Finale Blog for IS 456

This will likely be my last blog. I know we were not "required" to blog these, but wanted to look them over and thought that blogging made sense.

The readings that went into my "Convergance" post (previous) and final project are highlighted here. I am going to pick my favorite article from each of the remaining zip files and blog about it. There were many article in the last weeks, so I'm not even going to try to get them all.

The pace of topics covered for the last few weeks seems to have picked up, but the substance to the topics are shallower. Therefore, what a great balance to wrap things up!

Here we go....

Week 8 Article

Introduction to PMI’s Project Management’s Life Cycle – Egan

As an IT professional, I find the PMI life cycle very interesting. It really was meant to be a waterfall approach, but with agile and iterative cycles, the PM practice is changing. Less and less documentation is required ahead of time and spans of development are shorter. As a result, the practice is adapting.

I so a bit of project management work myself, but do not classify myself as a project manager. With the information gathered in this KM course, it is easy to see that the PM role can be increased or enhanced by making use of knowledge. The templates and best practices we discussed can be applied and used thought the project lifecycle. I believe that KM has a link to all areas of practice an PM is the governing role over project areas.

However, not all work is project work and does not require a PM. Therefore, I would definitely think that KM needs a champion outside the PM practice, but PM must make use of KM when managing a project.

Week 9 Article – Best Practices

Defining Best Practices APQC

This is a very short article, but drives home one point; there is not one best practice due to the fact that everyone is different. I would additionally charge that time and personal preferences have a big part in what best practices should be used. Best practices should be refined by the practitioners that use them.

Usually only one person (but not always) will author a best practice and this person may or may not have the “best” knowledge. I believe that best practices are validated and improved by others. Time will change some things and not others.

Week 9 - BPM

Three Examples of the Worst BPM Practices. – Olding

The first “worst practice” is that IT professionals may not have the expertise to lead a BPM initiative. I would definitely agree with this. Critical thinking and modeling is imperative to BPM. Understanding the business processes may or may not be understood by IT and the skills needed to improve are definitely not.

The second pitfall is underestimating the skills need from BPM. At my work, we have separate “BPI” groups that usually facilitate sessions. Sometimes out of the box thinking and industry knowledge can be very valuable.

Finally, the last point is not to blame end users. Again, I would agree with this. You need to not only understand the end user processes, but have to get buy-in from them and their managers. The job of BPM is to make processes better and BPM professionals are charged with evaluating and selling these ideas.

Week 9 – Organizational Development

The Mysterious Art of KM performance – Davenport

The famous 3 by 3 framework. I really enjoy and can relate to frameworks. Degree of segmentation versus degree of choice is an interesting paradox. The one-size-fits-all versus the one-size-fits-one is the age old struggle. Mandatory specialization versus mass personization. These are really market factors that many companies make and break on. I’m not sure how KM falls directly into these, but I can speculate that the more uniform a solution, the more explicit the knowledge can be and the more personalization that occurs will require more tacit knowledge.

Week 10 – KM and PM

SHARED KNOWLEDGE, “GLITCHES,” AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PERFORMANCE – Hoopes

What I got out of this article was the figure that showed how practices can translate into performance in the form of shared knowledge, cooperation, and coordination. The article states that these are “alternate” means, but I think it is varying degrees of “shared knowledge” to which this article want to focus. Nothing terribly outstanding to me here, but it is important to know that performance is impacted by the practices that are implemented and PM is primarily focused on process.

Week 10 – Management

KM Metrics Guide for DON KM – Navy

Interesting but difficult to follow article. I believe that as in figure 5, a balanced scorecard is implemented in may organizations. However, most companies do not pubize their scorecards as they are proprietary. This article is interesting as it shares the core focuses of the Navy. Measuring performance must be linked to an organization’s goals and vision. This article keeps it’s vision and strategy in the center. However, I believe that most organizations today are migrating away from this and looking at the customer as the center of metrics. “Customer Obsessed” organizations as I’ve seen want to measure what the end-user values.

