【企管资料】-知识管理战略.PDF

Copyright 2004,Step Two Designs Pty Ltd .auknowledge management content management intranetsAUGUST 2004Developing a knowledge management strategyOrganisations are facing ever-increasingchallenges,brought on by marketplace pres-sures or the nature of the workplace.Many organisations are now looking toknowledge management(KM)to addressthese challenges.Such initiatives are oftenstarted with the development of a knowledgemanagement strategy.To be successful,a KM strategy must domore than just outline high-level goals suchas become a knowledge-enabled organisa-tion.Instead,the strategy must identify the keyneeds and issues within the organisation,and provide a framework for addressingthese.This article provides an approach for devel-oping a KM strategy that focuses strongly onan initial needs analysis.Taking this approach ensures that any activ-ities and initiatives are firmly grounded inthe real needs and challenges confrontingthe organisation.The need for knowledge managementThere are a number of common situationsthat are widely recognised as benefitingfrom knowledge management approaches.While they are not the only issues that canbe tackled with KM techniques,it is usefulto explore a number of these situations in or-der to provide a context for the developmentof a KM strategy.Beyond these typical situations,each organ-isation will have unique issues and prob-lems to overcome.Call centresCall centres have increasingly become themain public face for many organisations.This role is made more challenging by theexpectations of customers that they can getthe answers they need within minutes ofringing up.Other challenges confront call centres,in-cluding high-pressure,closely-monitored environmenthigh staff turnovercostly and lengthy training for new staffIn this environment,the need for knowledgemanagement is clear and immediate.Failureto address these issues impacts upon sales,public reputation or legal exposure.For more on this,see the article Knowledgemanagement for call centres.Front-line staffBeyond the call centre,many organisationshave a wide range of front-line staff who in-teract with customers or members of thepublic.They may operate in the field,such as salesstaff or maintenance crews;or be located atbranches or behind front-desks.In large organisations,these front-line staffare often very dispersed geographically,with limited communication channels tohead office.Typically,there are also fewmechanisms for sharing information be-tween staff working in the same businessarea but different locations.The challenge in the front-line environmentis to ensure consistency,accuracy and re-peatability.For more on this,see the article Knowledgemanagement for front-line staff.A KM strategy must address the real needs and issuesJames Robertson is the managingdirector of Step Two Designs,aknowledge management and con-tent management consultancybased in Sydney,Australia.Jamesspecialises in intranets,contentmanagement strategy,informationarchitecture and usability.Developing a knowledge management strategy Page 2 Copyright 2004,Step Two Designs Pty Ltd .auBusiness managersThe volume of information available to busi-ness management has increased greatly.Known as information overload or info-glut,the challenge is now to filter out thekey information needed to support businessdecisions.The pace of organisational change is also in-creasing,as are the demands on the peopleskills of management staff.In this environment,there is a need forsound decision making.These decisions areenabled by accurate,complete and relevantinformation.Knowledge management can play a key rolein supporting the information needs of man-agement staff.It can also assist with thementoring and coaching skills needed bymodern managers.Aging workforceThe public sector is particularly confrontedby the impacts of an aging workforce.In-creasingly,private sector organisations arealso recognising that this issue needs to beaddressed if the continuity of business oper-ations are to be maintained.Long-serving staff have a depth of knowl-edge that is relied upon by other staff,partic-ularly in environments where little efforthas been put into capturing or managingknowledge at an organisational level.In this situation,the loss of these key staffcan have a major impact upon the level ofknowledge within the organisation.Knowledge management can assist byputting in place a structured mechanism forcapturing or transferring this knowledgewhen staff retire.Supporting innovationMany organisations have now recognisedthe importance of innovation in ensuringlong-term growth(and even survival).This is particularly true in fast-moving in-dustry sectors such as IT,consulting,tele-communications and pharmaceuticals.Most organisations,however,are construct-ed to ensure consistency,repeatability andefficiency of current processes and products.Innovation is does not tend to sit comforta-bly with this type of focus,and organisationsoften need to look to unfamiliar techniquesto