Piloting Knowledge Management: Lessons Learned from the Small- Scale Approach to Design & Implementation

Transcription

1 Piloting Knowledge Management: Lessons Learned from the Small- Scale Approach to Design & Implementation -T.J. Elliott, Chief Learning Officer, Educational Testing Service - Felicia DeVincenzi, Director of the Center for Education in Assessment, Educational Testing Service

2 Tacit, Explicit, Individual and Social Knowledge Are All Available to Companies For example, when an individual experiments with new solutions for tasks, leading to better task definitions or results, she can share her explicit knowledge (through documentation, or a new training program) with other organizational members. This knowledge becomes part of the company s explicit knowledge in the form or organizational routines. These routines, in turn, can be shared and used over time and space But the tacit knowledge related to highly complex tasks is harder to capture in formal organizational procedures. Rather, it relies on the sharing of experiences and expertise over time between senior employees and novices and among a fairly stable group of professionals. Even when making individual task knowledge explicit and social is difficult, it is still central to strategizing in a knowledgecreating company Von Krogh, Ichijo, & Nonaka

3 ETS Knowledge Sharing Current State Knowledge Information Data Individual Current State Group Goal Goal for for KM KM at at ETS ETS Enterprise & External Everyone Knows Everything

4 Working Definition for KM Capability: The What and Why Individuals or groups access the relevant existing knowledge to make the most critical of ETS decisions more efficiently and effectively. Our success as an intellectual capital company relies upon the translation of what s in people s heads or our other knowledge assets into relationships, processes, products and services for ETS. Next Step: Assign a working group to inform the strategy ETS KMWG Knowledge Management Working Group

5 Approach Assumptions 1. KMWG recommends choosing 1of the 4 ETS business areas to pilot the KM Framework. The scoping project must include metrics. 2. The project must include a process to analyze successes and failures going forward. 3. The tools successfully implemented in the pilot should become the natural way to work at ETS. This will require changing institutional behavior with a link to rewards and acknowledgement tools.

6 Initiative Moves Along Two Tracks Get a data point for the cost of a KM initiative. Get a portal demonstration. Since an ETS initiative has purchased the PeopleSoft portal and is using it, we have a ready made opportunity to consider using it on a wider scale. Get some common grounding on all the technologies we have discussed (document management, searching, etc.) Complete project plan and proposal document Verify pilot and identify process owner(s) Convene stakeholders for pilot divisions to consider straw model of decisions and knowledge in process Get necessary funding Build knowledge framework as needed

7 Key Knowledge Based Decisions Key Decisions a Lines of Business b c d e f Cost Impact Risk Value Strategic Directions New Products New Markets Building Business Financial RFP International Strategy Based on Survey Responses Driving Revenues

8 Value Matrix: Implementation Risk & Value X Axis - Increasing Business Value Y Axis - Increasing Risk Strategic Directions New Products New Business Financial RFP Outside Resources Shaping Workforce Project Initiation Client Relationships Tests IP Size of sphere indicates relative cost of implementation

9 Relevant Technologies Document Management Workflow Portal Searching Community of Practice elearning Decision Support System

10 Project Description How do we improve ETS s win rate and lower costs on RFPs? Given that there is a recognized need to update and streamline the current RFP response process: 1. Identify the decisions required at each point in the Best Practices map 2. Identify the knowledge required to best make those decisions 3. Identify the ways in which that knowledge will be captured, stored, accessed, shared, and evaluated; made available to participants in the right form at the right time 4. Determine what the technology solution is to the above knowledge management requirements

11 Project Tasks They all turned out to be curveballs Ascertain who is the corporate steward for the RFP pilot initiative. Develop a business case (benefit versus cost) for the KM framework for RFP Response process. This will involve knowing what the price tag of RFP assembly is including the opportunity costs. Define decision criteria for selecting a subset of the RFP Business for the pilot if it is required. Understand why ETS won or lost an RFP by assessing the information and knowledge we had or didn t have on a subset of RFP s to which ETS responded. Define the change management elements of the project as well as the technology, tools and processes

12 Project End State Opportunities are tracked and the decisions about them are also recorded Each proposal is identified and labeled for possible reuse Pool of relevant information to the process exists in easily accessible forms (The consensus assessment of the present state is that this is not the case.) Improvement in ROI in that process Players in the process (knowledge seekers) are connected to knowledge sources earlier than at present; they know what this process is and use it COP that is identified reports that decisions in the process are improved Use of KM occurs to construct proposals Aid maintenance of disciplined consistent process across the organization Behavior of players changes so that the tools used and practices followed are the natural thing to do Organizational systems exist to maintain this behavioral change

13 KM Pilot Project for RFP Response Stakeholders met from a wide range of areas within the company These included: Decision makers Process contributors Process supporters, e.g., IT, Corporate Contracts, L&D

14 What Stakeholders Did Described the process flow they carried out in their areas Recognized points of similarity and points of variance in their process Maintained that some variance had value and business justification Recognized that we invested too much and $ on responses