Convergence

Convergence for me, as probably designed by the course, happened with the final project. We discussed in class the notion of nodes and relatoinships. Solutions can be formed with techology and organization changes. The final project template simpilies it to the following steps....

Overview (process of KM)
Problem ==> Root Cause ==> Solution ==> Rationale ==> Metrics

Appendices (supporting the "Overview")
Appendix A (Root Cause [Fishbone]) ==> Checklist for ID'ing (cause) ==> Solutions ( Technology => Organizational Components => Organizational Culture)

This really summarizes the course nicely and for my "problem," this helps to summarize and draw together the ideas of the course. As the Guinness Beer commercials phrases, "Genius !!!".

Without this project and ultimately the template, everything would not have tied together nicely (for me). Honestly, in the classes we discuss all these separately, but they all hit me in the "convergence" of the final document. Really any problem can be solved with the use of nodes and relationships. The root cause of any problem needs to be found before the solution can be sought. Templates and best practices will re-enforce this learning.

In my opinion, if there was one thing to take away from this class, it would be the notion of "notions and relationships" .

The second thing would be the difference between knowledge and information. One would think this should be self-evident, but when you really think about it, the difference it the reason for KM.

Information vs. Knowledge

While in class a couple of weeks ago, we discussed (or rather re-enforced previous discussions) the difference between information and knowledge. I started my elevator question with comparing the two, and thought it to be on of the critical lessons learned in the course. While putting it in the wiki, I noticed that someone else that make the same distincition and almost the same wording as I. So, I put together a list of what I could find in the course material and some that I thought myself.

Most of the differences is not simply one or the other, but rather a continuum. Some of these examples are better than others,

Elevator Questions

1. "I see from your transcripts that you took a course in KM. What is KM?"

· To define knowledge management, it is first important to define the difference between knowledge and information. Knowledge is a subset of information and can be described information that has been applied and processed. Knowing how to use information is knowledge. So KM is the process of managing this knowledge so that it can be stored and re-used by an individual or organization.
· There are many definitions for KM and most involve a process of acquiring, structuring, storing, and publishing knowledge. Knowledge management can involve systems, technology, and processes. Personal and organizational problems can stem from a lack of KM and KM can in turn solve those problems.

2. "Tell me how you would apply KM in my organization."
· KM can be applied in many different ways in an organization, but it really depends on the organizational needs and issues. I would start by asking you what are your problems, and then I could recommend how KM systems may be able to fix them. KM is not a set of specific technologies and one size does not fit all.
· For example, if your problem was a lack of trained personnel, I would ask why that is and first try to get to the root cause. Then I could recommend a process or a technology that could help.
· Every company uses KM to some degree. Having written procedures or a intranet portal can be a form of KM. More robust technologies are available to help manage the knowledge within an organization, but again, they should relate to the organizational need.

3. "What KM technologies would you recommend here?"

· As stated in the last question, there are many technologies available and a solution should be tailored based on the organization and the need. There is no one technology that can solve all your problems. I would be more than happy to try to help you evaluate the issues and choose the best for your company. The main reason for knowledge management is to address issues with capturing knowledge. Technologies do not have to be sophisticated, but the change must be accepted by your company.
· Many KM technologies like email, portals, search engines, and document storage are widely used, but may need to be revamped in order to capture and disseminate the knowledge of employees.

4. "KM sounds great, but how do I justify KM here?"

· To justify KM, you simply need to ask yourself what is your biggest asset. Likely in the service industry, 99 percent of people would say that it is their resources. So if your resources or intellectual capital is the most important thing to your company, I would ask how you are managing, storing, internally-sharing, and retrieving your largest asset? This is how KM can be justified. It is about retaining corporate knowledge and making the best use of what your people know so that it can be reused by others in your company.
· KM may be incorporated in existing technologies like email or document storage and justifying the cost is like any other projects. The benefits must be quantified and measured. A KM strategy and plan is the first step in justifying the need to formal KM systems.

5. "KM sounds great, but what KM metrics do you recommend?"

