Abstract Keywords 1. Background

KM in a Diverse Technical Environment – ECKM 2004

A G Hessami

KM in a Diverse Technical Environment Challenges & Successes Prof A G Hessami, Atkins Global, UK [email protected] & [email protected] 5th European Conference on Knowledge Management ECKM 30 Sept.- 1 Oct. 2004 Conservatoire Nationale des Arts et Metiers (CNAM), Paris

Abstract The application of knowledge management within a multi-disciplinary technical/engineering environment faces many challenges including differing perceptions, demands and varying requirements from the view point of domain knowledge capture, retrieval and re-use. This paper describes a recent pilot programme for the introduction of knowledge management within a largely technical and engineering environment comprising a wide range of disciplines with varying degrees of receptivity for the implementation of such a regime and many concerns over costs, utility and access security issues. A number of representative and diverse teams were identified within Civil Engineering, Systems Engineering, Commercial Department and the Advanced Technology (R&D) Department to ensure the pilot implementation and the subsequent study addressed a sufficiently broad range of organisational needs and activities. The process adopted comprised initial knowledge capture and structuring workshops followed by reviews, implementation within a major KM support toolkit and roll-out within the four teams and two periphery projects for a limited period.

Keywords Knowledge, Engineering, Multi-disciplinary, Weighted Factors Analysis, WeFA, Knowledge Capture, Knowledge Representation, KM Pilot, Knowledge Rich Organisation, Singular Ontology, Knowledge Exchange, Knowledge Life-Cycle

1.

Background Since the dawn of civilisation, man as an agent of change and a social animal has transformed his environment in a number of distinct epochs. The invention and exploitation of tools, development of agriculture and more recently industrialisation represent the key transformations in the short history of civilisation. Whilst these are generally overlapping epochs, the current phase of this relentless progression is generally acknowledged to be associated with appreciation, generation, deployment and leveraging knowledge. This is evident in the post industrial societies where traditional reliance on farming and later manufacturing has largely been superseded by information and services sectors. A cursory glance at the GDP levels between the industrial and the developing countries demonstrates a gap of more than 2 orders of magnitude mainly dominated by the degree with which knowledge is developed and harnessed to solve technical, societal and environmental problems.


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Within the UK, heavy manufacturing has a diminishing role in the GDP, currently accounting for roughly 20% of the annual value of domestic products and services. Against this setting, the knowledge sector is showing an unprecedented rate of growth with a significant potential and contribution coming from business ventures built around world class universities. The clustering of knowledge companies in Cambridge bears witness to this and is quoted to account for around 1600 high technology companies, 40,000 jobs and around 3 billion pounds worth of business. The share of knowledge based gross domestic product in OECD countries is around 60% and rising, giving knowledge a more prominent place as the key determinant of competitive advantage at the global scale. A recent survey in the US indicated that in contrast with the classical view, the dominant form of wealth and ownership in modern organisations related to the so called “intangible assets”. This is a significant shift in the industrial economies in which, land, buildings, machinery, raw materials and manufactured goods constituted the wealth creation and ownership paradigm only a few decades ago. The new intangible wealth comes in the form of patents, research findings, franchises, experience, designs, processes and procedures. Even the manufactured goods tend to dictate a value and price highly disproportional to their physical size or material content today. They represent a new value generation process based on advanced know how which transforms relatively common raw materials into valuable systems and products with significant proportion of embedded or inherent intelligence/knowledge. This paper captures and conveys the experience gained in the implementation and roll-out of a KM piloting initiative within a multi-disciplinary and knowledge rich organisation referred to as the Pilot Organisation.

