e-km – a collection of views prof peter c. woods head, km centre multimedia university
TRANSCRIPT
e-KM – A collection of views
Prof Peter C. WoodsHead, KM Centre
Multimedia University
Not a very useful term• e-KM is ceasing to be a useful term as many
organisations assume their KM applications will either be available on their intranet or portal.
• However e-KM is to the IT end of the KM spectrum and bring both common and specific problems.
• The views expressed are based on the author’s experience and those drawn from excellent white papers courtesy of KM World :– Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It
to Prime Time? Andy Moore - Posted Nov 1, 2006 http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/PrintArticle.aspx?ArticleID=18493– Mistakes to Avoid and Principles for Success Brandon Lackey,
Michael Behounek - Posted Nov 1, 2006 http://www.kmworld.com/Articles/PrintArticle.aspx?ArticleID=18502
To be all things to all men
• "One of the big failures of knowledge management, and the reason it had the reputation it had, is that it tries to solve problems at too much of a macro level…They tried to build a database of everyone's knowledge, and it can't be done. The successful systems may go in under the basis of knowledge management, but they address very specific business problems."
Brandon Lackey,BEA Systems, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
I have a Porsche…
• But I cannot get it out of first gear
• The problem of total solutions is that much functionality is redundant, and frankly there because we can programme it.
• Generally KM solutions that work are very specific to a particular user group or a particular problem area
Expectations not met
• A common theme in technology deployments, worse in KM, because the goals are often so ambiguous.
• "The problem with asking users to describe what they want is like the old saw about Henry Ford, if he had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Paul Sonderegger, Endeca, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
The problem is ‘What is the problem?’
• Case#1• A government linked tourist agency wanted an inventory
system for the souvenirs/ guides they provide to the public.
• The supply of material from the warehouse was the subject of various interdepartmental approvals.
• These approval systems were not standard though each department thought it was following a universal SOP.
• The real problem was to work out the work process and flow – the inventory system was an added bonus
The fundamental thing
• "Even if IT is helping get information to people, they don't get it quickly enough, or it changes. Sometimes the users don't even know what it is they want; they just know they need something in order to make a decision.“
Sally Hicks, Noetix, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
KM is ALL about decision-making.
• Before you can do anything logistically—like shipping something from one place to another to fix a problem—someone has to assess the problem, and become satisfied they have identified the right solution. It's the information being brought to the person that allows us to talk about the application of knowledge.“
Paul Sonderegger, Endeca, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
First Observation
• E-KM is not a solution if the problem is not clearly defined, and all the evidence as to poor utilisation of applications stems from this.
• It would seem appropriate for IT designers to learn problem formulation skills such as those taught in physical design courses.
Some are more equal than others
• "Within an enterprise, there will be a number of requests for information that everyone asks all the time—total blockbusters. Then there's the body of requests that are kind of in the middle, relatively common but not blockbusters. But then you've got an almost infinite number of requests that occur seldomly... maybe only once. So any kind of ‘master schema' will fail.“
Paul Sonderegger, Endeca, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
Second Observation
• Looks like standard management strategies such as Pareto Rules, and more basically ‘low hanging fruit’ approach need learning in designing e-KM
Little by little
• “In order to grow a system to a very large scale with very advanced features, you need to have a nicely staged process, where they first get something that works really well at a basic level, then add new features and grow the system in a controlled way.“
Sally Hicks, Noetix, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
Solutions are not enough
• “So much of knowledge management is people and process; if the business says to IT ‘Make me a repository,' IT should push back and say ‘No, this is so much more than that. You need to make sure the processes are open and the right people are in place.”
Brandon Lackey, quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
Third Observation
• Most directories of expertise, locators etc. are worthless because they are:
• 1. Not purposive
• 2.Full of empty profiles
• 3. Lack any sense of the willingness of the ‘expert’ to share knowledge
Case# 3
• A risk hazard engineering company was frequently asked to provide additional consulting services often of a quite unusual nature.
• They devised a system where staff who had met other external consultants with special skills, invited these experts to lunch where they discussed the terms of future (unknown) consultancy, covering fees, availability, precise area of expertise. All of this went into a ‘consultants book’ which was used as and when the need arose.
KM makes a comeback?
• "The resurgence of KM is driven by the distribution of workers, and work, both geographically and over time. For companies like that, knowledge management is something you have to do just to run the business.”
