the success criteria for implementing knowledge management systems in an organization

The Success Criteria for Implementing Knowledge Management Systems in an Organization By Joe L Feliciano Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of

The Success Criteria for Implementing

Knowledge Management Systems in an Organization

By Joe L Feliciano

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Professional Studies

In Computing

at School of Computer Science and Information Systems

Pace University September 2006

3235023 2006

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Research Signature Approval Page

We hereby certify that this dissertation, submitted by Joe Feliciano, satisfies the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Professional Studies in Computing and has been approved

_- Hsui-lin L Winkler Date

Chairperson of Dissertation Committee

_- Fred Grossman Cha Date

Dissertation Committee Member

_- Constance Knapp Date

Dissertation Committee Member

_- Ron Frank Date

Dissertation Committee Member

School of Computer Science and Information Systems

Pace University 2004

Abstract

The main objective of this dissertation is to explore both the technological and organizational aspects of the success criteria of Knowledge Management Systems (KMS), and focus on the process of building an organizational knowledge base for operational knowledge reuse

In a time of change, more organizations are deploying a variety of Knowledge Management Systems to enhance business processes and performance Information and communication technology (ICT) has provided abundant tools and utilities to enable such systems After nearly a decade of practice in knowledge management, the results are mixed at best and the type of systems utilized are very diverse and often fragmented in infrastructure In identifying these enabling criteria in a knowledge management system, the author wishes to aid in the future analysis, design, and evaluation of successfully utilizing such systems

This study is divided in two parts Part I focuses on building a knowledge process model

in the framework of information systems (IS) and acquiring all the functional and structural attributes The model uses information systems commonly utilized in providing products or services to enlist most of the organizational and technological attributes A generic knowledge management system is characterized as an input-system-output workflow with which a knowledge worker can interact to enhance the service or product Part II validates the criteria identified in the model and analyzes data gathered utilizing surveys of knowledge workers in various industries The analysis of the data collected in exploratory interviews also gave us the opportunity to see how much the industry was still fragmented and what was most important in terms of implementing a KMS

The key findings are both the technological and organizational enablers / criteria that make the KMS more effective, or encourage the knowledge workers to more routinely interact with the knowledge base Technologically, we found scalability, adaptability, transparency, dependability, and personalization to be most important when specifically referring to the KMS itself Organizationally, time and monetary resources, corporate culture, evaluation, business alignment, and training influence the effectiveness of KMS initiative the most

The main contribution of this thesis is the development of the KMS success model and criteria The unique aspect of this research is the utilization of the knowledge worker perspective as opposed to the managerial point of view most commonly used in this type

of research

My loving sister Lisa and Brother in Law Bill provided the quiet work space I needed to

do homework during my transition Thanks guys, I will never forget you being there for

me when I needed it most To my editor, thanks Dad, you did a great job, and fast too! I would have never made it through without my research assistant Eva, who aided in all aspects of the research, from helping to find relevant references, to the statistical analysis

of the data, I appreciate you staying in and keeping me company during those long work weekends I look forward to many “research” projects together

Thank you Dr Winkler for never giving up on me! I’m sure there were many times when you thought we would never get this done, but you were always there to pick up where

we left off It was a moving target at times, but we finally created a finished product To

Dr Knapp and Dr Frank, my committee members, thanks for the extra time, effort, and meetings required to reach the end

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1 Motivation of the Study……… 1

