Knowledge starts as data—raw facts and numbers. Information is data put into context. Only when information is combined with experience and judgment does it become knowledge. Knowledge can be highly subjective and hard to codify. It includes the insight and wisdom of employees. It may be shared through emailed “best practices” memos or even sticky notes on a cubicle wall. And once we have knowledge, we can put it to work and apply it to decision making.

Explicit knowledge is documented information that can facilitate action. It can be expressed in formal, shared language. Examples include formulas, equations, rules, and best practices. Explicit knowledge is packaged, easily codified, communicable, transferable. Tacit knowledge is know-how and learning embedded within the minds of the people in an organization. It involves perceptions, insights, experiences, and craftsmanship. Tacit knowledge is personal, context-specific, difficult to formalize, difficult to communicate, and more difficult to transfer.

Most business actions require the guidance of both explicit and tacit knowledge. Knowledge originates in individuals, but it is embodied in teams and organizations. Knowledge also is embedded in work processes, and it exists in all core functions of an organization as well as in its systems and infrastructure.

The challenge in knowledge management is to make the right knowledge available to the right people at the right time.

Knowledge management comes from the realization of the tremendous value and importance of knowledge to any organization. Organization’s intellectual assets are worth many times compared to the tangible book value. Overtime organization loses knowledge due to attrition, consultants (external expertise), memory loss and change. Knowledge management aims to manage this lose through creation, organisation, access and reuse intellectual assets.

One way of looking at Knowledge Management is Information or data management with the additional practice of capturing the tacit experience of the individual at to be shared, used and built upon by the organization leading to increased productivity. This tacit knowledge is stored primarily in an individual’s head and shared in conversations. This knowledge is required to perform necessary and optional tasks throughout, whereas data/information directly does not enable performance.

Knowledge management includes capture, verification, codification, integration, synthesis, dissemination and utilization of personal, collegial, corporate and environmental knowledge of an organization. Effective Knowledge management is envisioned to deal with: