Best Practices

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Best Practices Approaches forUsing IT to
Support KM
Knowledge Technologies 2001

• Cindy Hubert
• Manager, Knowledge Management
• APQC Custom Solutions
• March 6, 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
Services
Membership Consortium Alliances
Publish Train Coach
Consortium Studies Client Support Methods

• Discover

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APQCs 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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APQCs Work in Knowledge Management

• Research on KM since 1993
• Research Consortia started 1995
• Over 150 firms in APQCs 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
• JJ
• 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?
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Ultimately, its 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?
Based on model developed by Treacy
Wiersma, Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb. 1993
Product and Service Offerings
Operational Excellence
Customer Market
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Results from KM leaders
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More Results.
Source APQC, 2000
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KM Approaches
Key Element
Central to KM Approach
Best PracticePartners
Sponsors
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Intranet Communities of Practice/Networks E-mail E
xtranet Collaboration Tools(Lotus Notes,
etc.) Document Sharing Systems
70
60
35
50
27
9
40
30
22
30
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Source Detailed Questionnaire 14
APQCs Consortium Benchmarking Study
2000 Successfully Implementing Knowledge
Management
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Knowledge Transfer Approaches

• Tacit

Explicit

Resources Required
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Useful KM Principles

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

Intranets Portals to key info Search Yellow Pages
Explicit


Resources Required
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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

Networks CoPs
K. Sharing CoPs Learning Communities
Explicit


Resources Required
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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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Types of Communities
Innovation
Helping
Best-Practice
Knowledge Stewarding
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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 applications
• Facilitation
• Help 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

Between and to all Units Best Practices and
Standards Expert Facilitators
Explicit
Resources Required
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Lessons Learned - IT Parameters to Consider

• 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

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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
collectionThe 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