Exercise description:

Exercises and assignments on estimating the value of knowledge (Ch. 1)

These exercises assume that you have read Ch. 1 of the KE&M book on the Value of Knowledge.

Exercise: how to quantify knowledge benefits?

For many organizations, it is difficult to quantify the benefits of knowledge management and of knowledge systems. Yet, often it is necessary to be able to give some quantitative estimates of the benefits of proposed knowledge management actions or information system developments, in order to convince management to go ahead. Imagine it is your task to come up with a plan how to quantitatively measure the expected benefits of a knowledge management action or a knowledge system to be developed in an organization or company. How would you approach this?

Take a specific organization, of your own choice, to develop this plan. You may take an organization you are familiar with (specify), or take one from the other exercises, or one from the case studies described in the KE&M book. You could do this exercise very well in the form of a classroom discussion.

The plan should describe:

1. What benefits do you consider, and what measures do you select to quantify these?
2. Why are these measures the important ones to consider, at the expense of possible others?
3. How will you actually measure them in a practical and cost-effective way?
4. How confident are you that the obtained results really predict something about future benefits for your organization?

Hint: you may also take some inspiration from ideas developed in the total quality (TQM) and software metrics fields.

Assignment A: how to valuate corporate knowledge

In Chapter 1 of the Knowledge Engineering and Management book a few studies are quoted that attempt to give numerical estimates on how important knowledge is in today's organizations and the society at large. There are many more of these studies, although it is generally difficult to come up with valid and trustworthy figures. Carry out a literature and web survey to collect a large number of such studies. Write a report to analyze, critically assess, and compare these studies. Do you see some consensus emerging? Do such figures really make sense? If so, why? If not, how could you improveon the methodology used in these studies? This assignment may be done in the form of a group project.

Assignment B: assessing knowledge system benefits

In Chapter 1 of the Knowledge Engineering and Management book a study is discussed that investigates what managers see as the major benefits of knowledge systems, and to what degree. Carry out a literature and web survey to find more of these empirical studies. Also, try to find informative case-study descriptions (whether system failures or successes) about or from different companies. Write a report to analyze, critically assess, and compare these studies. What are the critical success factors for knowledge systems? How can you influence these? Are there differences between knowledge systems and other types of information systems? This assignment may be done in the form of a group project.