This is a short analysis of the story of WalMart’s preparation for hurricanes, in order to explore the link between Big Data and Knowledge.

Hurricane Irma food distribution, by City of St Pete on Flickr

One of the earliest and most famous “big data” stories is around Walmart and it’s analysis of sales data related to hurricanes.  Let’s look at this story through the lens of “Observation, Insight, Lesson” to see the link between Big Data and Knowledge.

According to the New York Times in 2004 –

A week ahead of (Hurricane Frances) landfall, Linda M. Dillman, Wal-Mart’s chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck several weeks earlier. Backed by the trillions of bytes’ worth of shopper history that is stored in Wal-Mart’s computer network, she felt that the company could “start predicting what’s going to happen, instead of waiting for it to happen,” as she put it.

The experts mined the data and found that the stores would indeed need certain products – and not just the usual flashlights. “We didn’t know in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane,” Ms. Dillman said in a recent interview. ” 

And the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer.”Thanks to those insights, trucks filled with toaster pastries and six-packs were soon speeding down Interstate 95 toward Wal-Marts in the path of Frances. Most of the products that were stocked for the storm sold quickly, the company said. Such knowledge, Wal-Mart has learned, is not only power. It is profit, too.

This story is a classic example of the power of Big Data, but let’s look at it through a Knowledge lens.  The Military model of knowledge development is that it comes through a 3-step process of Observation, Insight, Lesson, and that the Lesson then leads to Action. The New York Times suggests that the big data algorithms delivered knowledge, but I suggest that what they delivered was Insight, and that the Knowledge is applied when you know what to do with those insights.

• The “trillions of bytes’ worth of shopper history” is a collection of Observations
• The correlation of shopper behaviour with imminent hurricane landfall is an Insight
• The lesson, on which action will be based, comes from an analysis of the insights with a background understanding of Walmart’s business and strategy. 

I would disagree with the New York Times. I think that what the data-mining experts found was Information in the form of a Correlation. The Knowledge would come in knowing what to do with that information (Knowledge, after all, being what enables correct action).

What would you do, dear reader, if you were a Walmart Executive who had been given this information on beer and pop tart sales? What action would you take?

• Should you (as the New York times suggests) stock your stores with extra supplies to increase profit?
• Should you (as this article suggests) put Pop-Tarts near the store entrances during hurricane season so that sales can “soar”?
• You could even consider raising the margin on these items, following the principles of supply/demand pricing?

All of these solutions will increase sales and improve profit, but would Walmart really want to use a hurricane solely as an opportunity to increase profit? That might not go down so well with the public.  As Peter Drucker said, “Information only becomes knowledge in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it” and luckily Walmart has the knowledge they need to use this information wisely.

What Walmart actually do 

Walmart have built their own “best practice” for disaster relief (here, from page 177)  In the US this includes

• Making sure their own stores are reopened as soon as possible 
• Providing merchandise for emergency responders, such as bottled water for first responders, office supplies for command posts, flashlights and batteries for search and rescue crews
• Donating pallets of dry food, soft drinks, flashlights, clothes, blankets and childrens board games
• Hosting massive barbecues in their parking lots, to feed citizens with no domestic power

 As a result WalMart is seen as a lifesaver, and it’s disaster response procedure has been compared favourably with that of FEMA. They have won the hearts of the public, and of the administrators.

Walmart are winning on three counts. They have plenty of observations in the form of shopper data, they analyse this data to derive insights, and they have knowledge (based on experience and codified in best practice) that allows them to take the correct actions. 

It is that knowledge that allows them to know what to do with the insights they mine from Big Data

If you are a competent ship’s master, what types of knowledge do you need to be able to navigate on a new voyage to an unknown port?  You need two types – explicit and tacit, charts and pilots.

The charts, and the associated tide tables and weather forecasts are the explicit knowledge, whether these are paper charts or electronic. They record the unchanging features of coastlines, currents, buoys and lighthouses. With a good set of charts, any competent mariner can navigate any sea anywhere in the world, provided they have their own set of tacit knowledge – how to read a chart, how to determine position, how to plot a course allowing for wind and tide.

A chart is never complete – there are often uncharted hazards – but they as being constantly improved, and it is now possible to order a set of charts which are updated as of the day of ordering.

But when it comes to entering the narrow congested waters of an unfamiliar foreign port, the ship master’s tacit knowledge is not enough, even bolstered by the explicit knowledge in the charts and manuals. Here you need a Pilot.