· KM metrics are used to quantify the value and effectiveness of KM initiatives. The KM strategy that I discussed earlier should dictate what metrics are important. If your company has problems with training new employees, then metrics around the time and effort taken to train employees would be important. Metrics must be continually evaluated and used for improvement. They are the means to know if KM is working and must be aligned with the organizational objectives. Every organization will have different metrics and the correct ones for your company must help it improve and evaluate the KM initiates.

6. "Tell me the main barriers to adopting KM I can anticipate. How would you overcomethem?"

· Managing the change of any systems is a major barrier. Most people do not like change and will resist. People need to see what is in it for them. Change management must work hand-in-hand when any new systems are introduced.
· Additionally, a lack of communication and incentives to use KM and it’s technologies often makes people resist KM. Again, the need for KM must be communicated and business processes must integrate the technologies. Incentive can be given to employees for contributing to the effort.
· Many forms of knowledge is very difficult to capture. Tacit knowledge by definition is not easily articulated. Teaching people how they learn and how to teach can help to overcome this obstacle. When training a new employee, the new employee may be able to articulate knowledge learned more easily than the teacher.
· Certain people do not want to be known as an expert or want to share knowledge if they are an expert. People don’t want to be pigeon-holed into doing the same job over and over. In technology, changes are continuous an overachievers want to learn something new and not work on the same thing repeatedly. Additionally, many people are afraid to share what they know for the think that they will not longer be needed if others can access their knowledge. The organization must reward individuals for contributions and find new ways for people to advance.

Week 6a Article Summary

Now for the second part of the reading for this week. I’m taking a little different approach based on the blog questions posed and the length of the articles. I’m just going to answer the questions posed. The headings of the articles are bold, the questions are in italics, and the answers are normal.

The Chaos of Content

List 3 sources of tension between IT and the user community, in terms of enterprise content management.
o Centralize vs. Empower (IT vs. Business)
o Simplify vs. Access (IT vs. Business)
o Manage vs. Leverage (IT vs. Business)

Unlock the Value of Content to Maximize Online Business Performance

Getting the right content, to the right person, is a popular KM phrase.

How can better content enable enterprises to optimize the customer experience?

o Strengthen customer loyalty.
o Achieve unified brands, messages and corporate image.
o Accelerate worldwide product launches and promotions.
o Optimize customer process efficiencies.
o Provide regulatory compliance and security.

Content Management vs. Knowledge Management

The article mentions some differences between CM and KM. Which of these terms describe CM, and which describe KM?
o Capture - KM
o Create - CM
o Route - KM
o Manage - CM
o Convert - KM
o Publish - CM

Is CM or KM bigger in scope, i.e. does one belong under the other’s umbrella KM?

o KM is bigger, more frequent, and more fluid than CM
o CM belongs under the umbrella of KM

Managing Email Overload: The Smart, Secure and Legal Way

Name 3 drivers that dictate what an email management solution must do.

o Corporate Records for regulatory compliance and legal discovery
o Email growth as an IT headache
o Source of business critical information

Name 5 requirements of any email management solution.

o Retain messages in compliance with regulations and corporate policies;
o Provide a highly scalable repository able to keep pace with email volume growth and long retention periods to aggregate billions of email messages;
o Facilitate searching as required for legal discovery;
o Improve system performance and reliability; and
o Integrate email with other corporate records and content.

What are some consequences of not having an email management system?

o Overloaded servers will degrade performance
o Users will have limits
o Expenses for non-compliance related to legal discovery and regulatory requests
o Information that could be shared is lost

Today's Search: All The Power. No Pain.

What are some criteria for evaluating an enterprise search solution?

Information location (multiple repositories), data formats, speed needed to search, need to change the user interface, training time, ability to export data, support, and implentation time.

The Emerging Role of SharePoint in ECM

Do you think SharePoint is a good choice for students to search a discussion forum on COLWeb? Why or why not?

No, the cost is very high for one reason. Additionally, as the article suggests, it is not easily integrated with other applications and requirements for the COLWeb would likely not work out of the box. Sharepoint is also better suited for a large number of documents or forums rather than a sub-system.