Tim Shetler, InQuira, , quoted in “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
Andy Moore, KM World White Papers
Simple to Use/Difficult to Build
• “It's certainly true that a ‘one-size-fits-all/it slices, it dices’ solution is probably a thing of the past. Even with search, it is rare to find a vendor that only uses one type of technology. It's a combination of text with semantic understanding on top of a taxonomy...as KM gets better and enters the mainstream, it also has become extraordinarily more complex.”
Andy Moore, “Passing the Cringe Test Has Knowledge Management Made It to Prime Time?”
KM World White Papers
e-KM Myths• Case #4• A mid-sized company’s IT group built an expert locator
system. Three months later, only 72 out of the 2,500 target users had completed their profiles. Desk-pounding by management got the total up to over 200 users. Subject matter experts claimed it provided no value, and took too long to update. It was not tied to any other data sources.
• Myth #1- Build something and they'll come
After Brandon Lackey, Michael Behounek Mistakes to Avoid and Principles for Success KMWorld White Papers
e-KM Myths• Case #5• A Fortune 100 company commissioned a new enterprise
framework and a pilot for a community of practice. The team realized that the scope and the expected target users were off mark. So they adjusted the design. One month later, the original technology cost assumption was found to be off, and the original business justification was now ambiguous. The team began to build a new business case with a viable ROI but a different business sponsor was now required. The critical business owner declined to participate and the project was eventually cancelled.
• Myth #2- Technology tools don’t need a business owner or a specific business problem
After Brandon Lackey, Michael Behounek Mistakes to Avoid and Principles for Success KMWorld White Papers
e-KM Myths• Case #6• An engineering firm launched a project to update and
maintain engineering standards. Believing that this explicit knowledge was the key to knowledge longevity and transferability, the firm bought and installed a content management system. The system suffered from low adoption. Less-experienced engineers had trouble applying the information to their specific problems, and the more experienced engineers only rarely needed it.
• Myth #3- knowledge is only in documents and data
After Brandon Lackey, Michael Behounek Mistakes to Avoid and Principles for Success KMWorld White Papers
Other e-KM Myths• Myth #4- Best to Deploy KM Enterprisewide.• Knowledge in most situations is contextual. Implementing an
approach across the entire enterprise poses significant risk of failure. According to research by Robert Francis Group, up to 85% of all KM initiatives fail to achieve their business objectives.
• Myth #5 Knowledge sharing is always good for you• Often, organizations will expect contributors to share information
based on benevolence or by mandate. Unfortunately, business users can be stubborn about performing tasks that they perceive as no-value-added
After Brandon Lackey, Michael Behounek Mistakes to Avoid and Principles for Success KMWorld White Papers
Case#7• Multimedia University were given a copy of Sharenet by
Siemens.• Siemens had done a lot of work to tailor Sharenet for an
academic environment.• Siemens described the rollout and take up strategies
they had found useful including a reward system for users.
• Within a month of roll out the manager went on maternity leave and was not replaced in this period
• The university decided not to have any reward system• The take up was very poor with little useful material
being deposited.• The university made it mandatory for staff to put in
material for their annual review.• On the cut off day – the system crashed• The lessons are obvious but still are not being heeded.
Other e-KM Myths• Myth #6- We can search anything• Since most companies have terabytes of unstructured content, they rely on
search engines to index the documents and users to find the information by keywords. Unfortunately, the user is often unaware of additional structured data that relates to this unstructured content. Most documents do not contain the unique identifier that unlocks the door to the databases, applications and systems that contain a wealth of other relevant content.
• Myth #7 Our portal resolves everything• Selecting portal technology that is too difficult to maintain and use. If a
deployment gets bogged down in complex portal or application customizations, sponsors soon lose interest and the project is bound to fail. The portal technology should have integrated, yet easy-to-use, components to produce successful KM communities, such as: content directory, content management, collaboration tools, search capabilities, personalization, application integration and business process management. These components should be easily available, and integrated right after the initial framework is established.
After Brandon Lackey, Michael Behounek Mistakes to Avoid and Principles for Success KMWorld White Papers
e-KM Principles for Success
• Frankly the same for any KM strategy– Solve real business problems– Secure executive commitment to KM– Own the process within a business unit or
organization– Emphasize people and process– Embrace technology as a key enabler– Integrate the process into the employees' workflow– Capture business metrics to determine success