1.2 Statement of the Problem……… 2

1.3 The Scope of This Study……… 4

1.3.1 KM, KMS, KS Relationship ……… 5

1.3.2 Knowledge Worker 9

1.3.3 Definition of a “Successful” KMS……… 10

1.4 Outline of This Study……… 11

Chapter 2: Overview of Knowledge Management Systems 2.1 Introduction……… 12

2.2 KMS – Functionality ……… 12

2.2.1 Knowledge Acquisition / Capturing……… 15

2.2.2 Knowledge Retrieval……….16

2.2.3 Communities of Practice……… 19

2.2.4 Building Taxonomies and Content Management ……… 23

2.3 KMS – Implementation ……… ……….26

2.3.1 Portals/Intranets……… 26

2.3.2 BLogs……… 29

2.3.3 Mobile devices……… 31

2.3.4 Searching Tools ……… 31

2.4 KMS Issues……… 32

Chapter 3: Methodology of Constructing A KMS Model 3.1 Introduction……… 34

3.2 Methodology of the Study……… 34

3.2.1 Building Models……… 35

3.2.2 Analysis and Validation ……… 35

3.3 Knowledge Workflow Description……… 36

3.4 A Model of KMS……….……… 41

3.4.1 Required Interaction……… 43

3.4.2 KMS Functions……… 44

3.4.3 Organizational Knowledge Base……… 44

3.4.4 KMS Usage example……….… 45

3.5 KMS Trends……… 45

3.5.1 Motivation / Incentive to share knowledge……… 45

3.5.2 Structuring Knowledge……… 47

3.5.3 Virtual Collaboration space……… 47

3.5.4 Examination of Related Case Studies ……… … 48

3.5.5 Organizational and Technical KMS Aspects ……… 52

Chapter 4: Extracting Successful KMS Criteria

4.1 Introduction……… 54

4.2 KMS vs Transactional IS……… 55

4.2.1 Purpose……… 57

4.2.2 User……… 58

4.2.3 Output of the System……… 58

4.2.4 Business Objective……… 58

4.2.5 Centralized or Decentralized Structure……… 59

4.3 KMS Success Model ……… ……… 61

4.4 Enablers Extracted from the Model……… 64

4.4.1 Technical Enablers……… 65

4.4.1.1 Scalable……… 65

4.4.1.2 Adaptable ……… 66

4.4.1.3 Transparency……… 66

4.4.1.4 Dependable……….67

4.4.1.5 Personalization……… 68

4.4.2 Organizational Enablers……… 69

4.4.2.1 Resource Allocation……… 69

4.4.2.2 Sharing – Policies & Culture……… 69

4.4.2.3 Evaluations……… 70

4.4.2.4 Training……… 71

4.4.2.5 Business Alignment……… 72

4.5 Conclusion ……… ……… 72

Chapter 5: Validation of the Successful Criteria 5.1 Introduction……… ……… 73

5.2 Design Methodology of Research Validation …….…… ……… ……… 73

5.2.1 Qualitative Methods……… 73

5.2.2 Limitations……… ……… 74

5.2.3 Descriptive Statistics……….……… ……… 75

5.3 The Interview Process……… ……… 75

5.3.1 Interview Materials ……… ……… 76

5.3.2 Interview Data Interpretation……….………….……… ……… 76

5.3.3 Interview Conclusion……… ….….…… 77

5.4 The Survey Process……… ……… … … 78

5.4.1 Survey Design: ……… 79

5.4.2 Survey Findings and Analysis: ……… … …… 80

5.4.2.1 Survey responses for the Scalable enabler……… … …… 82

5.4.2.2 Survey responses for the Adaptable enabler……… 83

5.4.2.3 Survey responses for the Transparency enabler… … ……84

5.4.2.4 Survey responses for the Dependable enabler ……… 85

5.4.2.5 Survey responses for the Personalization enabler …….…… 86

5.4.2.6 Survey responses for the Resource Allocation enabler …… 87

5.4.2.7 Survey responses for the Sharing enabler ……… … …… 88

5.4.2.8 Survey responses for the Evaluations enabler … …… 89

5.4.2.9 Survey responses for the Training enabler ……… … …… 90

5.4.2.10 Survey responses for the Business Alignment enabler … 90

5.5.3 Survey Results (Survey A): ……… ……… …… 91

5.5.4 Survey Results (Survey B): ……… … 93

5.5.5 Free Response Analysis of surveys……….……… …………94

5.5.5.1 (Survey A) respondents who currently utilize KMS……… 96

5.5.5.2 (Survey B) Respondents who don’t utilize KMS………… 98

5.6 Conclusion……… ……… 100

Chapter 6: Conclusions and Future Work 6.1 Introduction……… 102

6.2 Key Findings……… 103

6.2.1 Technical Factors……… 104

6.2.2 Organizational Factors……… 104

6.3 Conclusion ……… 105

6.4 Future Work ……… 107

Glossary Glossary of terms and Acronyms … ……… 109

Appendix Appendix A Permissions ……… 112

Appendix B Interview Questionnaire ……… 113

Appendix C Interviews … ……… 115

Appendix D Interview Findings ….……… 126

Bibliography Refrences ………… ………… … ……… 128

Figures and Tables Figures: 1-1 KM, KS, KMS relationship……… 5

1-2 I.S Success Model by Delone and McLean……… 11

2-1 A K-Station Search/browse Interface……… 19

2-2 Microsoft Community Newsgroup……… 22

2-3 Google.com World Wide Web Taxonomy……… 26

3-1 The Analysis/Model Building Process……….35

3-2 Organizational Knowledge System ……… ……… 37

3-3 A Simple KMS Model……… 42

3-4 An Input-System-Output Model for KMS……… 43

4-1 KMS Success Model - derived from DeLone and McLean’s IS Success Model……… … 64

5-1 Graph of Responses Survey ‘A’……….……… 91

5-2 Graph of Mean Responses Survey ‘A’ ……….……… … 92

5-3 Graph of Responses Survey ‘B’ ……… 93

Tables:

2-1 Summary of KM and KMS……… 13

3-1 Managerial and Operational KM Issues ……… 53

4-1 Transactional IS and KMS Differentiation ……… 55

5-1 Survey responses for the Scalable enabler ……… 82

5-2 Survey responses for the Adaptable enabler ……… 83

5-3 Survey responses for the Transparency enabler ……… 84

5-4 Survey responses for the Dependable enabler ……… ……… 85

5-5 Survey responses for the Personalization enabler ……… 86

5-6 Survey responses for the Resource Allocation enabler ……… ……… 87

5-7 Survey responses for the Sharing (Policies and Culture) enabler ………… 88

5-8 Survey responses for the Evaluations enabler ……… ……… 89

5-9 Survey responses for the Training enabler ……… ……… 90

5-10 Survey responses for the Business Alignment enabler ………… ……… 90

5-11 Survey ‘A’ Question # 17 Free Responses ……….……… 96

5-12 Survey ‘A’ Question # 18 Free Responses ……….……… 97

5-13 Survey ‘B’ Question # 17 Free Responses ……… ………… 98

5-14 Survey ‘B’ Question # 18 Free Responses ……… ………… 99

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Motivation of the Study

Organizational change is inevitable and it can certainly wreak havoc on an organization, even when the change is for a greater good Budget cuts, program shifts, consolidations, program/site openings and closings for one reason or another can lead to a reduction of employees, or more specifically knowledge workers These knowledge workers can change departments or relocate to different office locations within the organization, around the country, or around the world In the fall of 2001, during the economic downturn that strangled the New York City, many companies were performing serious staff reductions, including JBFCS a not for profit health care organization located

in Manhattan There was a turn over of social workers, councilors, and other employee positions Even their ‘Non-Profit’ nature couldn’t shield them, and other companies, from the hardship, nor could it shield many employees from the staff reductions Government funding was cut back in an attempt to keep the city / state afloat As the stock market was stumbling, private donations were getting more difficult to acquire Unemployment was beginning to reach levels that had not been seen in years