1.1

Knowledge Life cycle Bearing in mind the nature, forms and hierarchy of knowledge, it is important to devise a process and a formal discipline for the acquisition, application and transformation of this precious commodity into value. This is particularly relevant to environments and organisations whose key raison d’etre or tasks relate to information processing, problem solving or provision of know-how as their key deliverables or product. This process is broadly referred to as Knowledge Management (KM) which is an evolving discipline with a life-cycle akin to a system’s [Ref. 1] comprising; 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

Creation, Discovery, Synthesis, Acquisition of Know-how Capture, Representation, Encoding and Storage Retrieval, Decoding, Protection, Reuse and Dissemination Identification of Opportunities for Application Realisation of Inherent Value through Prudent Application Review, Enhancement, Consolidation

This demanding and complex process is often mistaken with, or mis-sold as IT and computing resources required to enhance the efficiency of the acquisition, access and reuse. In this spirit, Knowledge Management is principally a soft and people centred discipline [Ref. 6] where fast and ubiquitous information systems are only enablers as opposed to core requirements. The case detailed here mainly relates to the three primary phases of the life-cycle depicted above.


2.

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Knowledge Rich Organisation The corporate structure for the pilot environment is a classical and mainly sector focused engineering services organisation with functional specialisations in application engineering within ten business groups/units. Whilst there is an increasing appreciation of sector expertise and competence, the new trend in one-stop-shop and risk sharing adopted by major clients have necessitated a blend of innovative approaches to marketing and deployment of internal resources. This generally implies a transition from provision of expertise and parochial/case specific services to delivery of broader inclusive solutions higher up in the value chain and partnership/risk sharing on a longer-term basis with the clients. This shift in buying pattern from major clients is likely to be the dominant shape of future relationships in the governmental and private market place and is already witnessed in the transportation, construction and oil and gas markets. As an established engineering services company, the organisation’s external image, whilst respected and trusted by major clients, seems incompatible with an advanced technological services organisation with global ambitions. There is a need to optimise the exploitation of core expertise and aim for a more efficient and dynamic organisation capable of providing total solutions at an international level. Apart from obvious large-scale business benefits, this is more likely to portray an image consistent with the organisation’s vision as an agenda setting market leader and world class integrated service/solution provider. The Core capability of the pilot organisation is essentially that of leveraging know how and expertise and delivery of mainly engineering solutions to clients’ real and perceived problems. This holds particularly true for a technical services organisation in which, knowledge is the only active agent and the key commodity which underpins products and services. In this context nurturing, developing, restructuring and management of this key resource is deemed vital to the attainment of the organisation’s future aspirations for growth and market dominance. In this spirit, the organisation is justifiably regarded as knowledge rich in view of its largely intangible goods and services.

3.

Making a Case Past feedback received from some clients pointed towards the need to complement the pilot organisation’s successful track record in engineering services with a series of progressive initiatives in order to align itself with best practice and realise their aspirations for anchoring, consolidation and growth. To this end, a proposal focused on Knowledge Services for the pilot organisation developed the rationale for justification of Knowledge Management as a major new vehicle for attaining efficiency and growth within the corporate. It highlighted that the management of expert and corporate knowledge is one of many important strands of activities essential to the organisation’s growth and prosperity and presented an implementation strategy for a suite of progressive initiatives delivering the following business benefits: • Higher resource utilisation efficiencies leading to improved margins on projects • Superior re-use of established knowledge by a wider community alleviating the burden of demand on domain experts • Staff development through training and advanced practices


