VDOT PowerPoint Template

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• Knowledge Management
• Tools and Techniques

Katherine ClarkVDOT Knowledge Management
Division January 2007
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VDOTs Business

• 57,000 miles Interstate, Primary, Local
  (Secondary) highways
• 9,000 employees
• 9 districts, 44 residencies, 219 area
  headquarters, and one central office

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VDOTs business is changing

• More maintenance, less construction
• More partnering with local governments and
  private sector
• More project management vs Performing work
  ourselves
• Decreasing budget and staff
• Decreasing long-term experience due to high
  impending retirements

we need an increasingly flexible organization
to remain responsive to our customers
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KM at VDOT

• KM formed at VDOT in 2003 enhance the agencys
  ability to share and use knowledge and so its
  ability to respond to evolving needs.

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KM at VDOT

• IN THE BEGINNING
• Functional operation as silos
• districts (geographic) and
• sections (organizational)
• Pervasive sense
• that nothing is going to change
• that the CO doesnt listen to the districts
• Clear implications for collaboration and
  innovation

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Early Focus

• The people component
• Iterative process to gain trust and bring in new
  stakeholders at right time
• Maintain objective focus
• In-person meetings
• Identified short-term wins
• Utilized access to Commissioner

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Tools

• Communities of Practice (CoP) have been a
  critical means of creating networks and sharing
  information and have resulted in new tools and
  changes in processes
• Knowledge Mapping (HPMS) has helped us to
  identify areas of need for succession planning
• Just starting to explore Organizational Network
  Analysis as a way to identify needs for
  development of networks

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CoP

• Right of Way and Utilities CoP
• As example of process and results

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Right of Way Utilities CoP

• Problem
• 80 managers eligible to retire now
• Special blend of responsibilities not quickly
  replaced
• Work and people not co-located
• Staff competencies not balanced across districts

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Right of Way Utilities CoP

• 9 district managers and 9 district administrators
  not used to working across districts matrix
  management with CO
• Youll never get everyone to agree to anything
• Nothing will change
• Upper management (CO) isnt interested in what
  we have to say, they wont listen

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Right of Way Utilities CoP

• Clear goalto provide a solution
• Objectivefocus allowed us to involve steadily
  more people at the right time
• Top mgmt support lent credibility
• Extensive team building of the CoP using an
  iterative process
• the CoP (NOT KM) identified issues and possible
  responses
• Keep everyone in the loop

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R/WU CoP Development Process
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R/WU CoP Development Process
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Right of Way Utilities CoP

• Responsechange in policy and processall
  District R/WU Managers meet quarterly
• Share resources across districts to meet ad dates
  and cross-train staff
• Recommend statewide staffing needs (staff levels,
  HR issues) to DAs

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R/WU CoP Evaluation
Eroding Silos In all my years within VDOT I
have seen more progress toward crossing the
invisible boundaries we have in the last 6 months
than I ever have before. KM has enabled me to
get attention on the issues I needed, that I had
not ever been able to achieve. Communication
A side benefit of this project is the complete
turnaround in communications about significant
R/WU issues. With HR, DAs and Assistant DAs.
They are now more sensitive to important issues,
and now initiate more conversations. I am
convinced this would not have happened without
KM. Problem Solvers KM coaxed problems and
issues and solutions out of the group, and then
helped us polish them.
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R/WU CoP Evaluation
We asked CoP members to select from a list the
things what they thought the KM CoP tool brought
to this project. The most selected
things Effective facilitation of
meetings Effective communication support
(documentary or verbal) Analysis of information
to provide a useful result A meeting environment
conducive to working Collection of important and
useful information Integration of a working group
that respects differences among people, ideas,
and objectives or needs Access to
decision-makers Neutral perspectivenot
associated with any specific group Understanding
of how to increase/improve collaboration They
added write-ins Planning, setting goals to make
the project successful. Total commitment.
Recognition and understanding of our
problems. Access to thinking of upper management
and ability to let upper management understand
our thinking Aggressive schedule adherence to
move project forward Organization and
directionable to herd cats
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Knowledge Mapping
HPMSHighway Performance Monitoring System HPMS
includes data on the highway system condition,
performance, and investment needs that is used by
FHWA, DOT, and Congress and to determine the
scope and size of the federal aid Highway Program
and determine the level of federal highway
taxation. Two people provide this information
for VDOT, both are post-eligible to retire and
have no similar counterparts in the agency. KM
videotaped interview and is documenting the tasks
and processes used by both staff members and
developed recommendations for succession planning
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Knowledge Mapping
VTRC Sr. Div. Administrator had evolved a
position over 30 years that provided significant
support throughout the Council announced his
plans to retire. KM conducted a series of
interviews with more then 10 people and developed
a matrix of specific duties that identified the
risk to the agency of non-performance of the
item, and the most likely staff role that
position would involve. Position spanned gamut
across 7 position types from decision-making to
clerical and 8 functional areas from finance to
media.
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Knowledge Mapping
Results 15 excel pages of duties identifying
risk and most likely actor of each item
Transfer of duties to other staff and creation
of 3 new positions (1 part time)
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Organizational Network Analysis

• Identify potential bottlenecks, areas of
  isolation, opportunities to enhance interactions
• Maps interactions and relationships in a
  workforce according to actual patterns of work
  and information exchange
• Relies on data gathered through self-administered
  surveys

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Organizational Network Analysis
Piloted ONA in a safe environment to learn more
about how it works and have identified 12 lessons
learned for ourselves that we are about to
implement in district settings.
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Organizational Network Analysis

• New Project looking at the networks between VDOT
  and other first responders for incident mgmt
  (policy and emergency services)
• 2 districts 1 that is doing this well, 1 that
  was doing it well, but was reliant on one person
  who has left, and so the network is affected.
• Hope for a model of how to build successful
  relationships for incident management

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Critical to Success

• High-level access and support
• Neutral perspective
• Maintain focus on business objectives
• Accomplish short-term visible solutions
• Inclusive, but at the right time

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Troubles

• Where we have had problems
• Getting people to use technology tools, like the
  team rooms or database of lessons learned
• When projects lacked clear focus on business
  needs and obvious problems
• When KM (inadvertently) assumed ownership of a
  project

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• Collecting information is easy

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• Collecting it in a way that people will use it is
  tougher.
• But doable.
• Reaping the benefits takes time.

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Questions?

• Katherine Clark
• VDOT Knowledge Management
• Katherine.Clark_at_VDOT.Virginia.gov