Being a member of the Information Technology department of this organization, I saw from a central perspective how many of these changes affected our operations It was

at this point that I began to search for ideas on how Knowledge Management (KM) could benefit my rapidly changing department I then started looking at it from a broader perspective How could it benefit the entire organization? As I studied, I began to develop

questions, and the questions led to a more specific area of research Questions arose from the review of the literature Despite all of the books that have been written about how

KM is the next organizational performance booster, there are still many obstacles, and only some have been identified and discussed Certainly the benefits are highlighted by consulting firms so why aren’t firms everywhere taking the plunge? If some areas like the government are investing in KM, why has it not permeated to other sectors and if so, to what extent? All of these questions, what I’ve noticed in the publications, and what I saw

in my organization, prompted the formalization of this research study

“The growing importance of knowledge as a critical business resource has compelled executives to examine the knowledge underlying their business, giving rise to knowledge management (KM) initiatives” – Atreyi Kankanhalli [48]

1.2 Statement of the Problem

There are ways in which KMS can be implemented that can lead to a more successful knowledge base Reading about KMS tends to generate more questions than it answers Even if a company realizes the benefits of a KMS infrastructure, there are factors that influence KM implementations and consequently the practice of KM as a whole More importantly, discussions on the lack of structure to manage knowledge in its most basic sense are more commonly found “The sharing of information in healthcare is notoriously poor” as stated by Morvin Miller [15] This is the general feeling attained from reading KMS articles, and gathered from attending the E-Gov KM conference in April 2003 Organizations have individual knowledge sources that are not integrated

They repeat mistakes, and fail to make proper use of the knowledge that already exists within the organization [107]

Some organizations are doing some things right Giant Eagle, a grocery retailer and distributor is a good example Utilizing Livelink, a KMS by the Open Text Corporation, the company was able to encourage employees to spread good ideas throughout the organization This company is a good example of a positive KM environment supported by a technology package What makes Giant Eagle worth mentioning is the fact that they steered a competitive corporate environment from the

‘best sales figures’ to the ‘best shared discovery’ To be more specific, although the company didn’t have a history of having the most computer savvy staff, they recognized the importance of their initiative There are various strategies on implementing KM, as it

is not an easy task [93] They didn’t want their efforts to fail despite the obstacles, the competitive culture, lack of computer experience, and the difficulty of employees finding the time to actually use the system Management modified the culture ever so slightly to make their KM initiative work Management encouraged employees to post ideas and they began to get competitive about it One department, for example, posted a discovery They found a way to display an item to maximize sales and impulse buying of the item This successful idea was shared and another store tried it and also found it successful [81]

• If Giant Eagle can apply this kind of framework, why can’t every organization?

• Is there something special about the nature of the grocery retail industry that lends itself to make initiatives of this sort successful?

• Is it as simple as just stumbling on the right combination of managerial direction and technology, or does it have something to do with their historically competitive corporate environment?

• What characteristics / criteria can enable an organization to apply knowledge management to improve competitiveness in this forever changing environment? With all the theory out there on KM and KMS implementation, it would be advantageous to have a concise description of how the structure should look, and how the components, or group of KM components, interact [91] Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs’) are referred to as a group entity, like Information Systems, which can

be a conglomeration of various technologies There are key characteristics that can be identified that can contribute to a successful implementation There are examples of successful implementations that can be referenced as a guide

In addition to technical characteristics there are also non-technical issues that have been discovered that could act as enablers to a successful KMS implementation

KM as we know is not just about the technology As learned from reading the literature, you cannot simply install a Portal and call it the ‘KM initiative’ [91]

1.3 The Scope of This Study

The primary scope of this work is to study the various KM Systems that could make up a company’s Knowledge Base and analyze how knowledge workers can best interact with them Simply, the objective of this dissertation is to identify criteria that can enable KMS practices in an organization

1.3.1 KM, KMS, KS relationship

Figure 1-2 illustrates the relationship between Knowledge Management (KM), a Knowledge System (KS), and Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) You can see as shown in the diagram that Knowledge Management encompasses both KMS and KS Knowledge Management is the most general and it utilizes hardware and software of a KMS and the overall management of the corporate knowledge Ideally there would be one integrated KMS that would contain all of the knowledge in the organization, but the diagram is designed to illustrate common, or possible, configurations This diagram represents real world systems where they may be multiple knowledge management systems, multiple portals or KMS products in global organizations that may not work together Smith and Farguhar state “For the knowledge representation community to have

an impact on knowledge management, it is important that the tools and ontology’s are plug and play compatible to other knowledge management technologies” [91]

Figure 1-1 KS and KMS Relationship

It is difficult to design a system without taking into account some of the human factors that influence Knowledge Management Systems, such as getting people to share their knowledge for example The main thrust of this work is the following:

• To examine various Knowledge Management Systems (KMS) that have been developed and that have evolved in various organizations

• Identify the characteristics and components that make up an organization’s KMS

• Develop a model based on the discovered characteristics

• Analyze the model to isolate the enablers that facilitate the success and utilization

of an organization’s KMS

• Validate the model with data gathered through surveys of Knowledge Workers When implementing a KMS there are factors that have to be considered, such as with the Giant Eagle example, it is easy to see how they had to take the competitive culture and make it work to their advantage Even though they implemented a KMS technology geared to the users, with the competitive culture the way it was, it would have surely meant the technology’s doom

Knowledge management is a growing field and a KM department may depend on many constructs in order to become a recognized structure in an organization, but that is beyond the scope of this research The intention is not to create a checklist for designing

a KM department in an organization, but to analyze the interaction between knowledge workers and the technology designed to help them create, retrieve and disseminate knowledge KM implementation involves an analysis of business strategy, and that is outside the scope of this research [93] The following definitions are included to further outline the scope of this research

What is knowledge?

