Page 408 -
P. 408
Organizational Learning and Organizational Memory 391
• Managing organizational memory often means overcoming barriers to the process-
ing of experiential knowledge accrued by knowledge workers over time.
• Knowledge continuity is the process of ensuring that valuable knowledge is not
lost to the organization due to employee attrition. Ideally, knowledge transfer should
take place at the individual (knowledge worker), group (community of practice), and
organizational (organizational memory) levels.
Discussion Points
1. What are some of the key challenges in developing and managing an organizational
memory system? Outline some of the key obstacles that may be encountered and how
you would address each one.
2. What does the term corporate amnesia refer to? How would you characterize the
costs involved with corporate amnesia? Provide some examples to illustrate your
points.
3. What is the difference between OL, LO, OM, and organizational memory systems
(OMS) or organizational memory information systems (OMIS)?
4. How would you decide whether a particular knowledge element should go into
a record management system, database management systems, a fi le or document
management systems, the intranet or portal, the backup fi les, the archives, or the
organizational memory system? What major criteria are used to identify a lesson
learned or best practice that is “ worthy ” of being preserved in OM?
5. How would you decide whether something is a lesson learned or a best practice?
What additional work is involved in documenting a lesson learned so that it does not
lead to blame or to an inadvertent disclosure of private or confi dential content?
6. Name the major ways in which knowledge can be lost to an organization. Link
these causes to the knowledge processing cycle (see chapter 2). What are some good
methods to deal with such knowledge loss after the fact (in a reactive fashion)? How
would you institute a more proactive approach to preventing knowledge loss?
7. How would you assess the success of your OM systems, for example, a lessons
learned, best practice, or story database? What sorts of tools would you use? Who
would be involved? How would you act on the feedback you collected? What are some
ways in which you could boost the adoption rate of the content?
8. List the major steps you would have to undertake in order to develop a knowledge
continuity strategy. Include information on how you would identify potential areas