surrounded by geniuses: knowledge management learning from other industries

B7:Surrounded by Geniuses: Knowledge Management Learning

from Other Industries

Steven Lastres (Moderator)Stephanie Barnes (Speaker)

Connie Crosby (Speaker)

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Presenters

Stephanie BarnesChief Chaos OrganizerMissing Puzzle Piece Consulting

Connie CrosbyPrincipalCrosby Group Consultinginsert photo insert photo

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Outline

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• Knowledge management recap• Corporate case studies• Application to the legal industry• Moderated panel discussion

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENTRecap

What is knowledge management?• Connecting people to the knowledge they need to do their jobs whether

that knowledge is tacit or explicit• Creating an organization that learns from its experiences and improves

Said another way…

• KM is the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets

• “Knowledge management is the leveraging of the organization’s collective wisdom (know-how) by creating systems and processes to support and facilitate the identification, capture, dissemination and use of the organization’s knowledge to meet its business objectives.”

The Value of KM for Law Firms

• Gives the firm a competitive advantage since the firm’s know-how is easily accessible

• Increases productivity: lawyers don’t waste time searching for information

• Improves practice support by fostering collaboration• Speeds response time to client requests• Provides an on-ramp for junior lawyers to get up to (billable)

speed more quickly• Helps integrate the “practice of law” and the “business of

law”

ALM Law Librarian Survey 2013What other departments is the head librarian responsible for?

2013 2012 2011 2010 2009

Competitive intelligence 58% - - - -

Knowledge Management 43% 67% 59% 40% 19%

Intranet 28% 31% 35% n/a n/a

Records 11% 14% 19% 28% 38%

Conflicts/Intake 11% 17% 30% 36% 35%

Court services/Docketing 11% 12% 16% 16% 19%

CLE 8% 17% - - -

Information Systems 2% 2% 3% - 4%

Other 15% 14% 11% 12% 19%

Multiple responses were allowed.

Used with persmission

Information/Knowledge Professional: Roles and Responsibilities

Think, Pair, Share

What barriers are there to Knowledge Management in your

firm/organization?Photo: CBegg50 on Flickr

Barriers

• Cost• Reluctance to share• Billable hour (no

incentive to contribute)• Naming conventions of

documents• Training• Top-down management

CASE STUDY 1Oil and Gas: ConocoPhillips

The company

An integrated, international energy company with operations in more than 30 countries, ConocoPhillips recognizes the value of enterprise-wide knowledge sharing as a way to meet the company’s safety, environmental and operational challenges.

Situation Description• Needed to get people to share knowledge,

experiences, and expertise across the organization to improve productivity, quality, and safety

The Process• Selected Communities of Practice and a

technology platform that supported their activities to share and document knowledge

• Started small• Management support at highest levels• Carefully expanded across the organization

The Result

• Functional excellence, including safety• Decreased environmental impact• Reduced lost production

Role of the Information Professional

• Facilitated the whole process from strategy creation, to program initiation and implementation and to maintenance and continuous improvement of the program

• Worked cross-functionally as a facilitator, broker, bridge-builder

Lessons Learned

• Learned before starting their program—looked at what others (not just in their own industry) were doing

• Collaborative, iterative, pilot-based approach• Emphasis on behaviours and linking to

business improvements, not technology

APPLICATION TO THE LEGAL INDUSTRY

Legal info pros can...

• Research other industries• Take ownership of pilot projects, or support

those who take ownership• Support practice groups

Supporting practice groups

• Develop processes for collection and processing of explicit knowledge assets

• Collection of lessons learned/after action reviews

• Monitor and help to evolve the KM practices of the practice group

CASE STUDY 2Automotive Manufacturer

The Situation

• Improving access to knowledge• In June 2000, this manufacturer began a

journey of supplementing existing product know-how (tacit knowledge) with written (explicit) information and knowledge. The written knowledge is structured for sharing and reuse.

The Project

• Improve the original technology that housed the knowledge base

The Process

• Collected requirements and feedback from current users

• Reviewed products available off-the-shelf vs. custom-developed

The Result

• Picked an off-the-shelf product– Cheaper– Easier to maintain and support– Provided required functionality

• Improved product quality• Reduced structural costs • Improved time to market

Lessons Learned

• Importance of understanding the requirements: depth and breadth of knowledge and information flows and how people do their jobs

• Importance of matching requirements with the supporting technology

Legal Info Pros Can...