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• Facilitating remote working and controlled online access to corporate knowledge base whilst instigating and promoting a collaborative knowledge sharing culture • Promulgation of good practice within the projects environment through efficient application, development and sharing of advanced knowledge • Identifying and harnessing emergent knowledge through new products, processes and business opportunities also enhancing the corporate profile • Creating a corporate repository of past and current innovations / solutions where none exists in a useable form • Ensuring that in addition to BMS [Ref. 2] and QMS [Ref. 3] processes, explicit domain knowledge is also treated as a corporate asset with implications for the balance sheet and market evaluation Knowledge is the core product for an international technical services organisation such as the pilot organisation which effectively conducts its business in a global market space rather than place. It is the application and leveraging of diverse domain knowledge which is capable of realising the corporate goal in delivery of integrated solutions to a market which is increasingly inclined towards longer term alliancing, risk sharing and turn key products and services. The implementation of the KM proposal is a key step towards optimal utilisation of tacit and explicit knowledge resources within the pilot organisation which is reputed to deliver robust engineering solutions backed by experience, integrity and calibre of its workforce. This would additionally foster migration from the current isolated islands of expertise paradigm towards a collaborative knowledge sharing culture which is essential to long term prosperity in the emerging knowledge economies. In spite of the availability of the Business Management (BMS) and Quality Management (QMS) Systems, the core elements of domain knowledge crucial to the productivity and success of the organisation remain largely uncharted, locked within individual experts and mainly under-utilised. Furthermore, the deployment of such scarce resource is currently based on classical project/client orientation with little effort on strategic engagement of the high value experienced staff beyond immediate projects, problems and tasks in hand. This is clearly a downside to the existing approach to resource utilisation impacting on our growth and expansion potential. In other words, inorganic growth can be fostered through better leveraging of existing and development of new knowledge.

4.

Selecting the Test Cases/Business Units The KM programme in the pilot organisation is currently focused on the needs and development of processes, capabilities, human resource and organisational competence within 4 diverse Business Units (BU) comprising; 1. Civil Engineering 2. Systems Engineering 3. Commercial Department 4. Advanced Technology Group (R&D) The BUs have been chosen to represent a wide range of needs, perceptions, practices and requirements hence help gain a broader appreciation of the potential of KM and collaboration technologies within the whole organisation. Interestingly, each BU has chosen a different approach to the evaluation of the benefits to their part of the


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business. This is mainly reflected in the way they have responded to the knowledge capture and structuring workshops.

5.

Knowledge Requirements Elicitation and Capture

5.1

Methodology, Weighted Factors Analysis (WeFA) Whilst the underpinning philosophy for WeFA, the elicitation process and the representation schema is detailed in the published literature [Ref. 4, 5, 7], a brief account is given here as a quick reference to the methodology and the notation employed for the elicitation, capture and encoding of knowledge requirements within the four Business Units participating in the KM pilot. WeFA is a group based knowledge capture, representation, encoding and evaluation methodology. The expert panel are chosen to represent related but diverse and nonoverlapping aspects of the problem being studied. The focal point of a group study in WeFA is an AIM (A0) represented graphically by an oval annotated with brief relevant text. With the active participation of the expert panel, the AIM is defined, agreed and decomposed into a number of influencing factors (GOALs). The GOALs which are deemed to support the attainment of the AIM are classed as Drivers and those opposing the attainment of the AIM are considered Inhibitors. The Driver GOALs are represented by ellipses with yellow background linked upward to the AIM or other GOALs with green forward arrows implying positive influence. The Inhibitor GOALs are represented by ellipses with dark background colour, linked to the AIM or other GOALs that they influence with red arrows pointing backward (towards themselves) implying negative influence. All GOALs are annotated with brief text to indicate their nature and a unique numbering system to simplify referencing. In WeFA, each factor (GOAL) is in turn decomposed into its Driver and Inhibitors and the process is repeated until the AIM is studied and analysed at a desirable level of detail. The influences of factors in a WeFA schema, represented by green or red arrows, can be hierarchical as well as lateral. This creates a powerful and inter-related network capable of representing the factors, their influences, dependencies and relationships with respect to the AIM under scrutiny. WeFA diagrams are hierarchical and the GOAL numbering system is designed to reflect the hierarchy as well as type i.e. Driver or Inhibitor. The closest layer of GOALs to the AIM of a WeFA diagram is referred to as Level 1 and its GOALs are annotated by a G followed by a number. The numbering scheme for Driver GOALs is clockwise from 12:00 (top) starting from 1 e.g. G1, G2, G3 and anticlockwise for the Inhibitors e.g. G1, G2 etc. Deeper layers of the hierarchy are annotated as G1.1, G1.1.2 etc. These are referred to as level 2, 3 etc. The graphical representation of all the factors and their positive and detrimental influences upon an AIM is referred to as a WeFA schema. This form of knowledge representation is principally aimed at ease of comprehension and review due to the graphical representation of the key factors, their influences and their position within the hierarchy of other factors. The schema or the factors within can be supported by additional text if required. Each Goal in a schema has a value and a degree of influence on other Goals. These are elicited from the expert panel and incorporated in the schema permitting a weighted evaluation of all the Drivers and Inhibitors and assessment of their total effect on the value of the Aim. This underpins the approach