encourage and drive innovation.There has been considerable work in theknowledge management field regarding theprocess of innovation,and how to nurture itin a business environment.Organisational environmentEvery organisation has a unique environ-ment,defined by factors such as:purpose and activities of the organisationoverall strategic directionorganisational culturesize of the organisationgeographic spreadstaff skills and experienceorganisational historyavailable resourcesmarketplace factorsFor this reason,each organisation has aunique set of needs and issues to be ad-dressed by knowledge management.It is easy to jump into solutions mode,rec-ommending approaches such as communi-ties of practice,storytelling,contentmanagement systems,and much more.While these approaches may have wide-spread success in other organisations,theywill only succeed in the current environ-ment if they meet actual staff needs.In practice,organisations are littered withwell-meaning but poorly targeted knowl-edge management activities.In many cases,these failed because they simply didnt ad-dress a clear,concrete and imperative prob-lem within the organisation.This is now recognised as one of the criticalsuccess factors for knowledge management:identify the needs within the organisation,and then design the activities accordingly.The loss of key staff can have a major impactAvoid jumping directly into solutions modeDeveloping a knowledge management strategy Page 3 Copyright 2004,Step Two Designs Pty Ltd .auDeveloping a KM strategyThere are many approaches for developing aknowledge management strategy,each sup-ported by a holistic model of KM processes.These can be classified into two main ap-proaches:Top-downThe overall strategic direction of the or-ganisation is used to identify the focus of the knowledge management initiative.This is reflected in a series of activities designed to meet this broad goal.Bottom-upResearch is conducted into the activities of staff involved in key business process-es.The findings of this research high-lights key staff needs and issues,which are then tackled through a range of knowledge management initiatives.Each of these approaches has its strengths,and in practice,a success KM programmemust encompass both.This article presents a model that focusesstrongly on the needs analysis activities withstaff,to drive a primarily bottom-up strategy,as follows:1.Identify the key staff groups within the organisation.These groups deliver the greatest business value,or are involved in the most important business activi-ties.2.Conduct comprehensive and holistic needs analysis activities with selected staff groups,to identify key needs and is-sues.3.Supplement this research with input from senior management and organisa-tional strategy documents,to determine an overall strategic focus.4.Based on these findings,develop recom-mendations for addressing the issues and needs identified.5.Implement a series of strategic and tacti-cal initiatives,based on the recommen-dations.These will select suitable knowledge management techniques and approaches.Benefits of this approachHistorically,many knowledge managementstrategies have focused solely on the top-down approach,identifying high-level ob-jectives such as become a knowledge-ena-bled organisation.With little understanding,of the key issuesand needs of staff throughout the organisa-tion,these initiatives found it difficult to en-gage staff in the required cultural andprocess changes.As a result,many of these initiatives had lit-tle long-term impact on the organisation,de-spite initial efforts.Recognising these issues,this approach fo-cuses much more strongly on the initialneeds analysis activities.Staff needsOrganisationalissuesRoadblocksStrategic focusNeeds analysisIdentify key staffgroupsStrategic inputStrategic&tacticalinitiativesRecommendationsDeveloping a knowledge management strategyDeveloping a knowledge management strategy Page 4 Copyright 2004,Step Two Designs Pty Ltd .auThe approach to developing a KM strategyoutlined in this article provides a number ofmajor benefits:HolisticThe focus on needs analysis will identify awide range of issues and requirements.Some will be organisation-wide,while oth-ers will be specific to individual businessunits or job roles.The use of a range of needs analysis tech-niques will identify:cultural issueskey business needsduplication of effortinconsistencies in practicesinefficiencies in business processesopportunities for improved policies or proceduresmajor business risksand much moreSolution-independentThe approach used to develop the knowl-edge management strategy makes no as-sumptions about the solutions that might beimplemented.As such,the approach is independent of anytechnologies implemented,or knowledgemanagement techniques applied.Instead,the approach is to identify the need,and then determine the solution.SimpleThe use of well-tested needs analysis tech-niques gives confidence that the true issuesin the organisation will be