• Apply skills for evaluating commercial products for a range of users to benefit the larger organization

• Develop a systematic method for gathering requirements

• Monitor advances in tech for specific KM purposes

A Method for Systematic Requirements Gathering

• Build on-going relationships with tech users at all levels inside your organization (esp. both “power” users and “Luddites”)

• Interviews• Focus group discussions• Surveys• System monitoring/statistics

Requirements gathering

• Learn to develop lists of requirements in the vendors’ language

• Split into “must have” and “nice to have”• Keep up with developments in selected areas

of tech industry to know what is available

Keeping Up With Tech Developments

• Follow communications from vendors you already buy from

• Look to see who your vendors’ competitors are

• Industry blogs, newsletters, interest groups, trade shows

• Talk with others in the legal industry• Talk with those in other industries

CASE STUDY 3Environmental Company

The Situation

• The company had been using an ECM product for 4-5 years, spending approximately $1 million on it.

• Users were generally dissatisfied with the usability of the platform, response times were slow, support was inadequate in some geographical locations, and the user interface was confusing.

The Project

• The company hoped to further expand the use and acceptance of the platform by improving response times for users and by improving the taxonomy and meta-data used to structure the user interface.

• The company requested that their technology implementation be reviewed and aligned with business processes and objectives in order to achieve these objectives.

The Process

• The project provided technical support for the testing and installation infrastructure improvements

• The project reviewed the existing taxonomy and provided a mapping from the old taxonomy to a new one that aligned with user activities

• It provided a roadmap for other knowledge management activities for the company to execute as the organization grew and became increasingly global

• In all project activities user input was sought in order to ensure the technology improvements, both hardware and software, would meet user needs and objectives as well as align with the business processes that the users were executing

The Result

• User acceptance and use of the technology increased 50% within six months of the project completion

• Facilitated the requirements process, understanding and documenting knowledge and information flows and how people did their jobs

• Resolved gaps in the current state versus the desired state

Lessons Learned

• Importance of involving all stakeholders in the requirements discussion

• Some issues won’t be knowledge management issues, but they will impact knowledge management up-take

• Help determine the business needs and objectives before purchasing tech

• Once requirements are gathered, look at tools already on hand for suitability

• Help to implement existing or new technologies for best use

• Create a firm-wide/organization-wide taxonomy

On Taxonomies

• Not just for law-related subject research• Can be used across the organization to tie

together content, processes and systems• Can be used internally across departments, on

website, on intranet, in KM systems• Adapt existing taxonomy or build your own

CASE STUDY 4ICICI Bank

About ICICI Bank

• Founded in the mid-1950’s at the request of the World Bank, the Indian government, and Indian industry

• Diversified financial services supplier providing retail banking facilities

• Second largest bank in India, and is growing internationally

• 1200 employees in 2000, which was the start of the KM program, to 30,000 in 2008

The Situation• The organisation was motivated to act due to

the upheaval caused by the tail-end of the dot-com boom, which was depriving the bank of many good staff as they left in significant numbers to join dot-com start-ups – taking their knowledge and know-how with them.

The Process• A team was put together encompassing KM, HR,

technology and research with a brief to ‘just do it’. Indeed they did and a beta version was ready within just three months

• The organization developed WiseGuy, ICICI’s KM intranet portal – easily accessible from the main staff portal – to provide a way of capturing and disseminating the knowledge of departing staff

And Then…Before KM was fully implemented the organization was faced with the prospect of a reverse merger of ICICI Bank with its parent ICICI, which went through in 2002.

The KM team had to restructure to meet the needs of the new corporate entity. Some issues articulated at the time included:

1. How to connect this vast new pool of employees with each other;

2. How to share business-related information about clients, deals and ideas;

3. How to manage staff through the change process via communication, messages, channels and so on;

4. How to overcome the problems caused by staff turnover;

5. How to ensure that every person in the company is adequately equipped with the skills and training required for their jobs and for lifelong learning and development.