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to the development of an objective evaluation and assessment regime for the competence assurance framework.

5.2

Workshops The consultation, requirements capture and representation for each Business Unit in the pilot organisation has taken place within 2 workshops held employing the Weighted Factors knowledge elicitation and structuring methodology. The first workshop with a representative panel from each BU mainly focused on capturing their role within the larger business and identifying the key drivers and inhibitors to success in their context. The role of knowledge and efficient encoding, capture, storage and search/retrieval and reuse has invariably emerged in some form in all these sessions held with different BUs. The specifics of how to structure and manage the knowledge repository was largely tackled in the subsequent session with each Business Unit representative panel. The workshops generally lasted over 2-3 hours with a high degree of participation by the panel members in the generation of the WeFA schema representing their perspectives and requirements within the context of the corporate. The workshops were facilitated by the author and the emerging WeFA schemas were developed and projected online for ease of comprehension and extension during each session.

5.3

Outputs, Verification & Validation The outcome of the internal consultation and knowledge requirements elicitation, structuring and capture workshops with each participating Business Unit is a WeFA schema under version and change control to ascertain traceability. The schema represents the hierarchy of goals which support the main aim in each BU, also detailing at an appropriate level of decomposition, the requirements for a knowledge repository. The WeFA schema generated online during each requirement capture session was forwarded electronically to all participants seeking correction, enhancements or endorsement from the participating panel. The members were encouraged to state their verdict and position explicitly even if no change was required. This process essentially amounted to a verification and validation of the schema for each Business Unit. At the end of the requirements capture process, four reasonably detailed WeFA schema have been developed and shared with all panel members which represents a consensus on the role of the Civil Engineering, Systems Engineering, Commercial and R&D business units within the larger corporate and their specific requirements for a knowledge repository, utilisation and management facility. The schema in Figure 1 represents the Civil Engineering business unit’s perspectives captured in accordance with WeFA notation (see 5.1).


G1 Limited Client Base

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G1 Create a competent organisation G2 Effective Financial Framework

