Ll from over 200 projects presentation file
- 1. Lessons learnt from nearly two hundred cases of KM journeys by Hong Kong and Asian Enterprises Professor Eric Tsui Associate Director Knowledge Management and Innovation Research Centre (KMIRC) The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- 2. The KMIRC………………….………………….….…1 The Projects…………………. ……………….….…6 Challenges and Solutions…….………………..16 The Theory-Practice Gap……………….….....21 Outcomes and Impact…………..……….…….25 TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- 3. 1. KMIRC Knowledge Management and Innovation Research Centre Page 1 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- 4. Vision & Mission 1. To conduct research in the interdisciplinary area of KM, develop various methods and tools for the implementation of affordable KM program and systems in various industrial sectors, organizations and communities. 2. To promote and disseminate the practice of knowledge management through delivering of consultancy, training and benchmarking not only on Hong Kong but also mainland China. 3. To offer advice to practitioners by promoting KM in Hong Kong. 4. To liaise with local KM bodies and similar bodies in other countries and participate in the formulation of various KM practices and standards. Page 2
- 5. But the particular strategy and role of the HKPolyU also played a significant role, I believe. HKPolyU is unusual among universities with KM on their agendas. They do research, and they have a Master’s in KM course, to be sure, as do other universities. More than that, however, their KM group has been aggressively building a strong KM consulting practice in both private and public sectors – not as sidelines for their professors and teachers, but as a kind of action research learning experience for both the clients and the KM group itself..” Patrick Lambe KM Strategist & past president of iKMS, Singapore Page 3
- 6. But the particular strategy and role of the HKPolyU also played a significant role, I believe. HKPolyU is unusual among universities with KM on their agendas. They do research, and they have a Master’s in KM course, to be sure, as do other universities. More than that, however, their KM group has been aggressively building a strong KM consulting practice in both private and public sectors – not as sidelines for their professors and teachers, but as a kind of action research learning experience for both the clients and the KM group itself..” Patrick Lambe KM Strategist & past president of iKMS, Singapore Page 3
- 7. Our uniqueness “The World as an Open Laboratory” Page 4
- 8. The World as an Open Laboratory Research Teaching In-house training Strategy Formulation Framework Assessment Strategic Planning Taxonomy Creation & Maintenance IC Audit Knowledge Audit Knowledge Retention Consultancy Master of Philosophy Doctor of Philosophy Organizational Learning, Knowledge Audit, Intellectual Capital, Taxonomy, Folksonomy, ... M.Sc. in KM Certified Knowledge Professional (CKP) Dissertation Projects Final Year Projects (FYP) Page 5
- 9. 2. The Projects 1. Final Year Projects (80%) • 11 months duration 2. Consultancy Projects (15%) • 4 months to 1.5 years 3. Research Projects (5%) • Ad hoc Page 6
- 10. Types of KM projects People & process-oriented KM initiatives •Cultural and Readiness Assessment •Formulation of a KM Strategy, Framework & Strategic Planning •Knowledge Audit & Knowledge Management Audit •Change Management •KM Assessment including the definition of metrics & reporting of Intellectual Capital (IC) •Community of Practices / Special Interest Groups (SIG) Technology-oriented KM deployments •Search Engine configuration, testing & deployment •Taxonomy development, maintenance & governance •Collaboration System •Enterprise Portal •Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) •Knowledge / Information Repositories •Content Management System (CMS) & Applications (CMA) •E-Learning •Intelligent System •Blogging / Weblogs / RSS Readers / Wikis Page 7
- 11. Culture Building K Audit KM S Repositor y Mentorin g AAR s Change Management CoP s Storie s Peer Assist Program KM Strategy IC Aud it Success in KM leads to Increase in •Sales •Customers •Quality & consistency in decision making •Consistency in process executions •Organisational Memory •Social & Professional Networks •Readiness to respond •Ability to innovate •Knowledge about customers, partners, market, industry Reductions in • Time to search for information • Time/Effort needed to locate/connect with knowledge experts • Time to carry out “knowledge-intensive” tasks • Time/Effort needed to resolve a problem • Printing & mailing costs • Travel cost & time • Costs of providing training KM building blocks Page 8
- 12. KM tool, outcomes & measurements (cont.) Initiative/Techni que/Tool/Syste m Outcomes Method of measurement/evaluati on Formulation of a KM Strategy SWOT analysis from a knowledge perspective The balance between the use of codification and personalization approach Identification of appropriate soft and technical KM tools to support the set KM objectives Recommendation of pilot projects with timeframes and as part of a multi-phased approach to KM Organisations proceeded with the pilot projects; start small to embark on their KM journey Depending on the KM initiative, for Community of Practice, measurements are based on the number of members, rate of membership growth, no. of assets uploaded/downloaded. For discussions, measurements are often based on threads posted, no of replies and time lag for the reply, the nature of the reply etc. Revisit the strategy to determine its on-going appropriateness and effectiveness; gap analysis to determine if the strategy and its implementation need to be re-aligned Page 9
