Knowledge Management Strategy- Codification Vs. Personalization

Before selecting a Knowledge Management strategy for your organization it is always good to learn which strategy suits more_ Codification or Personalization. There is no general agreement that one strategy is better that the other. It all depends on the nature/ culture of your organization. So before deciding which strategy suits you more, lets have a clear understanding of what each strategy is about;

Codification		Personalization
People to Documents		People to People
Usually high quality, reliable and fast information systems are needed		Provide, creative, analytically rigorous advice on high level strategic problems by channeling individual experience
Typically includes databases of information, previous presentations and reports.		Knowledge workers use each other as resources through brain-storming sessions, networking, one-on-one conversations and team projects where the focus is on individual knowledge and experience.
The knowledge workers experience are stored in documents, either on hard or electronic copies.		This method is particularly used when information cannot be codified and stored electronically
Knowledge is not connected to a specific person and reused for multiple projects
Advantages	Disadvantages	Advantages	Disadvantages
Explicit knowledge can be reused and approached easily	High investment in IT	Highly customized solutions	Higher chance of ambiguity occurrence
A large amount of knowledge can be stored and accessed	Highly IT literate workforce	Moderate investment in IT	Difficult to be communicated and understood due to different levels of experience each possesses
Easy to understand and make use of	The reuse of knowledge which is applicable to many projects hinders the quality of the outcome of a performed task.	Staff does not need to be highly IT literate but should possess skills in dealing with ambiguity and problem solving	High use of facilities needed (conference rooms, etc)
		One to one monitoring	Time consuming

Things to be considered when selecting a strategy;

• The type of products- Standardized and mature (Codification)/ Customized and innovative (Personalization)
• What type of knowledge do employees rely on? Explicit (Codified)/ Tacit (Personalized)
• Which primary strategy best fits competitive business strategy?

The best results are achieved when a firm focuses on one strategy; however a secondary strategy can be employed to support the primary, but with less emphasis.

Read more on Harvard Business Review "What's Your Strategy for Managing Knowledge"