1 / 21

Help as Knowledge Management: Taking Care of Scarce Resources through Informal Encouragement

Help as Knowledge Management: Taking Care of Scarce Resources through Informal Encouragement. JD Eveland, Ph.D. December 11, 2000. Today’s Context. Organizations are increasingly technology dependent Technology isn’t self-implementing

helena
Download Presentation

Help as Knowledge Management: Taking Care of Scarce Resources through Informal Encouragement

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. Help as Knowledge Management:Taking Care of Scarce Resources through Informal Encouragement JD Eveland, Ph.D. December 11, 2000

  2. Today’s Context • Organizations are increasingly technology dependent • Technology isn’t self-implementing • Traditional model: expensive machines, cheap/replaceable people • Current model: cheap machines, expensive people • Thus: new kinds of “joint optimization”

  3. The socio-technical balance has shifted… • Crucial resource is knowledge • Knowledge is most critically embedded in the organization’s people • It’s very easy for knowledge to walk out the door… • Informal relationships make the system work

  4. “Help” as a key need • Knowledge is unequally distributed • Knowledge is a social event • The organization works only because people help each other • Most help is informal • Most organizations aren’t set up to encourage helping relationships

  5. The CGU Studies • CGU -- a private graduate school • 2000 students, 200 staff • Diverse small programs, no “technical” departments • Distributed environment • Major transition in computing support • Pre/Post surveys on computer use and help • Further analysis on organizational and physical distance

  6. Project Structure • Three survey rounds • Pre-hardware • One year of experience • Network experience • Surveys covered: • Demographics • Capabilities used • Information work • Satisfaction • Expectations • Interactions with others

  7. Interaction networks surveyed • People with whom they work regularly • People to whom they go for help when they have problems with the computer • People to whom they provide such help

  8. Connections in the network Help network Work network Within Work group 140 (31%) 184 (57%) Across Work groups 73 (22%) 68 (16%) With ACC 11 (3%) 125 (29%) Outside CGU 103 (24%) 59 (18%) 436 327

  9. Average help relationships, by function Relations N 1.44 36 Faculty 1.53 13 Dep’t staff 1.59 32 Admin. Staff .12 15 Supervisors 17.6 9 ACC staff

  10. Cumulative distribution of help relationships Break point for High providers Number of help relations 1 100 200 350 Cumulative number of individuals

  11. Patterns of help Source Outside Sources High Providers Non- Providers ACC R E C I P I E N T High Providers 10% 14% 22% 54% Non- Providers 26% 4% 10% 60%

  12. What distinguished a “high provider”? • A wider range of information work • Use more computer tools • Have more computer education • Nothing demographic! • Age, status, experience, tenure, and gender are unrelated to helping But they do...

  13. Various networks… • Working relations • Administrative distance • Helping relations • Physical distance

  14. Work Relationships

  15. Help relationships

  16. Help relationships without ACC

  17. Operationalizing “distance” Art to Management = Barrier Factor of 6

  18. So...What did we find out by correlating the networks? • Working relationships are most important to helping • More than two physical barriers become a problem to helping • The formal structure doesn’t matter much in helping Help Admin. Closeness Physical closeness .60 .14 .17 .21 .28 .08 Work help admin. Close.

  19. Conclusions here... • People get computer help from those with whom they share work problems • The formal structure is less important than either working relationships or physical distance • People don’t walk far to get help

  20. Overall Conclusions • Help networks tend to be workgroup-based, with central support • “High providers” focus help networks and channel expertise into them • Help providers are just like us, only more so • Help networks need support and cultivation

  21. Practical consequences • We reorganized the CGU help system • For the future, we need to… • Understand technology use as a knowledge management problem • Recognize the knowledge based in people • Build systems to encourage sharing • Understand limits of formal arrangements

More Related