There can be no discussion about knowledge without first identifying which form

of knowledge is being referred to Philosophers may argue that there is no need for this argument, that once knowledge has left someone’s mind then it is something else, maybe documented information Organizationally we have come to accept the idea that there are multiple forms of knowledge, tacit, and explicit The former we know as the ‘know how’

or ‘know what’ retained in someone’s mind or an “individuals mental models consisting

of maps, beliefs, paradigms, and viewpoints”[7] The latter is the attempt to document or otherwise communicate/share that knowledge with others, or store it for later use [7] This research will focus on explicit organizational knowledge

What is Knowledge Management?

Knowledge management is the management of an organization’s knowledge resources In order to retain vital knowledge, organizations have begun to study tacit and explicit knowledge in an attempt to understand them, and predictably control the flow of knowledge within an organization Professor Becerra-Fernandez states “The need to acquire Intellectual Capital created the Knowledge Management (KM) movement” [12] Knowledge Management is an entire field that has many organizational aspects that would be studied by students at Business Schools Issues such as how to provide incentives for employees to share knowledge are typically KM organizational issues It should also be measured in order to be “managed effectively”[4] In the words of Alavi and Leidner, “Knowledge Management refers to identifying and leveraging the collective knowledge in an organization to help the organization compete” [7] R Mack considers

capturing knowledge from knowledge workers as they go about their regular work, and attempting to make that knowledge available to others, a fundamental aspect of KM Zhu

et al defines it similarly but adds the ‘organization’ of the intellectual assets [107]

When we look inside the box of KM, we find many subsets, such as content management, communities of practice, knowledge retrieval, taxonomies There are also non technical factors such as organizational processes, and social / cultural factors [47, 56] Marwick seems to think KM contains many subsets In his article he states that

“Effective knowledge management typically requires an appropriate combination of organizational, and managerial initiatives along with, in many cases, deployment of appropriate technology” [60]

What is a Knowledge Management System KMS?

A KMS generally refers to the technology set in place to capture, disseminate, and retrieve knowledge A Portal or Intranet could be referred to as a KMS depending on how

it was designed A KMS is a special class of information system applied to managing organizational knowledge [7] In general a KMS is designed to aid in the overall

“application” of organizational knowledge Put simply “Collaboration for KMS users, takes the form of shared access to a database of knowledge “artifacts” such as articles, plans, reports, and memos.”[104]

What is Knowledge System (KS)?

For the purpose of this paper, Knowledge Systems are defined as the conglomeration of both the knowledge flow required to accomplish a business process,

and the KMS used to manage them in the organization They are tightly coupled in the sharing of knowledge There is a fine distinction between KM and KS, as KS is a subset

of KM and can contain all the same components, but a Knowledge system revolves around the workflow and the flow of knowledge out of and back into the KMS or group

of KMSs’ The term ‘Knowledge System’ implies how the knowledge would flow through the organization, in and out of the software, and hardware that a company has employed, Portal, document management, etc In addition, it could include the flow of knowledge through an organization’s knowledge workers Most importantly it would include Knowledge workers and the processes that they use to interact with the KMS Another way to phrase it would be a Knowledge Management Infrastructure Everything that might be put in place to try to aid the flow of knowledge, such as capturing knowledge, supporting knowledge sharing, and aiding communication among knowledge workers Back in 1987 Smith [90] described a Knowledge System as a conglomeration of Knowledge Bases that can be accessed by a single entity Today, we have begun to be a little more specific about the KM terminology in an effort to make things less convoluted and standardize certain concepts

1.3.2 Knowledge Worker

Knowledge workers for the most part are employees that spend most of their day creating knowledge, solving problems, or assimilating knowledge [36] At various times, depending on their task, any employee could be referred to as a ’knowledge worker’, but for the most part, the term is generally held for problem solvers, analysts, or researchers Knowledge workers need systems to aid them to work with existing knowledge, create

new knowledge, and add their own This differs from other employees who may work with Information Systems, processing orders, adding data and information into the system A better way to define a knowledge worker is by the work that they do Knowledge work is “solving problems and accomplishing goals by gathering, organizing, analyzing, creating and synthesizing information and expertise” [56] Drury and Farhoomand [27] state that “Knowledge workers are high-level employees who apply theoretical and analytical knowledge acquired through formal education to develop new products and services” It seems as though this definition has expanded some to include various workers because as mentioned, at times just about any employee can take on the role of a knowledge worker

1.3.3 Definition of a “Successful” KMS

Jennex [46] bases the development of an Organization Memory Information Success Model, on Ackermen’s [1] theory that states that the success of a system can be based on user expectations For the purpose of this study, I will base all analysis, and the development of the survey tool to probe an organization’s KMS on this theory A successful system is one in which the capabilities of the system meets or exceeds user’s expectations [1] This point drives the development of the survey instrument as a tool to probe an organizations system and more importantly determine what specific needs must

be considered when designing and implementing a system One way to determine the success of a system is to utilize the model developed by Delone and McLean [23], illustrated in Figure 1-1

Figure 1-2 IS Success Model [22]

1.4 Outline of This Study

This thesis is divided into several chapters beginning with a general overview and background in Chapter 2 Chapters 3 and 4 then delve more deeply into constructing a KMS model by performing comparative studies of Knowledge Management Systems and information systems Also in these chapters enablers of a successful KMS are also extracted By analyzing factors that contribute to the success of a KMS implementation,

as well as the barriers that prevent one, more complete framework can be built based on current accepted theory as well as what has worked in the field Then, in Chapter 5, surveys are conducted with knowledge workers from areas like the business service sector to validate the success criteria developed in Chapter 4, and the associated characteristics

