Knowledge Management Maximizing Value from Electronic Knowledge Sharing Tools

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Knowledge ManagementMaximizing Value from
Electronic Knowledge Sharing Tools
Frances D. Harrison Transportation Research Board
86th Annual Meeting January, 2007
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What do we need to know to function effectively?
Who Roles, Competencies, Contacts
What Budgets, Programs Projects
Where Thematic Maps conditions, events
When Schedules, Timelines
Why Performance Metrics
How Standards, Policies, Lessons, Best
Practices, Models
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Electronic Tools for Knowledge Management
Best Practice Adoption
Documents
Intranet Portal Doc Repository Discussion Forum
Questions Responses
Improved Quality
Higher Productivity
Lessons Learned
Consistency
Expert Contacts
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Electronic KM Tools Value Proposition

• Capture and Archive Core Institutional Knowledge
  lessen impacts of employee turnover
• Support Consistent Understanding of Policy,
  Procedure and Best Practices via Common Body of
  Information
• Enable Staff to Perform Efficiently and
  Effectively by providing fast and easy
  information access

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Life Cycle of an Electronic Knowledge Base
hits new entries
Time
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Challenges

• Motivation to Contribute
• Not required
• Too many other things competing for time
• Value not clear
• Critical Mass
• Informal information sharing already occurring
• Not enough new material being generated stale
  content
• Culture and Habits
• Hierarchical
• Level of comfort with electronic tools
  variation by age cohort and role
• Tool Quality
• Ease of Use
• Success Rate
• Change
• Turnover of Tool Stewards/Moderators
• New Priorities
• New Activities
• New Technologies

If you build it, they will come
X
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Four Legged Stool for Success
Integration with Work
Management Support
Focus on Value
Employee Engagement
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Integration with Work Define Objectives,
Process and Roles

• What is the end result we want to achieve?
• Who will contribute the content and when?
• Who will use the tool and when?
• Who will administer the tool (setup, cleanup,
  moderation)?
• Who will evaluate value added and initiate
  improvements?

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Integration with Work Capturing Knowledge

• Updates to Competencies and Contacts
• New Hires, Transfers, Exit Interviews, Training
  Completion, Employee Performance Reviews
• Updates to Lessons Learned
• Project Development Milestones
• Quarterly Unit Performance Reviews
• Annual Employee Performance Reviews
• Updates to Contract Resources
• Contract Close-out
• Updates to Policies/Procedures/Best Practices
• As these are issued
• Updates to Budgets, Programs, Projects, Maps
• Quarterly

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Integration with Work Learning from Experience

• What would others need to know about this
  ltproject, plan, design, study, activity, process,
  eventgt?
• Where are the results? Where is the backup
  information?
• Who was involved (internally and externally)?
• Who are the experts on this?
• What information did I find valuable before or
  during?
• What worked well?
• What would we do differently? How could we save
  time or money next time?
• What would we look out for next time?
• How can we make sure others can find this
  information?
• Key words/controlled vocabularies to aid search
• Properly archived materials
• Email prompting (based on employee profiles)

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Example Fluor Knowledge Packs

• "We had to create a culture that would attract
  and retain younger engineers while capturing the
  knowledge of retiring ones.
• Project Activity Models and Knowledge Packs
• Defined standard activities by discipline for all
  life cycle phases of a project - project
  initiation, scope and definition, preliminary
  engineering, detailed design, construction, etc.
• Developed Knowledge Packs all documents that
  are required for anyone taking on a new project,
  in any role
• Knowledge Packs are a key part of Fluors
  electronic Knowledge Management Tool
• DOT Equivalent - repackaging of content from
• Design Manuals
• Construction Manuals
• Maintenance Manuals
• Policy Directives
• Standard Contracts
• Checklists

Source TIM case study - http//www.tim.co.il/101
/1192.htm, accessed 1.12.07
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Integration With Work Links to Other Electronic
Tools

• Intranet/Internet
• Email
• Workflow Tools
• Scheduling Tools
• Document Management Systems
• Data Warehouse/Query Tools
• GIS/Mapping

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10 Strategies for Maximizing Value

• Maintain focus on what will have greatest payoff
  and success
• Define specific events or milestones that will
  trigger updates to the Knowledge Base, and
  follow-up to make sure it happens
• Require lessons learned after every project or
  project phase
• Recognize debriefing as a core competency
• Provide support from knowledge workers to
  populate the Knowledge Base
• Publicize agency or department knowledge
  librarian
• Embed knowledge workers in work units and
  project teams
• Internships or rotations
• Train and deploy a search analyst mission is to
  improve the ability of users to find information
  they need
• Provide customized views based on role
  community membership
• Seek involvement of management key employees
• Understand informal social networks
• Identify the producers and connectors enlist
  champions in each unit
• Provide incentives for contributions to the
  Knowledge Base
• Track performance, market successes and improve
  upon identified gaps

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Feedback and Improvement

• What to track
• Market penetration by segment
• Amount of use number of searches
• Search success
• User opinions
• Non user opinions
• Possible responses
• Improve the tool
• Refocus the content
• Improve stewardship
• Increase marketing
• Add incentives
• Further integrate into work processes
• Adjust expectations

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Questions?

• The important thing is never to stop
  questioning." Albert Einstein
• "Judge a person by their questions, rather than
  their answers."  --  Voltaire
• "Question everything. Learn something. Answer
  nothing."  --  Engineer's Motto
• "No question is so difficult to answer as that
  which the answer is obvious."  --  George Bernard
  Shaw
• "Quality questions create a quality life.
  Successful people ask better questions, and as a
  result, they get better answers."  --  Anthony
  Robbins
• "When someone says, That's a good question. You
  can be sure it's a lot better than the answer
  you're going to get."  --  Source Unknown