G2 Varied Client Perceptions

G3 Create a high profile in the market

G3 More Aggressive Competitors

G4 Client Procurement Approach

Enable best practice to empower us to be first choice supplier

G4 Create a client focused culture

G5 Corporate focus on short term bottom-line

G7.1.2.1 HOTs initiating a Forum/Newsletter

G5 Ensure Consistent Delivery

G6

G7.1.3.1.1 Components

Inefficiencies arising from existing organisation

Insufficient learning culture

G7.1.3.1.2

G7.1.2.3

G7.1.1 Empower exchange and comms

G6 Manintain an enthusiastic motivated workforce

G7

G7.1.2.2 Skills Chart

Projects

Project briefs/sheets

G7.1.3.1.3 Geometry

G7advanced Acquiring knowledge and maintaining/optimising existing one

G7.1.2 Share activity/people knowledge

G7.1 Develop a framework share Knowledge

G7.1.3.1 Track Knowledge

G7.1.3.1.4 Formation

G7.1 G7.1.3.2.1

Challenge what we do

G7.1.3.2.2

Tunnels Knowledge

Bridges Knowledge G7.1.1 Remote working/dispersed nature of business

G7.2 Imposed constraints by Clients

G7.1.3.2 Structures Knowledge

G7.1.4 Share scheme/project Knowledge

G7.1.3.2.3 Station Structures Knowledge

G7.1.3

G7.2 Create/innovate Knowledge

Discipline Knowledge

G7.1.3.7.2 Geotechnical Investigations & Assessments

G7.1.3.7 Geotechnical Knowledge

G7.1.3.2.4 Signalling Structures Knowledge

G7.1.3.2.6 Retaining W alls Knowledge

G7.1.3.6

G7.1.3.2.5 OLE Structures Knowledge

Surveying & Gauging G7.1.3.7.1 Foundation & Ground Treatment

G7.1.3.5 Environmental Knowledge

G7.1.3.3 Earthworks Knowledge

G7.1.3.4

G7.1.3.3.1 Examinations Knowledge

Drainage Knowledge

G7.1.3.5.2 G7.1.3.3.2 Investigation & Monitoring Knowledge

Ecology Knowledge G7.1.3.3.4 Guides/Best Practice Knowledge

G7.1.3.5.1 Contaminated Land Knowledge

G7.1.3.4.3 Guides/Best Practice Knowledge

Pway Knowledge G7.1.3.4.2 Land Drainage Knowledge

Figure 1

G7.1.3.3.3 Remedial Solutions/Products

G7.1.3.4.1

G7.1.3.3.2.2

G7.1.3.3.2.1 Ebankments Knowledge

Cuttings Knowledge

A typical Business Unit Knowledge Requirements schema

In view of the potent and graphical nature of WeFA schema, no other documentation or specifications have proven necessary and the final version of the schema for each Business Unit has essentially constituted the only requirements specification for that team.

6.

Knowledge Architecture

6.1

Ontologies and Taxonomies The approach and perspectives of each Business Unit on the ontologies and required taxonomies for their knowledge repository has been unsurprisingly different. This partly arises from the nature of the practice within each discipline consulted as well as the degree of the long term strategic vision exercised in the course of the elicitation and capture sessions. Some Business Units adopted a fairly classical perspective on their discipline and arrived at their knowledge ontologies based on the consensus during the workshops. In spite of the classical nature of some of these ontologies i.e. alignment with organisational structures, the panels representing each Business Unit did have major debates on the naming, distinctions, demarcations and structuring within their area of practice. The WeFA workshops as a result provided a useful catalytic effect in forging consensus between key and often senior people in each Business Unit. At the opposite end of the spectrum, one BU opted for a singular ontology i.e. a heap approach to the structuring of their knowledge repository and decided to part with the conventional wisdom and current practice/organisational conventions. Naturally this


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required other safeguards in order to be able to elicit value from their customised repository which is described as meta-data architecture. A typical ontological and associated taxonomical perspective from one of the BUs is depicted in Figure 2. G7.1.2.1 HOTs initiating a Forum/Newsletter