Chapter 2 Overview of Knowledge Management Systems

2.1 Introduction

As an attendee of the April 2003 E-Gov conference in Washington D.C I’ve noticed that KM has taken hold and is evolving into an integral part of the way we do business The intense focus that it is receiving from enormous government agencies like the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of the Navy, and Air Force, as well as private industry, speaks volumes about its importance to the way things are to be done in the near future Infrastructures are being put in place to support KM activities such as search engines, document management systems, data mining tools, and general systems to support overall collaboration [85] The goal of this chapter is to analyze current Knowledge Management System (KMS) practices, to note where they are derived from, and how they reflect KM’s current state / KM theory

a process then it will be treated differently then if it is regarded as an object, as shown in the Table 2-1 [7]

Knowledge Management (KM)

Implications for Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)

KM Focuses on exposing individuals to potentially useful information and facilitating assimilation of information

KMS will not appear radically different from existing IS, but will be extended toward helping in user assimilation of information

State of Mind Knowledge is the

state of knowing and understanding

KM involves enhancing individual learning and understanding through provision

of information

Role of IT is to provide access to sources of knowledge rather than

knowledge itself

object to be stored and manipulated

Key KM issue is building and managing knowledge stocks

Role of IT involves gathering, storing, and transferring knowledge

Process Knowledge is a

process of applying expertise

KM focus is knowledge flows and the process of creation, sharing, and distributing knowledge

Role of IT is to provide a link among sources of knowledge

to create wider breath and depth of

knowledge flows Access To

Information

Knowledge is a condition of access

to information

KM focus is organized access

to and retrieval of content

Role if IT is to provide effective search and retrieval mechanisms for locating relevant information

Capability Knowledge is the

potential to influence action

KM is about building competencies of understanding strategic know-how

Role of IT is to enhance intellectual capital by supporting development of individual and organizational competencies Table 2-1 Summary of KM and KMS [7]

Some of the KM activities that were discussed in great detail were Document Management, Knowledge Sharing, and knowledge communities In extending their research I’ve discovered some areas that they did not discuss but also fall under the Knowledge Management “umbrella” or the field of KM KM is a diverse area and there are pieces that wouldn’t necessarily fall within KM, but for several reasons, they are included Justification for the inclusions include the fact that KM is an emerging discipline whose borders are yet to be clearly defined, there is no “accepted definition”, and some techniques/technologies provide such good support that they are added There

is always the popular ‘band wagon’ to jump on in an effort to market a product, so companies will use the term KM even if they don’t really have solid justification to do so

Knowledge Management Systems (KMSs’) should follow organizational knowledge flow, to make sure once it is attained it is retained within the organization for future use A great example of this, or more accurately the failure to do this well and the consequences realized, is demonstrated by Nakkiran N Sunassee and David A Sewry[11]

In their article they discuss the success of the Ford Taurus The story starts bright and hopeful, but quickly takes a turn for the worse Unfortunately there wasn’t much effort put into capturing what was learned during the design, production, and rollout of the product line and as they put it, the knowledge was “lost” Ford was generally unable to reproduce what they learned or apply it to another product line Thomas Davenport [21]

demonstrates KMS implementation at Hewlett Packard In the HP case study, we see the importance of focusing on important KM/KMS characteristics

2.2.1 Knowledge Acquisition / Capturing

There is a lot of research that has been done in the area of Knowledge Acquisition / Capturing One of the biggest problems in Knowledge Management (KM) is how to collect the vital information There are many cases in which knowledge is simply not recorded In an ideal world, there would be mechanisms in place, like a shoulder camera/computer that recorded all of a knowledge workers experiences, sifted through it and stored it automatically, or forwarded it to others that could benefit from the newly acquired knowledge Unfortunately no such dream world exists so capturing information

is left to us What is involved varies depending on the scenario, but an example of this is simply creating documents that capture what may need to be ‘remembered’ by the individual or organization Liou [55] describes knowledge acquisition as “ the process of extracting knowledge from experts and structuring this knowledge into a computer readable form” He goes on to say that the techniques utilized in doing this are

“interviewing, observations, protocol analysis, discourse analysis, repertory, grid analysis, brainstorming, nominal group technique, Delphi-technique, consensus decision making, and computer aided group sessions that are reviewed”[55, 96] White and Sleeman [98] state that “To acquire knowledge that is fit for a specific purpose, it is very desirable to have a structured, declarative expression of the knowledge that is needed” Their tool called COCKATOO is an example of a knowledge acquisition tool It is designed to parse the language like a programming language parser or compiler and then

prompt the user with questions related to what it has ‘read’ It does this by following the stages listed below (Direct Excerpt from White and Sleeman [98]):

Knowledge Analysis — The aim of this stage is to capture the most important concepts of the domain and the relationships between their instances In effect, we aim to derive a basic domain ontology

Grammar Construction — In this stage, we decide which of the ontological elements from the previous stage will be included in the knowledge capture A further analysis of these elements (for example, a structural decomposition) leads

to a grammar that captures the basic knowledge requirements in terms of those elements and their multiplicities (e.g., one-one, one-many, many-many)

Adding Constraints — An optional stage to enhance the grammar with

constraints When used, the aim of the stage is twofold: firstly, to remove

unwanted or nonsensical input combinations from the specification; and secondly,

to eliminate redundant questions

Embellishment — Embellishing the grammar with questions and comments Note:

Grammars – determine whether some given text conforms to some given formal grammar

Domain –The ‘purpose’ of the specific knowledge “problem-solving role”

- White and Sleeman [98] Some of the discussion in their paper [98] is somewhat technical when they start to discuss “grammars” and “domains” used when capturing, but it is interesting to see what

is involved in knowledge acquisition and capture and what is currently being done in the field