A pilot is a sailor who maneuvers ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbors or river mouths. They are navigational experts possessing knowledge of the particular waterway such as its depth, currents, and hazards.

The economic and environmental risk from today’s large cargo ships makes the role of the pilot essential. Pilots possess detailed knowledge of local waterways, and most ports have compulsory pilotage for big ships. Pilotage is one of the oldest professions, as old as sea travel, and it is one of the most important in maritime safety. The complexities and risks of close navigation make pilotage essential.

Pilotage is an example of deep tacit knowledge which cannot safely be codified, and the master and pilot work together, combining their knowledge of the ship and knowledge of the harbour, to finally berth the ship and end the voyage.

Similarly your knowledge workers need access to two types of knowledge.

They need the documented guidance of the “broad areas” of their work, so they can be guided through most of the job. Then they need access (through communities of practice, or subject matter experts) to the deep knowledge of the most risky or complex tasks that can never be made explicit.

Once again, this takes us back to the dual nature of KM – Connect and Collect, Tacit and Explicit. These both need to be components of your Knowledge Management Framework,so that you can take your knowledge workers to the mouth of the harbour, and then guide them to safe anchorage.

There are many people who really don’t like the term Knowledge Management, and would much rather use some other terminology. But logically, these two words go together. 

There is a common view that the term “Knowledge Management” is an oxymoron; that “knowledge cannot be managed” and therefore the term makes no sense.  They start to use terms like “Knowledge Sharing” instead of “Knowledge Management,” and KM becomes a taboo term – something to be avoided.

However there are a number of reasons what Knowledge Management is not only a valid term, but a combination of two words that need each other.

Firstly the term “Knowledge Management” does not mean “the Management of Knowledge,”  nor does it imply management by control. Management is about  creating and maintaining organisational structures, frameworks, systems and processes to optimise the value of some area of focus, and in the case of KM, Knowledge is the area of focus.

“Knowledge Management” is therefore “Management with a focus on Knowledge”.

This is the definition you will find in ISO 30401:2018, the management systems standard for Knowledge Management, and we based this on the definition of Quality Management in ISO 9001.  With this definition, there is no oxymorom. KM is Management with Knowledge in mind.

Management is what we do to make organisations work; to make them prosper and succeed. And if they don’t manage with knowledge (together with risk, quality, safety, money etc etc) in mind, then they won’t prosper and succeed to the same extent.

Divorcing “management” from “knowledge” also means divorcing “knowledge” from “management”. If you are talking to managers, then they need to understand that these two cannot and should not be divorced.

They cannot manage properly, if they ignore knowledge.  And if we manage with due attention to the value and importance of knowledge, then this is Knowledge Management, and this is what we should be doing. Management needs Knowledge, and Knowledge needs Management, in the sense that it needs organisational structures, frameworks, systems and processes.

The two words belong together.

What is the purpose of KM? Why do we do it? What is it’s core objective?

This is a subject worth exploring. If we are 100% sure about why we need, or why we do, KM, then we can be clearer about what sort of KM we need, and what knowledge most needs our attention.

I would like to explore the subject using the 5 Why’s to dig down to underlying objectives |(although I think I got to the real reason after the fourth Why, so I stopped there).

There is more than one type of Knowledge, and KM needs to decide which type requires the main focus and effort.

Both linguistically and philosophically there is more than one type of knowledge. This is important, and is an area where the English Language is less than helpful to the KM practitioner.

The linguistic differences in types of knowledge

We use the same word when asking “Do you know her name” as when asking “Do you know her”. However we are describing two types of knowing here – the first is a Fact, the second is a Familiarity.  If you know someone’s name, then you can recall a fact about them. If you know someone, then you are familiar with them.

Similarly we can ask “Do you know what a bicycle is?” and  “Do you know how to ride a bicycle?” The first is recollection of a Fact, the second is an Ability. In English we use the same word for both, but in other languages we use different words.

The philosophical differences in types of knowledge

I am not a philosopher, I have not studied the philosophy of knowledge and knowing, but I am aware of some of the ideas, and I know that for philosophers there are two or three types of knowledge:

• Propositional knowledge or Declarative Knowledge, which is knowledge of facts (like who won the FA cup, or what last month’s sales figures are);
• Procedural knowledge, which is knowledge of how to do something (like ride a bicycle);
• A third type – sometimes called Knowledge by Acquaintance, sometimes called Strategic Knowledge,  or Conditional Knowledge. This is knowledge of when and why to apply different procedures, use specific approaches or makce certain choices, which comes from deep familiarity. 

