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Best Practices & Approaches forUsing IT to Support KM

Best Practices & Approaches forUsing IT to Support KM

Cindy Hubert

Manager, Knowledge Management

APQC Custom Solutions

March 6, 2001

Knowledge Technologies 2001

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Discussion Topics for Today

Where IT fits in a KM Strategy

Definitions Useful KM Principles How IT supports KM

Approaches Lessons Learned

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The American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC)

Founded in 1977 - funded by 100 corporations Non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) Annual revenues $12 million and staff of 100

Membership - 500 organizations Best Practices research and publications Benchmarking Consulting and Advisory services Conferences and training

Board of Directors 45 senior executives from corporations,

education, and government

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The APQC Mission

Discover Discover

Disseminate Disseminate

Connect Connect

Consortium StudiesConsortium StudiesClient SupportClient Support

MethodsMethods

Services

PublishPublishTrainTrain

Coach Coach

PublishPublishTrainTrain

Coach Coach

MembershipMembershipConsortiumConsortium

Alliances Alliances

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APQC’s Key Milestones

The White House Conference on Productivity Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award Groundbreaking Research

White Collar Productivity People, Performance, and Pay

International Benchmarking Clearinghouse Membership Best Practices Benchmarking Methodology and Code

Knowledge Management Initiative APQC Education Initiative and BiEIN

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APQC’s Work in Knowledge Management

Research on KM since 1993 Research Consortia started 1995

Over 150 firms in APQC’s KM Consortia 45 Best Practice firms studied in detail

Shared knowledge with thousands of KM practitioners Publications Training Conferences

Helping firms implement KM using best practices

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APQC KM Consortium Studies

Emerging Best Practices in KM (1996) Using Information Technology for KM (1997) Europe - The Learning Organisation & KM (1997) Expanding Knowledge Externally (1998) Creating a Knowledge Sharing Culture (1998-99) Successfully Implementing KM (1999-2000) Building and Sustaining Communities of

Practice (2000)

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A Few of the Early KM Adopters

Consulting firms British Petroleum Buckman Labs Chevron Dow Hewlett-Packard IBM J&J Monsanto

Pillsbury Sequent Computers Shell Texas Instruments USAA US West The World Bank Xerox

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Benefits of Best-in-Class KM

Reducing cycle time – NPD, Quote to Cash, Employee on-boarding

Eliminate redundant efforts Reuse materials, expertise and problem solving experience to

benefit partners and customers Collaborate across businesses to stimulate innovation Avoid making the same mistakes twice Learn effectively at the time of need Locate and leverage expertise and experience Find needed information quickly and easily Be perceived as a “smart partner” by customers

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What is Knowledge Management?

Systematic approaches to help information and knowledge flow to the right people at the right time in the right format at the right cost

so they can act more efficiently and effectively. Find, understand, share and use knowledge to

create value.

Knowledge is information in action

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What is Knowledge Management?

PeoplePeople Knowledge managersKnowledge managers Formal Communities of PracticeFormal Communities of Practice Training and communicationsTraining and communications Measurement and reward systemsMeasurement and reward systems Knowledge sharing cultureKnowledge sharing culture

TechnologyTechnology CollaborationCollaboration Expertise databaseExpertise database Workflow & project managementWorkflow & project management RepositoriesRepositories Content managementContent management LearningLearning PortalsPortals Search engines & locatorsSearch engines & locators Document managementDocument management Problem resolution systemsProblem resolution systems

ProcessProcess Forming Communities of PracticeForming Communities of Practice Collaboration processCollaboration process Shared standardsShared standards Common taxonomyCommon taxonomy Survey, census, requirements analysisSurvey, census, requirements analysis Metrics and reportingMetrics and reporting Cross-organizational integrationCross-organizational integration Feedback loopFeedback loop

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Ultimately, it’s all about…

Delivering Knowledgefor Effective Decision Making

Delivering Results to Stakeholders

Using Knowledge to Build Business Capabilities

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Where do you focus?

Product andProduct and Service OfferingsService Offerings

Customer Customer & Market& Market

OperationalOperationalExcellenceExcellence

Based on model developed byTreacy & Wiersma,Harvard Business Review,Jan-Feb. 1993

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Results from KM leadersResults from KM leaders

Organization TargetValue Proposition Approach Technology Results

Chevron Reduce operating costs

Communities of Practice (COPs), facilitate transfer of Best Practices

Standardized Microsoft platform, Plumtree portal

$2 billion reduction in annual operating costs(1991 vs. 1998)

Cap Gemini Ernst & Young

Faster revenue growth, lower costs

COPs, central KM managers, content management

Microsoft platform and Exchange

10-fold increase in revenue with5-fold increase in employees

Increased production from 1500 to 6000 bbl/day for customer

Schlumberger Knowledge in the hands of employees and customers

Technical COPs, intranet & extranet

Web enabled

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More Results….More Results….