identified.In practice,these simply fall out of the re-search activities,with the key strategic andtactical recommendations becoming obvi-ous in most cases.This simplicity makes the process easy toimplement,and ensures that the findingsand recommendations are well-understoodthroughout the organisation.EfficientA modest amount of initial research will besufficient to identify the most crucial prob-lems within the organisation.These canthen be tackled with suitable activities andinitiatives.Once this first round of projects have deliv-ered tangible business benefits,additionaltargeted research can be used to identify fur-ther issues to be addressed.This iterative approach can then be repeat-ed,ensuring that business improvements areseen even as the next round of research is in-itiated.Targets resourcesThere are many good ideas that can bedrawn from the field of knowledge manage-ment.The challenge is to identify those ap-proaches that will have the greatest impactupon the organisation.By starting with the needs analysis,ap-proaches can be targeted to address the mostcritical issues,or to deliver the greatest busi-ness benefits.Identifying key staff groupsThe first step in the process is to identify thekey staff groups in the organisation.The keystaff are typically those directly involved inthe most important business activities.In general,the key staff groups are more like-ly to be those at the front-line,rather thanmanagers or administrative staff.This will,of course,depend on the nature and struc-ture of the organisation.Common staff groups involve:front-line staffcall centre stafffield workersresearchersclinical staffproduction workersadministrative and support staffmanagers(senior,line)IT staffTalking with staff is always enlighteningTarget the critical issues with the KM strategyDeveloping a knowledge management strategy Page 5 Copyright 2004,Step Two Designs Pty Ltd .auEach of these groups will have specificneeds and issues,as well as those in com-mon with the organisation as a whole.By targeting the key staff groups,the extentto which the needs vary across the organisa-tion can be identified,and the KM strategydeveloped accordingly.Needs analysis techniquesThere are a wide range of need analysis tech-niques,drawn from fields such as knowl-edge management,user-centred design,ethnography and anthropology.Techniques include:facilitated discussionsfocus groupssurveysstaff interviewsworkplace observationcontextual inquirytask analysisIn practice,more than one technique shouldbe used with a selected group of staff,to en-sure that a complete picture is built up.Each of the techniques are briefly describedin the sections below.Facilitated discussionsThere are a wide range of facilitated discus-sion techniques that can be used to exploreissues with targeted staff groups.These aremost commonly used with management,consultants,and other staff comfortablewith these types of meetings.Techniques such as affinity diagrams canbe used to provide structure to the discus-sions,and to capture the issues identified.In many cases,facilitated discussions areused as the primary mechanism for gainingthe strategic input required for the develop-ment of the KM strategy.Focus groupsThese are a specific,and widely-used,formof facilitated discussions that focus on ex-ploring a topic within a group setting.Often used as a way of gathering input fromlarger numbers of stakeholders,focus groupsmust be run carefully if they are to generatemeaningful results.Focus group are best used to explore currentissues and problems,rather than to discussfuture wish-lists of knowledge manage-ment approaches.Focus groups should always be used in con-junction with techniques such as staff inter-views and contextual inquiry,to ensure thatthe results are meaningful.SurveysThe use of surveys is widespread,and theyare a very efficient way of gaining input froma large number of staff throughout an organ-isation.In practice,surveys are best used to gatherstaff opinions,rather than specific informa-tion on which to base decisions.Care must also be taken when developingthe survey questions,and analysing the re-sults.Survey results must always be supportedwith the use of other techniques,to provideconfidence in the findings.Staff interviewsOne-on-one interviews are one of the mosteffective and often used techniques for iden-tifying staff needs and issues.For more on applying these as part of aknowledge management project,see the fol-lowing two articles:Stakeholder interviews as simple knowledge mappingSelecting staff for stakeholder interviewsWorkplace observationThis involves going out into the field to ob-serve the activities of staff,and the environ-ment in which they work.Workplace observation is particularly effec-tive in environments such as call centres,manufacturing areas,field working,or on-the-road staff.It is a very holistic technique that will iden-tify patterns of work and environment issuesNeeds analysis techniques are drawn from many fieldsInterviews are ver