Developing Knowledge Management Systems that Capture Intellectual Property

Article by Alan Ward

The world of organisations is a complex place. We talk glibly of living in the "Age of Knowledge" and discuss the Information Age as though it were an organisational reality. Yet the experience for most organisation dwellers is that we live in the "Data Age". Most of us struggle to cope with a deluge of fragmented, non-integrated data that swamps us on a daily basis. In most cases, the way that front line staff actually does their job is a mystery to the vast majority of managers.

At changedrivers we believe that the way an organisation goes about its work constitutes its fundamental intellectual property. The way in which it performs this work in comparison to its competitors will determine its position in the industry and significantly influence its comparative success. We have developed a structured process for capturing intellectual property and building Knowledge Management Systems through periods of growth and staff turnover.

Our processes are the result of a convergence of capabilities developed over many years as business analysts, consultants and accountable, business-unit managers.

All organisations, whether they are large or small create the products and services that are consumed by their customers through their "day to day" work activities. It is the work, the business' "policies, processes and procedures" that adds value to their products and services from a customer’s perspective.

A major challenge, particularly for large, complex organisations is to disseminate and embed common organisational "processes and procedures" within their business framework.

Building a Knowledge Management System

We have developed a systematic approach to the creation of a Knowledge Management System that is described below

Determine the organisational imperative for undertaking this work.
Work with the executive management team to develop a strategic, high level model of how the business works.
Work with appropriate staff in the organisation to identify the families of products and services that are "taken to market". This applies to both public and private sector organisations because at the end of the day organisations only exist to produce outputs for their customers.
We create maps of the processes, procedures and activities of the organisation and generate an appreciation of the opportunities for improvement that can be achieved through process reengineering. As an integral part of our process analysis we can if required, develop a "full cost" picture of each of the processes and in doing so develop an understanding of the cost impact of poor process and thereby identify the low-hanging fruit for process improvement.
We generate an understanding of the reports, templates, documents, policy statements, etc., and determine how this information then triggers Activity.
We identify the "functional roles" that are played throughout the organisation and create clusters and profiles of these roles to describe job functions.
One of the primary deliverables from our work is the Process Maps that we publish to a "browser environment", such as the client's intranet.
The change management support required to embed the processes in the business should not be underestimated.

The benefits of taking the journey

So why would you undertake the arduous task of building a Knowledge Centre in your business? What are the WIIFMs (what's in it for me?) that will get the management and staff of your organisation to contribute to the process.

If all of your staff has access to information that allows them to ensure they are performing their tasks in a standard fashion, then internal and external customers can expect reliable, measurable, repeatable levels of service.
Managers will be in a position to more effectively and efficiently deploy all of the resources at their disposal.
In the private sector improved efficiency and effectiveness leads to improvement in the bottom line.
In the public sector improved efficiency and effectiveness leads to improvement in the "cost to deliver" charter products & services for which a Department is responsible.
Our process allows managers to focus on the outputs of the organisation and the activities that produce those outputs.
Standardised business processes allow increased flexibility and mobility for managers & staff.
IT development becomes business-needs focused, that is the business starts to drive IT, not vice-versa
When the business performance does not live up to expectation or budget, the process is the first place to look.

Critical Success Factors

Success in the venture will depend on a number of inter-related elements.

At the outset of the initiative, the senior executive team must be engaged in scoping the project to ensure "buy in" from the top. Only in this way will you be able to maintain focus and support in the medium-long term. The senior management team need to understand the timeframes involved in assembling foundation material and the resources that will be required before there are significant tangible elements to show for the work that has been undertaken.

All words are loaded with meaning and so often we see people in "heated agreement" about issues and until such time as we have effective communication through shared understanding of meaning.
In our work we focus on the "Activities & Outputs" of the organisation and seek to understand the way that organisational resource is deployed to deliver output.
The complexity of business today means that most staff members play multi-functional roles. Our process links Activity to Functional Role which in turn ensures that staff members are able to self manage their development within their roles.

Start with the 'end' in mind

A critical first step in the process is to develop a shared understanding amongst the senior executive team of the primary business driver for this initiative and secondly to have some agreement as to the boundaries of the project.

We have found that organisations embark upon this journey because of some imperative, typically driven from the top of the organisation, these include:

Re-engineering ineffective processes
Educating and inducting Users
Merging Enterprises
Transition Management
As a basis for automation of repetitive process
As a foundation for IT enablement
Organisational focus on Cost Reduction
To identify opportunities to create "organisational slack"

Failure to address these issues at the outset presents the danger of the project team developing a system that makes people say "So What?" and there is an inevitably you will start at the wrong place!

Overcoming resistance

If you would win a man to your cause, you must first convince him that you are truly his friend

We engage staff within the business through a structured schedule of small work groups and one-on-one interviews with the people who know and understand how work gets done within the business. We map the processes of the organisation and at each activity step we identify the contributing outputs and resource requirements within the process. We then convert this information into a format that allows us to validate our findings with those who provided those who were interviewed and in many cases test the validated understanding in a separate location to ensure that we have accommodated local variation.

It's all about change management. Defining the technical solution is always the easiest part of the journey. The hard part is helping those affected by the change to abandon the current ineffective processes and adopt the newly engineered solution.

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