Results

Reduced customer request time, increased sales productivity

Organization TargetValue Proposition Approach Technology

Best Buy Bring creative, new solutions to market faster,Shorten the learning curve,Lower costs

COPs, Steering Committee, Design teamsKM Program Office

Enterprise portalSkill-based people finderCommunity sites

IBM Global Services

Revenue growth, industry leadership

COPs, knowledge managers, Intellectual Capital Management System

Lotus Notes, Raven, Domino

400% increase in service revenue, time savings of $24M in 1997

HP Revenue growth, customer demand

Focused on people and process solutions

70+ COPs speed adoption of consulting approaches

COPs, knowledge maps

Source: APQC, 2000

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KM Approaches

APQC’s Consortium Benchmarking Study 2000“Successfully Implementing Knowledge Management”

Source: Detailed Questionnaire 14

Key Element Central to KM Approach

IntranetCommunities ofPractice/NetworksE-mailExtranetCollaboration Tools(Lotus Notes, etc.)Document SharingSystems

Best PracticePartners Sponsors

70%70% 45%45%

60%60% 35%35%

27%27%

40%40% 9%9%

30%30% 22%22%

30%30% 13%13%

50%50%

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Knowledge Transfer Approaches

Tacit

Explicit Explicit Resources RequiredResources Required

Self-Service +

Networks & CoPs

+

Facilitated Transfer

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Useful KM Principles

Provide useful information at teachable moments We know more than we can write down.

“I don’t know what I know until you ask me.” “I can tell you more than I can write, and I can

show you more than I can tell you.” Behavior that is rewarded and recognized gets

repeated. People value and support what they help create.

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Critical Issues

Myth: People hoard knowledge. Truer: What people hoard is their time

and energy They reserve it for high payoff activities

The limits to sharing knowledge are Time Access Context (situation and consequences) Relative payoff

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Knowledge Transfer Approaches

Tacit

Explicit Explicit Resources Required

Self-Service

+++

Intranets

Portals to key info

Search

Yellow Pages

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Best Buy – A Technical Infrastructure

Enterprise Portal Integrated Search

Engine Knowledge Repository Personalization

Skills-Based People Finder Personal Information Location Information Skills & Competencies

Collaborative Tools Work Group

Management Tools Re-useable Templates Video Conferencing

Lesson Learned: The three most important factors of an enterprise portal: content, content and content.

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Schlumberger

Intranet People finder Catalogue of employee knowledge so

others can find experts Future Plans

Integrated video, messaging and information sharing; simulation is a vital part of the future plans

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Self-Service +Design Challenges for IT

Design strategies Grassroots or bottom-up efforts Top-down efforts

Understanding work flows End user understanding End user involvement in the design

process

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Knowledge Transfer Approaches

Tacit

Explicit Explicit Resources RequiredResources Required

Networks & CoPs

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K. Sharing

CoPs

Learning Communities

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Definition of Communities of Practice

Groups of people who come together to share and to learn from one another face-to-face and virtually.

They are held together by a common interest in a body of knowledge and are driven by a desire and need to share problems, experiences, insights, templates, tools, and best practices.

Community members deepen their knowledge by interacting on an ongoing basis.

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Coming of Age of a New Organization Form

Communities of Practice: Boundary spanning A channel for knowledge to flow Means to strengthen the social fabric The locus of knowledge creation and use Solve the problem of getting knowledge to

those who need it.

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Communities Provide Knowledge

Reliance of operating units on community knowledge =74%

Communities set standards that units need to follow = 66%

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Helping

Best-Practice

Innovation

Knowledge Stewarding

Types of Communities

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Media and KM Tools

Communities use a rich variety of media to communicate and work. Email is still the killer app

F2F is still the most effective More infrastructure –

Growth in KM tools, portals,

and intranet applicationsFacilitationHelp Desks

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Best Buy - Community Sites Application

Community Sites Contain both explicit

and tacit knowledge 95% re-usable format Extensive usability

testing Redundant

infrastructure Database/ parameter

driven Nested Community

Strategy

Lesson Learned: Let the community and business leaders design their sites.

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Keys to Sustaining Communities

Keep the passion Encourage evolution

Assess health Hold renewal workshops

Institutionalize Make communities visible Create a mechanism for influence Ingrain community into daily work Build into normal budgeting & planning

Continue support

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Knowledge Transfer Approaches

Tacit

ExplicitExplicit Resources RequiredResources Required

Facilitated TransferBetween and

to all Units

Best Practices and

Standards

Expert Facilitators

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IT must be ridiculously easy to use Tool should include built-in tracking

mechanisms so activity can be measured Tool should be able to be monitored by the

pilot group with minimal help from the IT group

Changing and adding content should be quick and easy

Able to integrate with or be part of the corporate information technology platform

Lessons Learned - IT Parameters to Consider

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Key Points

The importance of making connections - of people to people and people to information - is the driver to use IT in KM initiatives

IT for KM has become affordable for most organizations

The rise of the knowledge portal has contributed to the “branding’ of KM in organizations

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Key Points

BP organizations have reduced the number of KM systems to a small set of standardized applications

IT is helping to build KM into work processes, from project management to product development

“Smarter” search engines allows information to be organized on the natural flow of knowledge, rather than codification systems

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KM Action Strategy “Learn by Doing”

Steps include:

Selecting projects to learn how to leverage

knowledge sharing for business results

Looking for quick wins and sustainable advantage

Creating new capacities to find and share

knowledge

Launching a variety of KM projects to build depth

into the KM solution

Expanding successful approaches to new issues

and areas

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“KM is about connection rather than collection…The best tool for knowledge-sharing is still the coffee-maker. What we really need to do is to put a coffee pot in the network.”

“KM is about connection rather than collection…The best tool for knowledge-sharing is still the coffee-maker. What we really need to do is to put a coffee pot in the network.”

Tom Stewart KM Magazine, March 2000