Today a growing number of people realise that knowledge is playing a crucial part in the competitive abilities of an organisation. Developments in business, society and technology require adaptations in how products and services need to meet the demands of the market. They also require a change in how knowledge and skills are organized. But how do you design your knowledge infrastructure? Where do you begin? What techniques and methods are useful? Which bottlenecks do you have to circumvent? Every organisation has its own demands concerning a knowledge infrastructure. How do you prioritise the demands within your organization and evaluate their importance?

The 5 day programme

Knowledge Management: an update(first module)
Departing from some basic concepts and practical examples, you will reach an understanding of the role knowledge fulfils within organisations and the wide range of possible knowledge management measures. We will introduce you to various possible approaches to knowledge management.

Knowledge and strategy (second module)
Is it possible to embed knowledge management in the strategy of your enterprise? How do you do that? How can you relate knowledge management initiatives to your business goals effectively? These questions will be answered during this part of the programme. You will gain insight into the relationship between the vision of an organisation, its core competence and actual knowledge areas.

Knowledge and learning
In this part of the masterclass you will get acquainted with instruments organisations can deploy in order to optimise their learning capability. The focus is on how to make knowledge creation processes faster and yet more effective. You will discuss the most important perspectives on learning within organisations, and be able to identify learning obstacles and their solutions. Special attention will be paid to your personal ability to translate these concepts into concrete learning actions within your own organisation.

Designing a knowledge infrastructure (third module)
After attending the first two modules, you will now be ready to discuss possible components of knowledge infrastructures such as intranets, knowledge profiles and networks, communities of practice and best practices collections. Design principles of knowledge infrastructures will be made clear through the use of a case study. You will be able to specify targets and select components for the knowledge infrastructure that you would like to realise. The emphasis will be on letting you experience by yourself how to make the connection between targets and knowledge infrastructures, as well as the actual design work.

Organising knowledge flow (fourth module)
Special attention will be paid to how organisations can optimise the use of available knowledge and to make the right knowledge available in the right place at the right time. A wide range of measures which organisations can deploy to achieve this will be presented. Corporate Memory is an inter-related combination of processes, systems and roles. This concept will serve as a frame for this module. Optimising the productivity of knowledge is the central issue. You will be invited to consider the application of these measures in your business case in order to optimise the productivity of knowledge flow in your own business environment.

Implementing knowledge management within your own organisation (fifth module)
The central theme of this final day is the way in which Change Management enables an effective implementation of knowledge management in organisations. This forms the apotheosis of the masterclass: developing your own action plan for improving knowledge management in your company. You will have the opportunity to receive feedback from the consultants who make up the faculty and share experiences with other participants. This effectively improves your knowledge management implementation skills.