G7.1.2.2 Skills Chart G7.1.3.1.1 Components

G7.1.3.1.2

G7.1.2.3

G7.1.1 Empower exchange and comms

Projects

Project briefs/sheets

G7.1.3.1.3 Geometry G7.1.2 Share activity/people knowledge

G7.1 Develop a framework share Knowledge

G7.1.3.1 Track Knowledge

G7.1.3.1.4 Formation

G7.1.3.2.1 G7.1.3.2.2

Tunnels Knowledge

Bridges Knowledge G7.1.3.2 Structures Knowledge

G7.1.4 Share scheme/project Knowledge

G7.1.3.2.3 Station Structures Knowledge

G7.1.3 Discipline Knowledge

G7.1.3.7.2 Geotechnical Investigations & Assessments

G7.1.3.7 Geotechnical Knowledge

G7.1.3.2.4 Signalling Structures Knowledge

G7.1.3.2.6 Retaining W alls Knowledge

G7.1.3.6

G7.1.3.2.5 OLE Structures Knowledge

Surveying & Gauging G7.1.3.7.1 Foundation & Ground Treatment

G7.1.3.5 Environmental Knowledge

G7.1.3.3 Earthworks Knowledge

G7.1.3.4

G7.1.3.3.1 Examinations Knowledge

Drainage Knowledge

G7.1.3.5.2 G7.1.3.3.2 Investigation & Monitoring Knowledge

Ecology Knowledge G7.1.3.3.4 Guides/Best Practice Knowledge

G7.1.3.5.1 Contaminated Land Knowledge

G7.1.3.4.3 Guides/Best Practice Knowledge

G7.1.3.4.1 Pway Knowledge G7.1.3.4.2 Land Drainage Knowledge

Figure 2

G7.1.3.3.3 Remedial Solutions/Products

G7.1.3.3.2.2

G7.1.3.3.2.1 Ebankments Knowledge

Cuttings Knowledge

A typical ontology and taxonomy elicited from a Business Unit

The required ontologies and taxonomies pertinent to the Civil Engineering Business Unit in Figure 2 is captured and represented in WeFA notation. This constitutes the key reference source for the architecture of their repository obviating the need for textual user requirements specifications. This principle has been applied throughout the pilot programme to all the four participating Business Units.

6.2

Meta Data With one exception, much reliance is placed on the nature, name, contents and taxonomies of files and documents placed within the repository for each participating Business Unit. However, it became clear after some deliberations that these electronic sources were devoid of some contextual information which may render them useful in specific searches and queries from the repository. Indeed in some cases, the electronic source were of graphical/image or Portable Document Format nature making reference to the textual contents virtually untenable or highly inefficient to achieve. This is particularly challenging to the Business Units which had opted for the “heap” approach to the architecture of their repository. To this end, a second layer of logical information was devised for the contents of the repository for each participating Business Unit. This complementary and context sensitive logical data layer was referred to as meta-data the composition and structure of which was generally arrived at during the second requirements elicitation and capture session. The meta-data for the Commercial Business Unit is depicted against the relevant Goals in their WeFA schema as shown in Figure 3.


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type natural of work contact importance credit rating relationship history geographic area dispute

G7.1.1.1 client related info

G7.1.1 prospects /sales leads type /nature of work type of contract cost of tender preparation tender sum type/stage of tender overhead/margin contribution bid manager contract duration likelihood of success bid history retentions/bonds/pcg partener/subcontractor estimation of risk liquadated damages usp payment terms

G7.1.2 tenders submitted

G7.1 identify and priotising exsiting knowledge

G7.1.3 contracts awarded

G7.1.4 tenders feed back G7.1.1

variance to tender start date project budget contract sign off author project/manager directo client representative

winning or losing rationale winner contract award sum key lessons learned

staff culture in creating info

G7.1.5 projects out turn/feed back value of varations final contribution and profit cusomer satisfaction date retention is due case study deffect liability periopd expiry of bond/guarentee refferees date of final account delivery lessons learned value added to client

Figure 3

A typical meta-data structure derived during WeFA workshops

The meta-date elicited for the Commercial Business Unit is a complex and nested architecture which has posed implementation challenges. The structure for the metadata pertinent to other Business Units is generally simpler and capable of being implemented within a simple form for entry and enquiry operations.

7.

Tool Selection The nature and capabilities of the computer tools required to support the implementation of the pilot KM and collaboration programme has not proven to be a critical factor in the project. Much emphasis has been placed on the comprehensive capture of the users’ requirements and architecture of the desired knowledge repository for each Business Unit. Throughout the consultation and requirements capture phase, any reference to a specific tool and associated features has been deliberately avoided in order to focus on the needs and functional requirements rather than a specific commercial application or system design. However, roughly 2/3 of the way through the consultation and requirements phase, a survey of the available products fulfilling the emerging needs resulted in the identification of a specific tool for the piloting exercise. The selected application is Live Link from Open Text Corporation [Ref 8]. However, to simplify the implementation of the required knowledge repositories for the participating Business Units, Live Link was


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configured and made accessible at the desk top level via internet, thus obviating the need for lengthy evaluation and authorisation by the Information Services department within the Pilot Organisation.

8.