Top Five Reasons to Outsource Document Capture

Name the “top five reasons to outsource your document capture project”.

1. Focus on your organization’s core business processes;
2. Improve service levels to clients and reduce transaction costs at the same time;
3. Faster and more secure implementation of compliance and discovery initiatives;
4. Providing near-term cost savings while avoiding technological obsolescence; and
5. Cost-effective disaster recovery.

Will Your Next CMS Scale to Meet Your Demands?

Is content management something you buy, or something you do? Explain.

CM is something you do because it is the process of managing information for you and your customers. The technology that administers CM will come and go, but the managing information is something at you must always do.

The Value of SharePoint-Based ECM Solutions

What are the key chunks of functionality that an enterprise content management system should have?

Document scanning, imaging, report management, business process management, content lifecycles, unified policy administration, central audit logging, reporting and intelligent content organization

How to Correct Your Organization’s Content Myopia

What is the best approach to transforming these business areas with Enterprise Content Management (ECM)?

o Accounts payable - Document Management - streamline and automate related processes—everything from the receipt of invoices and supporting documents through approval and archiving—while ensuring compliance with government regulations and company policies.
o Contract management - Workflow - control and accelerate the contract process from authoring and approvals to execution.
o Client engagement - Collaborate on Projects Real-time - provide secure, central,Web-based workspaces that enable collaboration across projects and around the globe.
o Compliance - enforce government regulations and company policies enterprisewide so content remains complete, accurate and secure.
o New product development - support real-time decision making and reduce time-to-market by facilitating global collaboration.
o Enterprise marketing - overcome the many challenges posed by today’s global marketplace. With the right approach, you can streamline the marketing process and provide seamless access to marketing content. Coordinate campaigns, product launches and ongoing branding and marketing communications. Keep projects on track, reduce overall costs and exert greater control over brand assets using media repositories, creative workflows and virtual workspaces.

Widgets, Wizzbangs and Whoozits

New functionality on your web site should be in alignment with your company's business model.

Give an example of when a discussion forum might not be a good idea on a website.

When it is anticipated that customers may have negative feedback due to turnover or negative experiences.

Is On-Demand Content Management Right for You?

In a few paragraphs, explain when SaaS would be an appropriate alternative for content management?

A SaaS would be a good option if you need much functionality that is not easily found in COTS software. Features such as fax functionality, OCR, and workflow make SaaS a viable option.

Also, if time to market is short, Saas solutions only need to be configured and not implemented. This can be days rather than months. Trial periods can give users the feel without any customizations.

If cost is a concern, SaaS is usually a monthly fee. Costly up-front development costs are avoided and total ownership cost is lower.

If the needs of the business are rapidly changing, SaaS does not require upgrades and new functionality is automatically delivered. The user can decide with updates to take from the SaaS.

Finally, if most of your needs (80%) can be met with a SaaS, then it is likely a good idea. The remaining 20% can be usually be configured.

Feedback on this exercise.

Most of the questions did capture the heart of the articles, but it was a lot of work with the other articles. I did enjoy the articles especially the first one. Personally, I like less struture in the blogs, but this was a good way to get through a lot of material more quickly.

Week 6 Article Summary

Wow, we’re already into week 6…more than half way through. I'm doing the first part of the articles here the the "6a" in a seperate post after this one.

Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning. King.

Figure 1 show the KM cycle model and is very similar to the diagram that we have been talking about in class starting with knowledge in a cloud. The class model goes if my notes serve me correctly…

Knowledge => Capture => Structure => Store => Disseminate => Use => Reuse => Integrate

We also had a simpler model in the second class that went…

Knowledge => Encoding => Channel => Information

So the model presented in the article looks to be much more from an organizational point of view while our class discussions were more general. Sub-bullets under some of the models provides more information and it is interesting that Nokana’s model from reading a few weeks ago shows how knowledge is created. I still believe that not all tacit knowledge can be encoded. Also acquisition of knowledge was not previously explicitly discussed in the model. Before reading the article I could not tell you the difference between transfer and sharing, but transfer is direct learning from one source to another and sharing is putting information out there for anyone to get.

