Knowledge management 03: Identifying one important knowledge management issue in an architecture/ design office

Selecting for analysis one important knowledge management issue

In the context of product design, much of the richness of ideas and concepts that emerge at the early stages of brainstorming, are not developed at the particular time, because of several reasons, like the lack of funding, the lack of available time or simply because they were misjudged as not advantageous, similarly as the radio, the computers, the telephone, were also rejected at their time.  

This part of the research is going to focus on the early design phases, where many innovative ideas emerge, grow and change, but due to several reasons, numerous of them are lost and forgotten by the team (figure 01). Consequently, the selected knowledge issue could be better defined as:

The problem of organizational memory, in relation to several embryonic design ideas that are lost and/or forgotten by the team of product design

or The necessity of creating an ‘idea Bank’

Although, the issue of losing the design ideas was previously classified under the broad category of organizational memory, however it touches other areas like the issues of human resources, intellectual property rights, the conversion of tacit into explicit knowledge, etc.

Analyzing further the selected Knowledge management issue in our architecture office

·  Who owns the original idea? 

The design ideas might emerge during the collective processes of brainstorming, dialoguing, informal chat, team working, etc or independently in an ‘individuals’ mind.  Practically and in most of the cases it is difficult, if not impossible, to clarify either who gave birth to the original idea or what was the exact contribution of each participant. Consequently, the issue of ownership must be first clarified, before an idea become part of the organizational memory (captured, copyrighted and stored for later use).

Moreover, a participant might contribute to the teams creativity in a unique and vital way, not necessarily by ‘innovating’, but by criticizing, encouraging other participants, intriguing team’s gaze, etc. (figure 02)

Thus the creation of an “inspirational idea bank”, apart from the issue of recording and articulating knowledge will also face the issue of ownership, the issue of organizational commitment and trusted partnerships. In relation to the problem of ownership, it is true that the knowledge is created through interaction among individuals or between individuals and their environment, rather than by individuals operating alone and thus it has to be captured by the organization and become part of the organization ‘capital’. Accordingly, it can be accepted that if an idea (even an immature idea) emerges or changes during the collaborative processes (even the informal ones), then it belongs to the group and not to an individual participant.  

Why the ideas are lost or forgotten?

Ideas might be lost if a participant leaves leave the team

Ideas that are ‘stored’ in individuals’ heads will be lost if the individual decides to depart from the organization. The commitment of any participant is not guaranteed, since any ‘knowledge worker’ might orient himself and his portable knowledge towards the external labour market. His loyalty depends on several parameters, like on the extent to which his job expectations are met by the organization, on the available options from the external labour market, on his payment, etc.

Ideas are simply forgotten

In the abovementioned context of product design nothing is written in formal documents while nobody has the responsibility to record, classify, validate the design concepts.

The oxymoron of recording, codifying and explicitly articulating several ‘embryonic’ ideas

Any emergent and undeveloped idea, that is expressed verbally or by a draft sketch, does not ‘contain’ only open and clear information but also the experience and subjective judgment of the creator, in other words it cannot be simply codified and stored in a database.

An ‘idea bank’ needs people that will know how to use it  

Knowledge needs people who understand and use it in a meaningful manner. Therefore, an ‘idea bank’ must be designed in such a way so as to be accessible, useful and constantly updated by the entire team.