UNIVERSITY OF MANAGEMENT

TECHNOLOGY
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMNET (MG-470)
FALL 2015
TITLE: LOTUS FRAMEWORK FOR KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT #: 2
SECTION:
A
DATE OF SUBMISSION:
30/11/2015
SESSION OF SUBMISSION: **
YOUR PROGRAM:
BBA (H)/BBIS

SUBMITTED BY:
ID:
SERIAL NUMBER:
SECTION:

FOR GRADING:
COMMENTS:

SALMAN ABDULLAH ASAD

MARKS SECURED:

Knowledge Management is about making the right knowledge available to the right people. It is
also about making sure that an organization is about learning, and that it will be able to retrieve
and use its intellectual capital and its knowledge assets in current scenarios where they are
applicable. In the words of Peter Drucker, the Management Guru, KM is "the coordination and
exploitation of organizational knowledge resources, in order to create benefit and competitive
advantage" (Drucker 1999).
In the class of Managing Knowledge in Organizations, we have discussed one model/framework
of Knowledge Management which was proposed by Karl E. Svieby. This model/framework
helped us in explaining how Knowledge can be created, shared, transformed and managed by an
organization and in an organization. The key element of this framework was the Knowledge
based view of the organization which helps and to give a Knowledge Management based
organization to achieve Sustained Competitive Advantage.
Now, the model proposed by Svieby talked about how the individual competence, the internal
structure of the organization and the external structure of the organization interact with
themselves and with each other. There are a few other models and frameworks which describe
the management of knowledge through various methods and perspectives.
There are frameworks that focus on knowledge creation which include the Framework of
Nonaka and Takeuchi and the framework proposed by D. Leonard Barton. Then there are
process focused frameworks which include the APQC framework and the framework of
Romhart and Probst. The next type of frameworks is the focus on technology type which
includes the Lotus framework and the Angus and Patel framework. The last basis of the
frameworks is the holistic framework perspective of knowledge management which includes
ICM framework by IBM, Coopers and Lybrand and the Holistic Knowledge Asset Framework.

For my assignment, I have chosen the framework of Lotus. This framework is a technology
based framework and was proposed in 1998. In this framework, Lotus examines four strategic
goals as a function of two dimensions: sollaboration and organizational scale. The premise is that
the companies benefit the most from knowledge management when they map their knowledge
activites to their sharply defines strategic goals.
This framework identifies and describes the strategic goals of Competency, Responsiveness,
Productivity and Innovation.

Innovation

Reponsiveness

Productivity

Competency

Chat

Problem solve

Reuse

Read

Brainstorm

Strategize

Discover

Browse

Conference

Coordinate

Optimize

Study

Network

Customize

Mine

Apprentice

INNOVATION
Innovation.
In business environments and markets which are characterized by rapid technological changes
and shorter cycle times, innovation is mostly the only source of sustained competitive advantage.
The challenge for many companies is bringing employees together across the boundaries of time
and geography to brainstorm, share ideas, and co-create new products and services.
Innovation : Chatting, Brainstorming, Conferencing, Networking
Innovation is a key objective of collaborative technologies for many years. By structuring
collaboration to achieve specific objectives or to resolve issues, knowledge management tools
drive group interactions beyond the basic interactivity of discussion forums.

RESPONSIVENESS
Tremendous improvements over previous decades have led to technology investments that have
helped companies build systems that manage well-known and well-understood business events.
But todays business environment seems to present more unanticipated events such as the recent
turbulence in the 2008 global financial crisis.
Responsiveness: Problem solving Strategizing Coordinating Masses Customization
Knowledge management technologies offer the greatest benefit when they simply help a
company sense weak signals and to respond to them by marshaling its human and information
resources on an as-needed basis to respond effectively to unexpected events. By getting the right
information to who, what, where and when a company can quickly coordinate its activities in
response to customers and events. In some instances, a company can mass customize its
existing assets (both physical and intellectual) by tweaking them to meet specific customer
needs.
PRODUCTIVITY
Employees are forever re-creating the wheel, failing to use best practices and expertise that exist
elsewhere in the company. Most knowledge management efforts concentrate on effectively
documenting, cataloging and distributing such corporate knowledge assets so that the left hand
can learn what the right hand is doing.
Productivity: Reusing Discovering, Optimizing, Mining
Clearly, productivity depends on how well the knowledge created by individuals and groups can
be captured and packaged for reuse by others inside (and outside) the company. More than that,
however, knowledge management technologies must provide individuals with the tools to
discover and mine corporate knowledge that has already been created. Once people find the
corporate knowledge assets they need, they can improve upon those assets by applying them to
new processes and problems.

COMPETENCY.
A company that wants to remain competitive must develop its people both new hires and
existing employees. New hires need to learn not only new skills, but also how things get done
around here. To do so they read as much as they can, get on the job training, uncover
resources through browsing the corporate web, enroll in a course of study, and even apprentice
with mentors and other colleagues. Just as important is building the skills and expertise of
existing employees. Anything a company can do to support and accelerate such learning is
successful knowledge management.
Competency: Reading, Browsing, Studying, Apprenticeship
Knowledge management tools and techniques can enhance the discovery and delivery of critical
information and training to employees, so that a company can continually improve the skills of
its people as a regular part of doing business.
COLLABORATION
The process of creating, sharing and applying knowledge involves varying degrees of
collaboration. Some knowledge activities, such as individual learning (competency) or reusing
well-defined best practices (productivity) require some collaboration, though perhaps not much.
In these activities, employees are more likely to find knowledge resources in documents and
databases, rather than through interaction with coworkers. Of course, the degree of collaboration
varies within a sector itself: an instructor-led course is more collaborative than, say, browsing the
Web (even though both are competency-building activities). In general, activities related to
competency and productivity are relatively low on the collaboration scale overall. By contrast,
knowledge activities related to innovation and responsiveness are much more collaborative. For
example, brainstorming sessions (innovation) and strategy planning meetings (responsiveness)
are usually highly interactive, involving multiple people. They rank higher on the collaboration
axis.

ORGANIZATIONAL SCALE
The second dimension of the Lotus Knowledge Management Framework is scalability that is,
the extent to which knowledge management activities and output can be leveraged throughout
the organization. Competency building and innovation typically occur on a small scale, at the
individual or work group level. For example, people may attend conferences, workshops and
training sessions to improve their individual competency; however, what they learn is not easily
accessible for use throughout the organization. It is not scalable knowledge. Only when the
output of individual learning or an innovation is packaged for reuse can the results be leveraged
throughout the organization. A company can only perform well in the productivity and
responsiveness sectors if it reuses knowledge assets created by individuals or groups and
leverages those assets on an organizational scale. For example, in resolving customer problems,
a productive organizations help desk might reuse a knowledge base of previously answered
questions. It is important to remember, of course, that scale does not necessarily imply a finite
limit. Knowledge management is often successful when it is applied across and beyond
organizational boundaries.

Additional Note:
The part describing the lotus approach was used as is in this assignment with minor additions
and subtractions. It was done to keep true to nearest sense of what the author wished to convey.
It was also done in part on my lack of complete understanding of the construction and utility of
the framework. So I was not able to put it effectively in my own wording.
References:
http://www.gdrc.org/kmgmt/lotuskm.pdf
http://www.knowledge-management-online.com/support-files/module2.1-critical-review-of-kmframeworks.pdf
http://www.knowledge-management-tools.net/