Best Practices & Approaches for Using IT to Support KM

1. Best Practices & Approaches forUsing IT to Support KM Knowledge Technologies 2001 Cindy Hubert Manager, Knowledge Management APQC Custom Solutions March 6, 2001

2. Where IT fits in a KM Strategy Definitions Useful KM Principles How IT supports KM Approaches Lessons Learned Discussion Topics for Today

3. 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

4. Connect Disseminate The APQC Mission Services Membership Consortium Alliances Discover Publish Train Coach Consortium Studies Client Support Methods

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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)

8. 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 A Few of the Early KM Adopters

9. 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

11. 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

12. Process People • Forming Communities of Practice • Collaboration process • Shared standards • Common taxonomy • Survey, census, requirements analysis • Metrics and reporting • Cross-organizational integration • Feedback loop • Knowledge managers • Formal Communities of Practice • Training and communications • Measurement and reward systems • Knowledge sharing culture Technology • Collaboration • Expertise database • Workflow & project management • Repositories • Content management • Learning • Portals • Search engines & locators • Document management • Problem resolution systems What is Knowledge Management?

13. Ultimately, it’s all about… • Delivering Knowledgefor Effective Decision Making • Delivering Results to Stakeholders • Using Knowledge to Build Business Capabilities

14. 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

15. Organization Target Value Proposition Approach Technology Results Reduce operatingcosts Communities of Practice (COPs), facilitate transfer of Best Practices Standardized Microsoft platform, Plumtree portal $2 billion reduction in annual operating costs (1991 vs. 1998) Chevron 10-fold increase in revenue with5-fold increase in employees Faster revenue growth, lower costs COPs, central KM managers, content management Microsoft platform and Exchange Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Knowledge in the hands of employees and customers Technical COPs, intranet & extranet Increased production from 1500 to 6000 bbl/day for customer Web enabled Schlumberger Results from KM leaders

16. More Results…. Organization Target Value Proposition Approach Technology Results Bring creative, new solutions to market faster, Shorten the learning curve, Lower costs COPs, Steering Committee, Design teams KM Program Office Enterprise portal Skill-based people finder Community sites Reduced customer request time, increased sales productivity Best Buy 400% increase in service revenue, time savings of $24M in 1997 Revenue growth, industry leadership COPs, knowledge managers, Intellectual Capital Management System Lotus Notes, Raven, Domino IBM Global Services COPs, knowledge maps Focused on people and process solutions Revenue growth, customer demand HP 70+ COPs speed adoption of consulting approaches Source: APQC, 2000

17. KM Approaches Central to KM Approach Key Element Best PracticePartners Sponsors 45% 70% Intranet Communities of Practice/Networks E-mail Extranet Collaboration Tools(Lotus Notes, etc.) Document Sharing Systems 60% 35% 50% 27% 9% 40% 22% 30% 30% 13% Source: Detailed Questionnaire 14 APQC’s Consortium Benchmarking Study 2000 “Successfully Implementing Knowledge Management”

18. Facilitated Transfer Networks & CoPs Self-Service + Knowledge Transfer Approaches Tacit Explicit + Resources Required

19. 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. Useful KM Principles

20. 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 Critical Issues

21. Self-Service + Knowledge Transfer Approaches Tacit Intranets Portals to key info Search Yellow Pages Explicit + + Resources Required

22. 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.

23. 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

25. 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

26. Knowledge Transfer Approaches Tacit Networks & CoPs K. Sharing CoPs Learning Communities Explicit + + Resources Required

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. Communities Provide Knowledge • Reliance of operating units on community knowledge =74% • Communities set standards that units need to follow = 66%

30. Types of Communities Innovation Helping Best-Practice Knowledge Stewarding

31. 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

32. 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.

34. 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

35. Facilitated Transfer Knowledge Transfer Approaches Tacit Between and to all Units Best Practices and Standards Expert Facilitators Explicit Resources Required

36. 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

37. 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

38. 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

39. 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

40. “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