2.2.2 Knowledge Retrieval

On the other side of the capturing scenario is the retrieval process, and unless knowledge can be stored in such a way that we can find and retrieve it again when the time arises, it is of no value IBM’s e-Depot digital archive is an example of a tool to do just that [76] Knowledge bases are becoming an important part of the organization’s knowledge arsenal A lot of work has been done in getting the retrieval process to be

more effective and relevant Woods et al discuss the use of utilizing natural language processing techniques for “relevance estimation” in retrieving passages and documents [100] Knowledge experiences and documents are stored online for manipulation [24] The process seems simple, store a document, search on it, open the document and instantly review the process, notes, instructions, or whatever we needed to learn/relearn, but unfortunately it isn’t that simple Just keeping the documents in a common place is often a challenge A librarian is required just to keep things organized, and we haven’t even begun to discuss what happens if your search for a particular document or knowledge area pulls up thousands of related documents It would take longer to find the stored knowledge than to relearn it “A significant amount of the processing needed in office environments is related to the classification and retrieval of documents” – Celentano et al [17]

IBM ® has focused on just that Pohs et al describe the Lotus® Knowledge Discovery System [83] The discovery server has been termed the ‘backbone’ of the product, as it provides a very intelligent user interface with both characteristics that is thought to be critical to the retrieval process, a browsing function and a search function The search score is provided that represents the relevance, which is determined by the document size, number of matches

The Kabiria System back in 1995 allowed the user to search on documents based

on the content, usage or structure and retrieval “paradigm” is based on the following knowledge levels: Celentano et al [17]

- Static knowledge, describing the document type, contents, and logical structure

- Procedural Knowledge, describing the document usage within the office in

terms of relationships with other documents, with activities, and with their

executors

- Domain Knowledge, concerning laws, habits, rules, and regulations that

constrain the document’s meanings and usage

Time and effort spent on the structure of document management systems can facilitate the retrieval process Time spent on a system that can index text well, and provide a structure for documents will pay off in the long run with better queries Indexing is simply the representing of documents with key words [107] If a system does

a good job understanding the content of a document, then it will do a better job linking user’s inquiries to the appropriate documents, and thus the existing relative knowledge [17] This isn’t the only way, Dourish et al discuss using document properties, such as last revised, who revised/wrote it, document size, etc as a way to manage documents [26]

Today images, video and non-text items are also stored digitally and Information Communication Technology (ICT) can powerfully retrieve and display these items instantly anywhere in the world The difficulty is indexing them so they can be searched like text documents The content has to be thoroughly represented so it would work with the query algorithms [107]

Figure 2-1 An IBM® Lotus® K-Station search/browse Interface [83]

2.2.3 Communities of Practice (CoP)

Not all of KMSs’ revolve around creating, storing and retrieving documents Communities of Practice (CoP) focus on trying to link people together, or ‘Network Communities’ as discussed by Mynatt et al [71] The term implies a long term relationship between multiple users that are interconnected through computer networks Often there are people we can speak to that have the experience that we need to accomplish something Just from speaking with these individuals we can learn what we need to move forward This area looks to do just that By linking people together, knowledge can be shared and communicated to the right people at the right time, and that’s the ultimate goal Figure 2-1 illustrates a technical tool designed to aid Knowledge Worker collaboration Millen at al state that large organizations look to CoPs’ to

organizational performance” [67] They go on to say that CoPs’ are defined by a

“common disciplinary background, similar work activities and tools, and shared stories, contexts and values” A good example of this is given by Elliott [28] when she discusses open source projects An open source project is usually software that is developed by multiple users around the world Everyone has access to the code, or the programming, that makes up the product These software developers work collaboratively and developers with skills in device drivers work on the drivers, and others with core operating systems skills can work in that area Ultimately the product is enhanced The benefit is that it is tested and enhanced by an entire community that has an interest in doing so They can work together and help each other informally [106]

Chat services and simple web pages are also starting to be designed for this purpose and showing “encourgaging developments” Marwick [60] These simple web boards are places where questions can be posted and answered by people ‘in the know’,

or it will contain a directory, and a list, of people’s skills or specialties The health care organization (JBFCS) is experimenting with a Chat server and so far has found it useful There are times when knowledge workers have to share something quickly, or simply ask

a quick question Chat software provides that capability without the disruption of a ringing telephone or the pleasantries that are required with telephone communication Recently I stumbled on a coworker that had some experience eradicating computer worms We were having difficulty with a worm on a server and I just happen to mention

it to him He mentioned that he had just experienced a similar problem and proceeded to eradicate the malicious code I was lucky in this case, but a current database of our team member’s skills could have assured that I received the assistance and knowledge sharing

that saved the company many hours of ‘relearning’ In their IBM® paper, Lesser and Storck [52] state that “One might think of a community of practice (CoP) as a group of people playing in a field defined by the domain of skills and techniques over which the members of the group interact.” CoP aspects (relationships, connections, common context), lead to social capital and through this social capital the organization attains its performance and thus we can see the benefits outlined in the box connected by the dotted lines By social capital, they refer to the theory that the knowledge and strength held in the organizations CoP can be thought of as an asset They mention that it generally isn’t applied to an organizational chart or a balance sheet because of the difficulty involved in assessing their “contribution” as the authors put it It’s important to note that the authors specifically list e-mail, chat rooms, and discussion groups as mediums or support mechanisms” for CoP’s [52] for the purpose of sharing knowledge [66] It may be in a raw form, but they still give a group of people with common skills and issues a venue to find each other and share knowledge and experiences Generally they also provide a way

of searching through a history of past issues and discussions that may be a helpful knowledge record Figure 2-2 below is a screen shot from Microsoft’s Web Site [103] You can see that there is a search button, but more importantly, in the top right window there is an ongoing discussion on a particular topic, and the contents can be expanded When selected, this opens and shows the related text in the box below it At the top of the text box there are three buttons, New Post, Reply and Search These are key components

of a discussion board, or a “Community Newsgroup”, as Microsoft terms it Although this is an example of an external CoP, the same thing can be done within an organization, keeping the benefits more centralized and thus providing the company with a competitive

edge Organizations look to CoP’s for the following reasons, as outlined in Lesser and Storck [52]