The Result

• Through the use of KM and the supporting technology, employees stayed permanently aware of the external competitive challenges of the business, which helped them to remain open to new thoughts, ideas and ways of working

• KM processes became the way they worked

• Regrouped and realigned knowledge management initiative when the organization changed

Lessons Learned

• Importance of change management activities• Importance of maintaining alliance to

organization goals and objective• Importance of a cross-functional team

• Be valuable contributors to multidisciplinary teams - sit between tech, content and the user

• Help others in multidisciplinary teams understand one another

• Teach others what we already know about change management

Change Management

• We are used to dealing with change ourselves• Learn more about change management

principles – involve the people affected in the decision-

making– Communication is key– Chaos is inevitable; learn how to mitigate it

• Help your firm become a learning organization and be willing to change as needed

CASE STUDY 5Multinational Fast Moving Consumer Goods Company

The Situation

• The company operates in the fast moving consumer goods market, meaning that they provide products that are sold quickly and at relatively low cost, for example, snack foods, toothpaste, and other grocery and toiletry items.

• The company, referred to as FMCGC, had been operating in emerging markets for several years, but were not experiencing the level of success that they desired.

• Their success in industrialized countries was not translating to the new markets in the developing economies like China, India, and Russia where their products were sold through thousands of small retail outlets rather than the large supermarket model that is prevalent in Europe and North America.

The Process• The company has operated for almost a century and has a strong sense of values

that makes it important to be able to learn, disseminate, and apply lessons learned • With some external help and guidance they decided to implement a Community of

Purpose programme• The communities are comprised of senior staff members who have responsibility

for delivering a high-level of performance in an area of strategic importance, like increasing sales revenues in developing markets.

• The programme started off focused on the people and process side of the equation.

• There was a conscious decision to delay any technology purchase and implementation until the organization had success with the communities, so they initially used existing in-house technology to support the groups.

The Result• The Communities of Purpose have been very successful,

and the technology supporting them has helped the participants to easily share what they have learned

• In the first five years that the programme existed sales in the small retail sales channel in the 12 emerging markets trebled, while profits have more than doubled

• In first 8 years, $1 billion of value to the organization has been delivered by communities and networks and knowledge sharing initiatives

• Recognize the need to focus on the people and process, not the technology

Lessons Learned

• Different market conditions call for different strategies, finding a solution is iterative

• Importance of aligning with organizational goals and objectives

• Importance of bringing people together and giving them time to form relationships, troubleshoot, and brainstorm solutions

• Taking technology out of the equation, initially, and bringing it in only to support the people and process activities once those are figured-out

• Become knowledge managers for cross-geography practice groups/communities of practice

• Book and facilitate meetings or calls• Help members connect with one another -

help to create the “loose ties” that develop into fuller relationships

• Worry about the tech so group can focus on the work at hand

CALL to ACTIONKM FOR LEGAL INFO PROS

Advancing KM for Legal Info Pros

Make KM an explicit part of my role

Get support to do a pilot

Get support to create a strategy

Information/Knowledge Professional: Roles and Responsibilities

Roadmap to Advancing in KM for Legal Info Pros

Learn Listen DefinePrioritizeDevelopMeasureEngage

Roadmap to Advancing in KM for Legal Info Pros

Learn Listen DefinePrioritizeDevelopMeasureEngage

Read theKM thoughtleaders

Take courses, webinars

Talk to others

Join communitiesof practice

Watch other industries

Pay attention

Askquestions

What arethe internalbusinessissues?

What arethe industrybusinessissues?

Where are the gaps?

Talk with key players

Volunteerfor projects

Ask to be includedon teams

Help practicegroups withinternalprocesses

Info or knowledgeaudit

Suggest projects ofbusinessvalue

Show your value:

What are you doing?

What is the effect?

How is itimportantto yourorganization?

Monitor advancementover time

Developrelationships

Broaden your experience

Expandknowledgein key areas

Becomethe expert inspecializedarea(s)

Developexpertise inchangemanagement

Tie activityback to businessvalues

How can you helpthe bottomline?

Start small,build onsuccesses

Define youractivities

Define yourorganization’sactivities

Use pilotprojects

Define yourrole(s)

Help defineothers’ roles

Help defineworkflows,processes

Panel Discussion• Steven Lastres, Moderator

Director of Library & Knowledge Management, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP

• Stephanie Barnes– Stephanie.barnes@missingpuzzlepiececonsulting.ca– 416-522-5126– www.missingpuzzlepiececonsulting

• Connie Crosby– conniecrosby@gmail.com – 416-919-6719– www.crosbygroup.ca

• For more info, visit: Law Firm KM www.lawfirmkm.com

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surrounded by geniuses: knowledge management learning from other industries

legal info

legal industry

knowledge

change management

supporting

lessons learned

user interface

steven lastres

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