systematically
store & how much do we share?

13. INDIVIDUALLY DEALING WITH
DAILY INFORMATION FLOW
• Create systematic folders and sub-folders on the
Computer
– Documents
• Agreement for Sale
• Escrow Agreement
– Correspondence
– Opinions
• While storing any document name it correctly and fill
in the in the “Summary”.
• Install “Google Desktop” or similar search engine.
• More importantly start sharing.

14. MODES OF TRANSFERRING
– TACIT KNOWLEDGE
 Socialization
 Externalization
 Combination
 Internalization

15. MODES OF TRANSFERRING contd..
• SOCIALIZATION - Tacit to Tacit
Occurs through apprenticeship, mentoring or collegial relations.
Also described as “implicit learning” or “learning by doing”
• EXTERNALIZATION – Tacit to Explicit
Written down or communicated through anecdotes, narratives,
conversations, memos, emails, presentations, group
discussions, etc. Also described as “articulation”
• COMBINATION – Explicit to Explicit
Knowledge transferred though standardized and systematic
procedures. For ex., through a computer database
• INTERNALIZATION – Explicit to Tacit
Results in distribution of knowledge throughout the
organisation and beyond.

16. PROCESS OF CAPTURING TACIT
KNOWLEDGE
• Organizational culture
Promoting knowledge-sharing tradition
• Discipline
creating individual discipline and corporate discipline.
• Using technology
Capturing and recording knowledge on Information Systems,
including document management, web-sites/ intranet.

17. PROCESS OF CAPTURING TACIT
KNOWLEDGE (Contd.)
• Partner Training
Senior Partners to contribute training in a drop-in fashion and
share real-life experiences
• Insulating against attrition
Organize deal de-briefs, discussions on transactional dynamics
• Meetings and conferences
Organizing deal debriefings, informal discussions to discussion
transactional dynamics

18. INDIVIDUAL DISCIPLINE
• Storing information systematically on
computers,
• Writing short memos/ notes /
observations/ explanations/ footnotes.
• Key to success is …..start sharing
knowledge with others & without any
expectations!

19. Before you shut this PPT,
please forward it to your 9
friends………..and see the
results in 24 hours!
nitin@jsalaw.com
Vakils House, 18 Sprott Road
Ballard Estate, Mumbai 400 001. India
T: +91 22 4341 8505 F: +91 22 4341 8616