- 13. KM tool, outcomes & measurements (cont.) Initiative/Techniq ue/Tool/System Outcomes Method of measurement/evaluati on Knowledge Audit Identified a ranked list of important explicit assets. Knowledge flow in the audited processes showing the creater/owner/origi nator/user of a knowledge asset. Social networks revealing connections among people involved in the audited processes and any major knowledge centres (people and repositories, where others approach for information) in the network Verified list of critical knowledge revealed by the Knowledge Audit by Subject Matter Experts in the organization Followup interviews with stakeholders especially to validate some unusual findings in the Knowledge Audit Adopted different methodologies for Knowledge Audit to benchmark findings and identify variations Carry out Knowledge Audit periodically to obtain updated information to support decision making on KM strategies, systems and processes Page 10
- 14. KM tool, outcomes & measurements Initiative/Technique /Tool/System Outcomes Method of measurement/evaluati on Taxonomy creation and Search Engine customization Improved schema for storing information; common consensus among staff on where to save/find information; enabled faceted search and enhanced the ranking of search results in the display Complexity of the taxonomy in terms of levels, no of branches, levels and the size of the controlled vocabularies Reduced time to search for information, both for the navigation method and keyword searching More intelligent search engine that identifies synonyms, recovers from incorrectly typed words Monitor and analyse search engine log for entered keywords with no matches; reviewing this on a regular basis can provide valuable information to fine tune the taxonomy as well as the search engine configurations Page 11
- 15. KM tool, outcomes & measurements (cont.) Initiative/Technique /Tool/System Outcomes Method of measurement/evaluati on Revamp of a Knowledge Portal Re-design of the user interface, the layout and content of the portal, introduction of Web 2.0 tools (Wiki and RSS) to enhance collaboration and information awareness, change management to help users adopt the portal User-adoption statistics Reduced time on the retrieval of information and documents from the portal Refined and more accurate search results from the search engine Monitoring and review of the search engine log to identify abnormal search queries and common keywords encountered but not adopted in the taxonomy Governance model established to review, discuss feedback on a regular basis and action on improvements Page 12
- 16. KM tool, outcomes & measurements (cont.) Initiative/Technique /Tool/System Outcomes Method of measurement/evaluati on Near-miss reporting database Overcome people’s reluctance to report nearly occurred accidents in hospitals. Culture change. Design and development of a database capturing near- miss cases reported from and shared among 10 hospitals The steadily growing size of the database Frequency of access and download of these cases from the site Survey on the rise in awareness and usefulness of the database for accident preventions A culture among staff to willingly report near-miss cases with fear of repraisals Page 13
- 17. KM tool, outcomes & measurements (cont.) Initiative/Techni que/Tool/Syste m Outcomes Method of measurement/evaluati on Stories database Elicited stories about a given theme/topic are transcribed into a database. Indices and keywords are created to tag these stories for easy and fast retrieval Stories are verified by the tellers before they are being finalized. Measurements include the number of stories elicited, the percentage of stories deemed to be admissible to the story database (for its completeness, integrity and perceived usefulness), organization continuing efforts to adopt storytelling and stories as knowledge harnessing and knowledge sharing methods.Anecdotal feedback on the usefulness of the collected stories; comparison of the revealed knowledge with existing training materials and also monitor the access/retrieval of the stories for training and learning purposes Page 14
- 18. 3. Challenges & Solutions Page 16 The Eleven Deadliest Sins Of Knowledge Management (California Management Review Vol. 40, No. 3, 1998, pages 265-275) by Liam Fahey and Laurence Prusak: • No working definition of knowledge • Emphasizing knowledge stock to the detriment of knowledge flow • Viewing knowledge as existing predominantly outside of the heads of individuals • Not understanding that a fundamental intermediate purpose of managing knowledge is to create shared context • Paying little heed to the role and importance of tacit knowledge • Disentangling knowledge from its uses • Downplaying thinking and reasoning • Focusing on the past & present but not the future • Failing to recognize the importance of experimentation • Substituting technological contact for human interface • Seeking to develop direct measures of knowledge
- 19. 3. Challenges & Solutions Challenge Solution(s) The Business-IT divide – leads to insufficient end- users and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) input Create joint teams, group together stakeholders from different departments in a KM project, avoid any single department to be the sole “owner” of a project. Rotate members and expand teams opportunistically Technology is adopted before a strategy has been created e.g. a KM system is installed but it was later found out to be mis- aligned with user’s needs Insist on the formulation of a KM strategy at the early part of the journey. While not always necessary, a Knowledge Audit may be carried out to identify the critical knowledge, the knowledge gap, type of knowledge and the people who create and use this knowledge. Having such information greatly enhance the alignment of any KM tools with user needs. Manage the client’s expectation that the strategy and the audit may need to be carried out routinely; they are not a one-off activity Over-emphasis on KM systems (i.e. the containers), insufficient focus on the knowledge content Conduct knowledge audit; some knowledge may not be migrated to the new system. Identify critical knowledge assets and develop taxonomies to help categorise the assets in the KM systems Page 17
