Provides a clear and practical overview of the KM skills and competencies required throughout an organization and how these may be developed.

The Knowledge Proposition is that significant additional stakeholder value and competitive advantage will be derived if the expertise, information and ideas of employees, partners and customers are continually developed and used in all business and decision-making processes\'. (Knowledge Leaders 2003) [1]

In 2001 the British standards rnstitution published \'Knowledge Management: a guide to good practice\' [2] which provided a practical introduction to mainstream thinking in the field of Knowledge Management (KM), gave an indication of some emerging thinking, and stimulated discussion. since the publication of PAs 2001 the practice of KM has continued to grow in both the private and public sectors. rt is still a relatively new and evolving discipline and is developing under a number of labels, but the experience of senior management in \'KM organizations\' and of KM practitioners provides a valuable knowledge and learning base.

During the past decade information and communications technology (reT) has enabled organizations and supply chains to establish networks of diverse participants, often widely dispersed, causing management radically to re-assess ways of working. This Guide looks at the effect that KM and networked working has had on the skills and competencies required in organizations. rt illustrates how organizations develop knowledge working through the development of appropriate roles, skills and competencies.

Expertise, information and ideas make up the corporate knowledge base, and people, processes and technology enable knowledge creation, flow and use. The Guide summarizes some of the experience and learning of KM and networked organizations in developing their knowledge base and knowledge flow through people.

Researching the Guide

In preparing this Guide we:

• consulted the KM leaders in seventy organizations using interviews, focus groups and workshops;

• reviewed current literature in a wide range of disciplines;

• consulted KM consultants and thinkers; and

• developed a number of short case studies.

In undertaking the research we focused on the roles, skills and competencies that \'made KM happen\', but as KM is context specific we explored their development against the background of the organization, its corporate objectives and its vision for KM.

The Guide is based on empirical research. rt is about people and their skills and, as this is an evolving area, we felt that a statistical research approach was not appropriate. The outcomes of the interviews and workshops are incorporated in the Guide and may help identify the questions that may need to be asked in a future quantitative study.

We noted that a key factor determining the approach organizations take to developing \'skills for knowledge working\' is their level of KM maturity. so that the Guide would reflect experience rather than theory the organizations selected had all achieved some level of KM maturity (Figure 1).

It is worth noting that those organizations which felt that KM was effectively embedded in the way they worked had reached a position where every \'project\' was a \'KM project\'. All the criteria for effective knowledge creation, sharing, and management was part of the planning process and was in place from the outset.

The conclusions of the study are contained in the following clauses:

• elause 5 identifies the roles, skills and competencies of knowledge workers;

• elause 6 discusses knowledge conscious leadership;

• elause 7 identifies roles throughout the organization that support effective knowledge working;

• elause 8 outlines roles undertaken by knowledge specialists;

• elause 9 looks at the ways organizations are developing skills for knowledge working;

• Annex A provides case studies.