Using Practice Context Models to Knowledge Management in Proof-of-Concept Activities: A Contribution of Knowledge Networks and Percolation Theory

Abstract

This study introduces novel research using Practice Context Models supported by Knowledge Networks and Percolation Theory with the aim to contribute to knowledge management in Proof-of-Concept (PoC) activities. The authors envision this proposal as a potential instrument to identify network structures based on a percolation (propagation) threshold and to analyze the importance of nodes (e.g., practitioners, practices, competencies, movements, and scenarios) during the percolation of knowledge in PoC activities. After thirty months immersed in the natural PoC habitat, acting as observers and practitioners, and supported by an ethnographic exercise and a designer-research mindset, the authors identified the production of meaning in PoC activities occurring in a hermeneutic circle characterized by the presence of several knowledge networks; thus, discovering the ‘natural knowledge’ in PoC as a spectrum of cognitive development spread throughout its network, as each node could produce and disseminate certain knowledge that flows and influences other nodes. Therefore, this research presents the use of Practice Context Models ‘connected’ to Knowledge Networks and Percolation Theory as a potential and feasible proposal to be built using the attribution of values (weights) to the nodes (e.g., practitioners, practices, competencies, movements, scenarios, and also knowledge) in the context of PoC with the aim to allow the players (e.g., PoC practitioners) to have more flexibility in building alliances with other players (new nodes); that is, focusing on those nodes with higher value (focus on quality) in collaboration networks, i.e., alliances (connections) with the aim to contribute to knowledge management in the context of PoC.