Per the blog question, the learning aspect has been added in addition to the other sub-points. Learning is in almost the end of the process. That makes sense that to learn something, it must be transferred or shared, but how did it get to be transferred or shared in the first place? Something or someone has to learn about something before it can be stored. I would think that learning also occurs in the creation and acquisition phases. It depends on who is learning it. It may be the context that this is how it is perceived from an organization.

The article states that Organizational Learning (OL) is complimentary to KM. It states that they are really the same thing, but OL is a process and KM is the content. Or it also says that OL is the goal of KM. I like the goal inference better and again it is the context of the organization that creates the OL. My original thinking is that KM encompassed all the concepts of OL and I think it still may. However, OL is a unique concept that can be looked at in addition to KM.

Organizational Learning: The Contributing Processes and the Literatures. Huber.

For this article, the four different ways that an organization learns are listed: Knowledge Acquisition, Information Distribution, Information Interpretation, and Organizational Memory. To answer the blog question about where does media richness fit in here, it is in the Information Interpretation. The article is somewhat theoretical in its definition of media richness, but is on target describing it in terms of the enhancement of the sender and receivers understanding of each other. It really does not talk about technology, but given the time it was written, 1991, it would have missed the current technological trends.

Perception of information is enhanced with media richness by adding sensory information. The expression a picture is worth a 1,000 words is true, but a video is probably worth 1,000,000 words. The media richness exercise with the Metallica song lyrics, song, and video was meant to illustrate the power that media can highlight. This article does address the media, but not our current mediums that further enhance the Information Interpretation.

Unlearning is a new term to me and like media richness falls in the Information Interpretation category for learning. It seems like relatively self-explanatory. However; it is a purposeful action that can lead to new learning and reading about is difficult in the context of the article. Unlearning may be getting rid of undesirable information or even personnel. If undesirable learning is hurting an organization, it must drop them. If they are dropped, but organizational memory learning may also need to be altered. Unlearning is in the same category as media richness, but I really do not think that it should be in the Information Interpretation category and may be better suited for Organization Memory. Interpretation to me means how something is learned while memory is what is retrained. Since unlearning is discarding what is learned memory seems a better fit.

This was a very difficult article to even browse. The concepts are solid, but not my favorite article.

Organizational Learning Questionnaire 12 21 04

I really like the questionnaire. In my profession, we have acquired other companies and always start with a questionnaire to gather knowledge about that institution. Questionnaires are useful to access what the current state is for an unknown situation. Although may of the concepts are subjective, trying to give them values it helpful in understanding.

Working Knowledge How Organizations Manage What They Know.chapter 5.doc

I really liked the introduction to the article and it is much easier to read than Huber. The antidote that to be successful you hire smart people and get them to talk is really obvious, but insightful. The article states that getting them to talk is the difficult part and thus the crux of KM.

Getting people to communicate and the barriers to this communication are summarized nicely in the article. Many of the solutions point to promoting teamwork and “thick communication” (as we discussed in class). Rewards and education are other ways to overcome barriers. One of the biggest barriers that I have seen is lack of time. If everyone had time to transfer knowledge, then many problems could be avoided. Setting aside time to transfer knowledge must come from the top of the organization. Differences in culture and frames of reference are also getting to be very common especially with globalization. This may be one of the most difficult to combat and getting face-to-face time is often difficult.

Transfer = Transmission + Absorption (and Use)

I really like this equation and summarizes KM transfer nicely. Many of the barriers discussed are either a transmission or absorption issue. Media richness as discussed in the Huber article can enhance transmission. Almost any KM issue can fit into this equation.

General Discussion:

Difference between Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning

In my own words without consulting references beyond the articles read here, OL is a part of KM and applies to how KM is applied and learned in an organization. As we’ve discussed before, KM can apply to individuals as well. OL is group behavior and how an organization acquires, uses, retains, and applies knowledge.

