Comments on: ‘Knowledge sharing’ should be avoided

By: Mitch

Mitch — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:43:16 +0000

Senior management love everyone knowing everything because if someone goes on holiday, or leaves for any other reason, it is merely a resource leaving – not knowledge. Anyone is expendable at anytime. Its like cloud computing; if one node drops out, the others simply do slightly more work to make up for the loss.

The individual doesn’t like being expendable and also feels less sense of accomplishment and ownership in the project. In my company (which practices knowledge sharing aggressively), I am moved around daily, develop in 5 different languages, and feel more like a resource than an expert.

Maybe its not all bad for the individual though. My skill set is larger than it would be if I had stuck to server-side Java development. Larger skill sets make you more hireable – which I suppose is lucky because you are also more expendable :).

By: Links for 06-04-09 | burningCat

Links for 06-04-09 | burningCat — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:06:04 +0000

[...] ‘Knowledge sharing’ should be avoided » Step Two Designs [...]

By: To Share or not to Share « K-Center SBM ITB

To Share or not to Share « K-Center SBM ITB — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 06:59:07 +0000

[...] Share or not to Share By ismailsbm It is interesting to read this article written by James Robertson entitled “‘knowledge sharing’ shoud be avoided”. [...]

By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:04:35 +0000

Today at KM Singapore this idea seemed to hit a tipping point. Everyone was saying the same thing.

You said it first ‘it is recommended that ‘knowledge sharing’ not be discussed beyond the confines of the KM team’, and I’ve been banging on about it ever since. It’s funny how it takes a while for ideas to gain currency. =)

By: KM Singapore - e-wot?

KM Singapore - e-wot? — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:34:10 +0000

[...] James Robertson owes credit for being the first to articulate this idea, here’s his post in Column Two that made me slap my forehead and go ‘yes, that’s it’. It’s from 2004, so it’s not a new idea at [...]