Changing Software Development: Learning to Become Agile

3.4. Sticky Knowledge

It is because knowledge is more than just information that it is important. If we treat knowledge as simply another form of information, we ignore its true value and risk losing it. For managers, it is the practical implication of this insight that makes knowledge important. Failure to recognize knowledge as distinct from information leads to problems.

Information can be bought and sold. The sum of just £1 buys a copy of the Financial Times, which is full of information. We can't treat knowledge in the same way. Sometimes knowledge stays in one place and refuses to move; at other times it flows right just where it wants to go. This has been characterized as 'sticky' and 'leaky' knowledge. Why some knowledge sticks and other knowledge leaks poses a 'knowledge conundrum', but managing this problem is key to managing knowledge.^[]

^[] For a full discussion of sticky and leaky knowledge, the knowledge conundrum and the Xerox PARC experience, see Brown and Duguid (2000)

The Xerox PARC Story The story of how Xerox PARC originally developed the graphical computer interface and how Apple built on this work for the MacIntosh is well known and shows many of the issues involved in knowledge management. The researchers at the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), who developed graphical interfaces, the laser printer, network protocols and so on, were based in California. The development engineers who would turn these into commercial products were in Dallas, and the managers ...