A. Macintosh, I. Filby, A. Tate 17-1 Knowledge Asset Road Maps Ann Macintosh, Ian Filby and Austin Tate AIAI, University of Edinburgh, 80 South Bridge, Edinburgh, EH1 1HN A.Macintosh@ed.ac.uk, I.Filby@ed.ac.uk, A.Tate@ed.ac.uk Abstract This paper describes how AIAI has used the ideas and techniques behind Technology Road Maps in order to provide a framework for developing Knowledge Asset Road Maps to support knowledge management initiatives. By carefully relating knowledge management actions upwards to business objectives and strategies, and downwards to specific knowledge assets, a co-ordinated picture of the various parts of an organisation’s overall knowledge management programme can be visualized and justified. Knowledge Asset Road Maps used as a strategic planning tool, allow the gaps between an organisation’s current know-how and future requirements to be identified, and informed investment decisions to close this gap to be made. 1 Introduction AIAI has produced a framework for developing Knowledge Asset Road Maps to support strategic knowledge management initiatives. Road Maps have been used by AIAI with a number of commercial and government organisations as well as in support of pan- European research “clubs”. Knowledge Asset Road Maps are mechanisms enabling organisations to visualise their critical knowledge assets, the relationships between these and the skills, technologies and competencies required to meet future market demands. The goal of developing a Knowledge Asset Road Map is to increase an organisation’s competitiveness by: • enabling all sections of an organisation to appreciate the current and future critical knowledge assets and their linkages to business objectives; • guiding strategic research, development, marketing and investment decisions. This is achieved by: • identifying current and future knowledge assets required to meet business objectives and placing them on a timeline; • identifying critical actions and projects required to develop and maintain the assets in the context of the business objectives; • specifying the relationship between the assets, actions, projects and business objectives of the organisation and the roles that each asset is expected to have in achieving the objectives. A Knowledge Asset Road Map provides a co-ordinated picture of the various parts of an organisation’s overall knowledge management programme such that the diverse and dispersed efforts can be seen as part of the whole and can be justified as such. 2 Background Knowledge assets are the knowledge regarding markets, products, technologies and organisations, that a business owns or needs to own and which enable its business processes to add value and generate profits. Knowledge management is not only about managing these knowledge assets but managing the processes that act upon the assets. These processes include: developing knowledge; preserving knowledge; using knowledge; and sharing knowledge. Therefore, knowledge asset management involves the identification and analysis of available and required knowledge assets and knowledge asset related processes, and the subsequent planning and The copyright of this paper belongs to AIAI, University of Edinburgh. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for direct commercial advantage. Proc. of the 2 nd Int. Conf. on Practical Aspects of Knowledge Management (PAKM98) Basel, Switzerland, 29-30 Oct. 1998, (U. Reimer, ed.) http://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-13/