I really recommend this article about procedural and declarative knowledge, and the links between the two, and the two camps when it comes to the links between the two:

• Intellectualism, which believes that all procedural knowledge either can be made declarative, or already is declarative;
• Anti-intellectualism, which believes that the two are different.

The three types.

The table below discusses these types of knowledge

In Knoco, we tend to focus our Knowledge Management support on ways to develop Procedural Knowledge and Familiarity (without losing sight of the need to provide access to facts). This is because we feel that:

1. Much declarative knowledge is already managed through Information Management tools and approaches, and requires little new from KM;
2. You can argue that the purpose of KM is to enable actions and decisions, thus requiring a focus on Know-how and Can-do.

• Using knowledge management to allow new staff to become rapidly familiar with organisational processes and procedural know-how;
• Developing a shared familiarity of an operation or activity through discussions within a community of practice;
• Using team learning processes such as Peer Assist and After Action Review to help a team “climb the learning curve of know-how and familiarity” more quickly;
• Applying a Knowledge Retention Strategy to ensure that an organisation does not lose know-how familiarity with crucial processes, practices and relationships when key people retire;
• Setting up processes of on-the-job coaching, reflection and learning that help build deeper familiarity;
• Sharing stories;
• Using Lessons Learned to ensure that teams become familiar with pitfalls, workarounds and know-how from previous projects.

Keep this difference in mind as you plan your Knowledge Management strategies. Knowledge is not a simple thing; you will need to pay attention to these multiple ways of Knowing, and decide how best to focus your KM initiative.

Is KM a Science? Is KM a Philosophy? No – it’s a Management Discipline. And here is why that is a useful viewpoint.

I have met many people over the years who treat Knowledge Management as something entirely unique – a philosophy, almost, or a “world-view”. For these people, there is nothing quite like KM.

Our view in Knoco is that KM is not unique, but is rather the latest in a range of management disciplines.

Knowledge Management represents a way of managing work, paying due attention to the value and effect of an intangible (namely, knowledge). And it’s not the only management discipline which deals with intangibles. Risk management, quality management, customer relationship management, brand management, reputation management, talent management, safety management – all deal with intangibles.

This view – of KM as one discipline among many – is derived from recognising knowledge as one organizational asset among many. For centuries, organisations have managed their visible assets, such as money, people, property and equipment. More recently organisations have been addressing the intangible assets, such as their reputation, their IP, their customer base, the diversity and talent of their staff, their ability to work safely and sustainably, and now their knowledge.

This view is entirely compatible with the recent introduction of ISO 30401:2018, the ISO Management Systems standard for Knowledge Management, which treats KM exactly the same way that ISO treats quality management or asset management, and which defines KM as “management with regard to knowledge”.

The value of treating KM as a management discipline

The first great value of treating KM as “one among equals” – as another component of good management discipline – is that you can then place it within the same governance framework as you do the other disciplines. You can position it in the same structures and expectations. You can review it using the same review processes (the stage reviews of the project management framework, for example, or the Plan/Do/Measure/Learn cycle). You can audit it as you do any other management discipline. In other words, you can embed it easily within “normal work”.

Maybe that’s a pragmatists approach rather than a theorists or idealists approach, but if you are looking to embed KM in your organisation, you will find that this is an approach that works.

The second great value of treating KM as “one among equals” is that it gives you an analogy for the practical issues of implementation and sustaining KM. You can look at the closest analogue discipline that is already embedded in your organisation, and ask

• “How did we implement this? 
• What lessons can we derive about implementing such a discipline? 
• How are we sustaining this? 
• What lessons are there for sustaining KM?”

Probably the closest analogue disciplines for KM are safety management and risk management. Both of these disciplines are not about the management of tangibles – neither safety nor risk are things you can pick up, weigh and put in your pocket – but more about how you manage your organisation so that safety and risk are given priority, and so that people’s safety behaviours and risk behaviours change.

So if your organisation has, in the past, successfully introduced risk management and safety management, then you should be greatly heartened as a knowledge manager, as KM can then follow a proven implementation path.

Treat KM as just another management discipline, and you will find this gives you so many models and analogues to help you. 

Many people prefer to use the term “Knowledge Sharing” instead of “Knowledge Management”. However as a synonym “Knowledge Sharing” is inadequate and misleading. 

Sharing is Caring by Fabian Rosdalen on Flickr

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