• Decreasing the learning curve of new employees

• Responding more rapidly to customer needs and inquiries

• Reducing rework and preventing ‘reinvention of the wheel’

• Spawning new ideas for products and services

Figure 2-2 Microsoft® Community Newsgroup [103]

A Community of Practice is a way to promote collaboration, and to encourage informal online relationships In her article Mojta [68] describes a scenario where a help desk supports users The users have access to manuals, but the technicians assist with the

“users comprehension” of the knowledge Her findings indicate that as computing systems become more complex, greater collaboration is needed She goes on to state that

Screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation

“The active learning and personal participation levels that community of practice provides make an excellent educational environment for the help desk staff” Anyone who has worked in a support role would rapidly notice this On more than one occasion I have found answers to questions in discussion groups as depicted in Figure 2-2 One doesn’t necessarily have to work in a help desk to recognize the benefits of communicating with peers who experience similar problems and work with similar systems Sometimes organizations are small and there is only one ‘expert’ on a particular system If a problem is experienced, or functionality is sought, CoPs’ provide an avenue

in which to seek support

Other examples of Community of Practice tools are IBM®’s Babble and the University of Hamburg’s WiInf-Central [78] In the IBM® article [94] Babble is discussed in some depth, not only the technical aspects, but also the social and human ones In another IBM® article [36] there is a more in-depth study of the stages of communities and tools that are utilized at each stage An example of one of the stages is the “Building stage” where members learn about each other and the organization recognizes the community

2.2.4 Building Taxonomies and Content Management

At first glance building taxonomies and maintaining content may seem somewhat related to the capturing and retrieval areas, but they are so involved that they have become independent areas When an organization has vast amounts of documents, grouping them becomes helpful Advanced algorithms are being created that will ‘read’ documents and group them into what it thinks, based on the algorithms, is the most

appropriate topic(s)[50] Keeping documents current is a daunting task as well When knowledge gets updated, there must be an effort to make sure the knowledge is credible [44], current, and the old information replaced or properly linked to the newer material Ensuring that there are policies, and technology, in place to support the replacement or linking of old knowledge with new is a function of content management

The first step in automating taxonomies is that the systems need to be able to read and understand a document’s content Work has been done for years to get computers to understand natural language Brachman discusses “representing conceptual information” back in 1979 [14] Once this is done, then one can simply drill down and discover documents based on their subject matter, for example if one were looking for a document regarding an Air Force Fighter, they may start at the top level which may be transportation, then move to aircraft, and ultimately to the particular aircraft, or process related to that aircraft The documents will be available based on the predetermined structure There will always be some manual effort required to build the taxonomy, but the goal is to have the system sift through and categorize the existing documents as accurately as possible to minimize user intervention [13] Graphic user interfaces are designed for quick access In many of the software packages that were demonstrated at the E-Gov KM conference in Washington D.C in April 2003, the topic headings would spin based on the users input, and depending on the selected direction, it would either show lower or higher levels topic levels This makes searching a quick and effortless process [25] Adami et al discusses taxonomies and uses Google’s web directory as an example [2] They also discuss a “Bootstrapping process” which combines “human and machine effort” to build a taxonomy, similar to how Google determines relevant pages in

response to a query request As can be seen from Figure 2-3 an attempt is made to develop a taxonomy for World Wide Web (WWW) Sites and Web pages are broken down into categories One can drill down and interactively search for specific items based

on their categorization It is easy to see how difficult and time consuming this can be because all sites are categorized Automated tools similar to this was demonstrated at the E-Gov conference, some of them were much more robust then the Google site [37], and the designers boasted about the power of their algorithms and how they could do a better job than the competitor’s product, in automatically categorizing pages None of them made the claim that their product worked without the need for user intervention, they only discussed degrees to which involvement was required

Artificial intelligence has introduced us to the concept of Knowledge Representation [73] “Representation of information is needed in any digital archive in order to be able to display stored digital objects in the future” [76] This is starting to take hold and new tools such as XML are being used to do this in a more modern way Leake et al [51] write “ Successfully capturing and sharing expert knowledge depends on the ability to elucidate expert knowledge and to represent it in a form supporting examination by others.” Work is being done to make the representation more readable by humans, previously it tended to be done in ways that made sense to computers, but was difficult to follow [76]

Figure 2-3 Google™ World Wide Web Taxonomy [102]

Screen shot(s) reprinted by permission from The Google Marketing Department

2.3 Implementation

2.3.1 Portals/Intranets

Portals and Intranets are exploding at an exponential rate There is a drive to consolidate all of the powerful technologies that are available to us today Common Portals consist of a user customizable web page that can provide a more centralized access to Internet resources, corporate network resources, and most importantly, legacy systems There is a great deal of information held in legacy information systems, and being able to access it in more current ways is of great value Companies have been able

to hold off on replacing these systems by using Portals, thus saving the company some money and squeezing that much more value out of the original investment [53]

Basically Knowledge sharing is what it is all about Companies expend a great deal of resources to make employees more knowledgeable Employees routinely take this knowledge home with them, but when they are on vacation and the company is in need of

it, or if the employee doesn’t return due to retirement or moving on to another company, there is a loss There are several examples of employees sharing knowledge to benefit the company Copier technicians can be linked by walkie-talkie to help each other They can share knowledge with each other instantaneously by simply clicking the handset Newer techs can lean on more seasoned ones to resolve copier issues while being in different buildings, and working on a separate service call all together

