KM is a systematic approach for collaborative thinking, learning and performance (TLP) to nurture individual minds, bring knowledge transparency, harness the collective potential and to improve the operational excellence. Effective KM system is the one that can help perfectly manage The Knowledge Lifecycle.

KM process is a set of guidelines or best practices for nurturing personal and collective knowledge to unlock the true potential of individuals as well as organizations. It ultimately maximize productivity, quality and innovation.

• Personal Knowledge Management focuses on personal competency management, personalized learning and individual productivity and quality.
• Community Knowledge Management focuses on team or knowledge community collaboration.
• Enterprise Knowledge Management (Enterprise KM) focuses on the knowledge processes in various business functions.

Hence there are three main categories of knowledge management systems such as Personal KM, Community KM and Enterprise KM. Either Distributed Knowledge Management Systems or Centralized KM Systems can be used depending on the needs of the organization. Organizations can kick-start KM with the distributed (departmental) model, expand and align it to the centralized model.

Note: All these three pillars of KM are equally important. If any of these three is missing, then KM will not be effective and the KM project will fail. To realize the size of KM and the importance of these three pillars, you need to thoroughly read all the sections under this about KM and the solution sections. Check out Effective KM for more explanation.

The threat of the Knowledge Economy to traditional business is real. Knowledge convergence and management of common knowledge are essential to accelerate learning & innovation, improve time-to-market and maximize service quality. Knowledge workers with decades of experience can easily migrate to any other location or organization. People with adaptive minds can park their knowledge anywhere and become mobile. In many ways, knowledge organizations can lose their vital intangible assets overnight. Organizations without a KM initiative become vulnerable to the turnover of knowledge workers and become victim to high-cost operations. The following are some of the key findings (Source: Mirror Worlds Technologies Inc., New Haven, Conn.; Gartner Inc., Stamford, Conn.):

• When employees leave, 70% of their knowledge leaves with them.
• Employees spend 30% to 40% of their time looking for information.
• Redeveloping information that already exists costs approximately $5,500 annually per employee and the average document is copied nine to eleven times.

How can any organization survive this level of energy waste in the face of both price and quality pressures? Embracing KM is the solution.

"I" factors focus on turning collective intelligence into valuable business ideas by adopting innovation culture, implementing KM initiatives and inter connecting people.

"C" factors focus on transforming a "community" into "core-competency" through collaborative culture, change mentality and smart communication ".

"E" factors focus on enabler of KM, e-business and exchange model to build and manage the collective expertise.