- 20. Challenges & Solutions (cont.) Challenge Solution(s) KM is treated/ viewed as a project Demonstrate and convince senior management that recurrent funding is important to support the KM journey as there are on-going needs (e.g. change in external/internal environment) to maintain the taxonomy, content, systems, user learning of new techniques etc. Poor/Lack of configuration of the search engine and/or lack of user training – compromise the effectiveness of a high power enterprise search engine This is a common problem across many projects. Insist on having regular business input in the configuration, tuning and testing of the search engine; review search engine log to identify improvement areas and set up a governance model to gather feedback, identify and action on improvements on a regular basis. Publishing of usage tips and conduct of user training can also help to raise awareness and usage of high power search engine Page 18
- 21. Challenges & Solutions (cont.) Challenge Solution(s) Skepticism about how to monitor and govern the use of Web 2.0 tools limits bottom-up knowledge sharing Advised organistions to adopt WIKI and RSS (rather than blogs) for trials inside the organization. WIKIs are used to foster inter- departmental collaboration on compiling complex, de-centralised documents for example. RSS is adopted to keep up information awareness on specific topics; feeds are calibrated to deliver new and relevant information to individuals, teams, groups, and the entire organization, usually via the Enterprise Knowledge Portal. As these two types of Web 2.0 tools can be easily aligned to support collaborative work and learning (and information awareness), they are seen as easy entry points for introducing Web 2.0 into the workplace. Once knowledge and confidence are gained, other Web 2.0 tool can be explored for adoption Indecisivene ss on the capture & share of tacit knowledge in processes With input from the Business and IT departments, KMIRC has helped organisations to customize their Electronic Document Management System (EDMS) or Business Process Management System (BPMS) thereby requiring users to codify and record the tacit knowledge behind their decisions into the system so that other users can better ascertain the chain of reasoning throughout the execution of a business process. Page 19
- 22. Observation For organizations which are new to KM, they focus on •Awareness raising / Readiness Assessment •Strategy Formulation / Strategic Planning •Identify, rank and pilot of KM initiatives •Knowledge Audit, Social Network Analysis •EDMS, Search engine, portal deployment •Taxonomy Creation and Maintenance For organizations that have already started KM, their focus are principally on •Sustainability of KM programs, culture building •Strategy revisit, gap analysis •Embodiment of knowledge in business processes •Knowledge distillation and harnessing •Soft KM tools/skills •Health checks & Benchmarking Page 20
- 23. 3.The theory-practice gap “Have done close to 200 KM projects, one can clearly identify several major areas where KM theories (covered in books) and practice differ, and those practical issues that are not commonly addressed but nevertheless important.” Page 21
- 24. The theory-practice gap (cont.) 1. Knowledge Audit and Knowledge Strategy: Which one comes first? 2. Similarities of KM strategies among MNCs, local companies & SMEs 3. “Zero-budget” KM 4. KM journey rarely starts from a “clean sheet of paper” 5. Factors for sustaining the use of KMS are different from factors that affect adoption 6. People are lazy when tagging 7. Natural KM “entry points” in organisations Page 22
- 25. Typical obstacles & excuses 1. There is no budget for doing KM 2. People are not willing to share 3. Everyone is already over- loaded; we do not have time 4. Our staff are not IT-savvy; they refuse to learn to use new tools 5. We do not have the skills nor the expertise 6. How can I ensure the codified/elicited knowledge is correct and complete? 7. I cannot measure and justify the benefits? Page 23
- 26. Some easy KM “entry points 1. Babybomers Retirement Syndrome 2. High turnover of k-workers 3. Excessive time spent on locating explicit assets 4. Avoid re-inventing the wheel 5. Maintain consistency in decision making 6. Transformations in enterprise applications 7. Harnessing collective wisdom for innovation 8. … Page 24
- 27. 5. Outcomes and Impact a. Our students and graduates b. Partnering organisations and clients c. Recognition of KMIRC expertise and efforts Page 25
- 28. Partnering organisations and clients • Absolute majority of them continue with their KM journey • Some are showing evidence of higher KM maturity Page 27
- 29. The MAKE Award Page 28
- 30. Partnering organisations and clients winning MAKE awards Since 2008, we have produced • 2 Global MAKE (IOU) winners • 26 Asian MAKE winners • 47 HK MAKE winners • 33 Mainland China MAKE winners Page 29
- 31. Page 30
- 32. Recognition of KMIRC expertise and efforts Page 31
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- 34. Lessons learnt from nearly two hundred cases of KM journeys by Hong Kong and Asian Enterprises Professor Eric Tsui & the KMIRC team