As one example, the Network Management field would greatly benefit from a unique and specialized form of KMS Because Network engineers and managers have to interact with various devices that have to be administered, there needs to be a way for the interaction to be recorded and remembered In addition, there are various network configurations, and a wide range of other related knowledge that can be lost through turn over, or memory lapses, that cost the organization money when it (the organization) has

to ‘relearn’ the knowledge acquired during a network employee’s tenure How and why things were done, as well as who was involved can be valuable information The day after a project is complete it doesn’t seem important enough to record, but at some point

it can be the missing piece to a puzzle In the Alavi and Leidner paper they state that

“The knowledge-based perspective postulates that the services rendered by tangible resources depend on how they are combined and applied, which in turn is a function of

the firm’s know-how (i.e., knowledge)”[7] The following quote further supports this view The authors go on to say that “This knowledge is embedded in and carried through multiple entities including organization culture and identity, routines, policies, systems, and documents, as well as individual employees” [7] Intranets are web sites that are primarily designed for an organization’s internal use Often they contain information relating to the internal departments of the company Intranets have changed the way business is done and they have become more commonplace McNay [61] states “There are two main benefits of a corporate Intranet One is to provide a central location for all corporate information and the other is to build a sense of community to a work force” [61, 92] Intranets are such a good tool for keeping a dispersed group ‘on the same page’ you can see why they are evolving into the Portals that are emerging in organizations today Because they can be enhanced with links and search engines, they lend themselves

to be the tool of choice for corporate users around the world to get what they need Because Portals can essentially be web pages or Intranet sites, they can simply grow from

a basic Intranet where the company posted information of importance to its users, into a powerful source of knowledge and knowledge sources A Portal can be linked to the document management system and provide a wealth of knowledge and access to thousands of documents that contain the gems of the organization’s knowledge [9]

Intranets can be valuable tools, and equally powerful, but as stated in the Ojala article they can be problematic too She quotes Outsell’s CEO Anthea Stratigos who discusses why Intranets fail He states directly that there is often a lack of understanding

of what the “end-user”, or employee in this case, needs [75] This is demonstrated at my organization, where there is no group tasked to work closely with the various departments

within the organization to make sure the Intranet is up to date and complete This starts a snowball effect, because employees will not have confidence in the tool, and thus will not use it, which would lead to them missing something when it is posted there that is useful

2.3.2 BLogs

BLogs have emerged as a very popular place to record and share knowledge They show a lot of promise and they certainly have the flexibility and accessibility that is necessary to be a useful KMS Because they are web based, they can be accessed from anywhere and there are efforts to make them usable from many different devices, such as from PDA’s and cell phones [8] According to www.google.com, which provides free BLOGS, sound files can be posted by calling in to a BLog Calls are automatically converted to digital files BLogs are web pages, but they can keep a recorded history because numerous people from various places can post to the BLog Participants can add comments, pictures, and sound files All of the components that we have come to expect

to see and experience on web pages appear on the BLog This is where the knowledge sharing comes in and why it is such a great KMS tool A forum style updating can take place

BLogs contain many of the enablers that make knowledge workers more apt to use a KMS They can be made to be very dependable by capturing current knowledge and monitoring it BLogs can also be transparent to knowledge worker’s workflow by adapting the most current technologies for interaction, carefully categorizing the Blogs into areas of use, and monitoring the content so the organization’s BLogs are considered reliable

Looking at BLogs from an organizational perspective we clearly see how powerful they can be in recording and sharing knowledge The power of BLogs lies in the fact that they can be organized by subject

Combining BLogs and mobile devices is an example of a current KMS solution BLogs provide the tracking and organizing medium, and devices such as PDAs’ can provide the access as well as the capture medium Shen states in her 2003 article [87] that she doesn’t see mobile devices integrated into KM practices just yet Her research showed that despite the power of mobile devices mobile devices are not part of the

“knowledge Flow” Mobile devices are ideal for providing a communication infrastructure, especially now that many are being empowered with wireless communication for sending e-mail, photos, or simply connecting to the Internet This is why they do seem to be the perfect device to use with BLogs because BLogs, even corporate BLogs of the type proposed here, can be posted, accessed and updated from anywhere on the Internet In addition, the Google BLog page [101] instructs how to update via e-mail These features bring Intranets to life Previously Intranets were only a one way exchange, and Knowledge Management Systems are generally an interactive medium The power of KMSs’ is that you should be able to manipulate them and customize them to match work flow and to ensure you can get what you need from them BLogs give us just that and by utilizing mobile devices we can ensure that we not only update the BLogs, but do it where and when we need to

Fagrell et al [32] seem to concur in their article about a product called Fieldwise, which captures knowledge from mobile users and stores it in a central server This is similar to how mobile devices can aid in BLog knowledge capture and retrieval

2.3.3 Mobile devices

No discussion of modern techniques and tools would be complete without the discussion of mobile computing devices Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s) have invaded and are being used for everything from organizers, calendars, address books, communication devices (phone/e-mail/chat), cameras, word processors and web browsers, just to name a few Shen states [87] that “Mobile computing technology has the potential to become an important part of the knowledge management process not only because of its ability to capture information anytime, anywhere; but its ability to capture information in situ” (right there and then)

2.3.4 Searching Tools

Search tools themselves can almost be a separate KMS in themselves It seems that we can’t exist without them in today’s workplace In a way they enable other technologies, they are the crutch that many knowledge management systems lean on Without search engines we cold not dig through e-mail, we can’t search knowledge bases

by subject, or look for experts in an expert locator database Knowledge can be stored in Blogs, but without a search capability it is difficult to obtain a list of related Blogs When

it comes to sifting through millions of documents of e-mail messages, there is no better way to obtain a list of items that contain the phrase or idea we searched on Search engines enable retrieval/repositories because an enormous repository is useless without a way to get the submitted/stored knowledge back out