Collaboration and Knowledge Management Implementation The pilot exercise for the application of knowledge management and collaboration paradigm in the Pilot Organisation comprises six core activities in two phases namely; 1.

Consultation & Requirements Capture

2.

Ontological and Taxonomical Architectural Design

3.

Data Preparation

4.

Implementation in a Content Management & Collaboration (COMAL) Facility

5.

Demonstrations, Training & Trials

6.

Consolidation & Conclusion

The first phase (items 1-3 above) comprises mainly preparatory internal tasks resulting in essential knowledge requirements, classifications and structuring focused principally on the needs and perceptions of four BUs. The subsequent phase comprising the remaining three tasks of the pilot project are related to the exploitation of the knowledge structures and determination of the strengths, weaknesses, benefits and risks culminating in a consolidation of the experience gained. An implementation plan was drafted giving an outline view of time scales, milestones and deliverables during and at the end of the pilot period. At the time of writing, the project has progressed to task 4 in the above list. Two additional KM initiatives have been pursued alongside the four Business Units involved in the pilot. One of these aims at developing a Knowledge Exchange for a major Pan European project, supported by many standards, specifications, stakeholders and Directives [Ref. 10-14]. The other relates to the potential for exploiting advanced KM and collaboration practices to enhance the quality of services rendered to clients of an International Union. The architecture of these two supplementary Knowledge Exchanges has largely been devised for demonstration purposes to the stakeholders.

9.

Post Trials Strategy The pilot programme for KM and collaboration is devised as a test bed for the evaluation of the business benefits of this paradigm within a knowledge rich organisation. The intention is to devise a number of metrics and user questionnaires to collect and consolidate information in the course of the implementation with a view to generate two key deliverables at the culmination of the pilot. One of these relates to a documented account of the project, challenges, key learning points and the experience gained. The other relates to a business oriented mainly financial perspective, evaluating the commercial and organisational gains to be made from the adoption of the paradigm for systematic management of knowledge and facilitation of collaboration. The business case would attempt to quantify the likely gains against the potential capital investment in wholesale adoption of the KM and collaboration across the Pilot Organisation.


10.

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Conclusions & Recommendations Whilst the current epoch is recognised as the age of knowledge, the necessity for adoption and up-take of requisite cultural change, processes and procedures for prudent deployment and management of this vital resource has not progressed at uniform or optimal level. The so called Pilot Organisation which has provided an environment for the KM initiative described in this paper is typical of a modern knowledge rich organisation with global ambitions in which, inadequate recognition of the role of knowledge in generation of business value has created inevitable impediments to prosperity and growth. The shortcomings in this organisation pertain to both key dimensions i.e. personal as well as the corporate knowledge in that in spite of the large size and appreciable scale of international activities, there’s no corporate knowledge repository nor a readily accessible expert directory on the intranet. Faced with a dominant and largely successful profile in its operating markets, this corporate has the underpinnings of a ubiquitous IT infrastructure severely under-utilised for collaboration and knowledge sharing purposes. As a consequence, the cultural change required to foster a sharing and collaborating ethos has not taken root causing significant dependence on key individual experts and virtually no appreciable intellectual property at the corporate level. Against such a background, it is not surprising that the pilot project for the evaluation of the significance and role of knowledge centric approach to corporate strategy has faced many organisational and financial challenges. The need for hard metrics and financial case has necessitated a pilot exercise of limited scope in order to provide the essential ingredients for a business case in this context. The design and implementation of a customised Knowledge Exchange for each one of participating Business Units has progressed in spite of the inevitable challenges experienced. The diversity of the four pilot environments is an essential aspect of this endeavour to ensure a representative case can be made for the whole corporate. The metrics and objective data for building an appropriate case have not been identified or planned at this stage but the initial signs even at such preliminary stages point to a very promising and conclusive outcome. The challenges posed by the global competition can be countered by adopting policies and practices conducive to more optimal deployment of human resource which is the only active agent for creativity, innovation and change. This is the surest approach to creating shareholder value.


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