15 What We Did Analyzed the discussion output and classified info per an operational notion of the components of process: Goals: How much business do we want to win? What efficiencies should we gain re: cycle time, TOT Parameters: Workflow, timeframes Tools: Software, Databases, Templates People: Roles, KSA s, Training, Motivation Org. Structure: How it works in a matrix org

16 What Value We Added to Output Simplified the workflow 10 phases went to 5 Probed often with individuals outside of meetings to elicit more clarification and detail Drew the graphs, created the documents Started a flat website so that everyone could access the thinking as it developed Collected data, information, tools to drape on a on the workflow in a more multidimensional web: a knowledge asset

17 Fragment from Workflow:

18 Examples of RFP Knowledge Descriptions from Group Size of market\pricing Market and competition pricing Existing competitors Knowing who our competitors are, their capabilities, and how to beat them in the RFP process. Understanding what our current capabilities are Understanding what our future capabilities will be How this particular new business relates to ETS as a whole Risks if we don't bid or bid and win or bid and lose Technical capabilities of ETS infrastructure

19 Ideas for Knowledge-Sharing Tools High-level process workflow with explanatory detail Target turnaround times and overall timeline Shared RFP Notes Database, web accessible shared databases List of decision-making criteria for each go/no-go decision steps Template for the RFP Project Plan RFP Tracking Checklist Boilerplate content Bios & Experts Database Template for Communications Plan (w/common key messages, e.g., "Why client should choose ETS") List of "unit costs" for commonly quoted services (from the Divisions and Centers of Excellence) Checklist for post-mortem evaluation Knowledge objects with client data They didn t all happen!

20 Multidimensional Map

21 Where Are We Now? Achievements Deficits To Do Learning Where Do We Go?

22 Achievements & Deficits Map Replicable Structure Experienced Group of people Some Culture Change Some Organizational & Social Capital Use of our map in other dimensions Reificative memory used to enrich other conversations Six Sigma example Workflow tool did not happen Process owner did not emerge Efficiencies have not occurred in the way that we predicted See Big Learning

23 Lessons We re Learning When business strategy shifts, a KM work-inprogress may lose or gain relevance/criticality Compelling need changes so motivation changes Speed is important, attention spans short Was small really small? Our KM initiative was linked to a larger initiative (workflow database) A good portion of the knowledge needs were linked to workflow and project management tools The database project did not move forward

24 Lessons We re Learning Lessons We re Learning A champion is critical for promoting new behaviors Having several executives charged with business development makes identifying a single process owner difficult Project that needs to satisfy many masters results Behaviors of executive leaders must reinforce use and practice Directions of some stakeholder areas in conflict with overall goal You have to keep the tools new so that old hands see value in visiting map Players still derive some value in keeping their own group as the expert group

25 Lessons We re Learning Elements of the system work for success, others against ETS has an academic culture that promotes individual expertise over knowledge sharing Matrix organization an easy environment for the not invented here syndrome Lots of influencing and reaching out required

26 Systems Thinking Analysis (+) Net (-) Cost (+) Investment Capability (+) Perception of Self- Effectiveness (+) Recognition of Expertise (+) Funds KM infras. Fewer More People Sharing Knowledge (+) time on assignments (-) Motivation to Share (+) Div. Work Done (+) Indiv. Objectives met (+) Star Recognition (+) Div goals met (+) Recognition for Div (+) Productivity (+) Efficiency (-) VPs Pushing Knowledge - Sharing (+) Resources/ VP SOI

27 Systems Thinking Analysis (+) Net (-) Cost (+) Investment Capability (+) Perception of Self- Effectiveness (+) Recognition of Expertise (+) Funds KM infras. Fewer More People Sharing Knowledge (+) time on assignments (-) Motivation to Share (+) Div. Work Done (+) Indiv. Objectives met (+) Star Recognition (+) Div goals met (+) Recognition for Div (+) Productivity (+) Efficiency (-) VPs Pushing Knowledge - Sharing (+) Resources/ VP SOI

28 Big Lesson We re Learning This is about nurturing a CoP that May not see itself as a CoP May have boundary and membership issues May lack facilities of engagement a la Wenger Mutuality Interactional Facilities, Joint Tasks, Peripherality Competence Initiative and Knowledgeability Accountability Tools Continuity Reificative Memory Participative Memory

29 Two perspectives from Wenger If we believe that productive people in organizations are the diligent implementors of organizational processes and that the key to organizational performance is therefore the definition of increasingly more efficient and detailed processes by which people s actions are prescribed But if we believe that productive people in organizations contribute to organizational goals by participating inventively in practices that can never be fully captured by institutional processes then we will minimize prescription, suspecting that too much of it discourages inventiveness Approach A Approach B

30 Two perspectives from Wenger Approach A 1. Engineer and reengineer these processes in abstract ways 2. Roll them out for implementation Approach B 1. Make sure that our organizations are contexts within which the communities that develop these practices may prosper 2. Value the work of community building 3. Make sure that participants have access to the resources necessary to learn what they need to learn in order to take actions and make decisions that fully engage their own knowledgeability

31 Design Principles for a Community- Based Knowledge Initiative Evolutionary Design Distributed Leadership Participation Across Multiple Structures Dance of Formal & Informal Value Building on the Existing Culture Pacing the Initiative From Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder

32 Questions?