Difference between knowledge transfer and OL

Knowledge transfer as described earlier is the transmission and absorption of knowledge. Organizational learning is larger, more formal and encompasses the four categories that Huber describes. Transfer may occur, but in OL it states how to get the knowledge, how to integrate it, how to distribute it, and how to retain it.

Difference between knowledge transfer and KM

Similar to the above question, knowledge transfer is a piece of KM. KM is even broader than OL. Knowledge transfer is one piece of KM and like we discussed in class, almost anything can be classed as a KM problem, but knowledge transfer encompasses only the transmission.

Week 5 Article Summary

This week as part of the articles, we also have been given a list of questions to focus upon as well as some general reflections. I’ll tackle the required questions, but will also blog about any ideas I found interesting. I’ll blog articles in order of the questions.

Action Learning in Action: Transforming Problems and People for World-Class Organizational Learning. Marquardt.

System thinking is a skill that I have personally been trying hard to master. At work, I strive to look at problems from all aspects and think of how it would impact not only my area of expertise, but all areas. I like reading about system thinking and hope that we discuss more than the short blurb in this article.

The six steps of problem solving that are described in the article are fairly self-evident, but laying them out shows where steps are often missed or skipped. Some problems really do need all these steps, but simple problem-solving often does not lend itself to this formal of a model.

I believe that determining the root cause of the problem is the most important step. Problems will occur and be solved, but until the root cause is known, the problem will likely surface again. Getting to the source of the problem will help to understand the problem itself and will be input into the solution.

There are 2 steps that are before the root cause. The first is presenting the problem. This is likely from the person reporting the problem and may or may not be the true problem at hand. In the second step, “reframing the problem”, a group will validate that the problem presented. This is necessary as some problems may be a result of another or not a problem at all. These two steps are necessary to properly identify the problem before the cause of the problem can be determined. I believe that often reframing will lead directly to the root cause especially when the source of the problem is easily found.

After the root cause, the following 3 steps are important to develop solutions, evaluate them and implement. However, these cannot be properly performed with knowing the root cause.

The pizza man story and subsequent dialog about looking for fresh ideas and alternatives is very interesting. I have seen many times when someone new or unfamiliar with a problem presents a questions or solutions that are often overlooked. I also believe that turnover in a company is a good thing because with the same persons doing the same job, stale thinking results. Having new and outside persons look at a problem is a great idea and something that I will have to keep in mind.

Understanding & Supporting Decision Making. Klein.

Naturalists seek to make observations that are a precursor to the traditional decision-making process. Naturalistic Decision Making (NDM) is a process of solving problems using analysis and observations in the natural setting of the problem. Traditional decision making starts with a theory and NDM observes before forming a theory. NDM studies problems and does not make immediate decisions. Teams are often set in the problem area like a battlefield instead of using traditional problem solving methods.

Klein challenges that abstraction is not a good thing in problem solving and that seeing that actual problem in its setting may make solving it easier. This makes sense, but is different than some of the abstraction premises made in IT.

Situational awareness is a term used that describes how naturalists make decisions. I think this is a very important phenomenon because in order to solve a problem, you have to be aware of that the situation is and act upon it. Every problem is different and knowing the context of it will lead to the cause and decision.

What Data Mining Can and Can’t Do. Alter.

Data mining, modeling, and warehousing cannot capture randomness in the way people behave. Trends about a demographic may be collected, but individual habits may times cannot be explained. The article challenges that the more data that is collected, the more likely the data may be skewed due to random behavior.

To summarize the article I would say that random behavior cannot be caught by looking at data. Data mining is good for collecting information and breaking it into groups, but cannot be depended upon for all decisions. Sometimes keeping things simple can be better than trying to analyze every minor detail. “Situational awareness” from the previous article is applicable in this article as well. “It depends” is another term that I frequently use because every problem is unique and a one-size-fits-all answer never works.

Five Steps to Business Intelligence Project Success. Wise.

The first part of the article talks how it is difficult to measure intangible benefits. It also talks about time and budget in terms of project success. In class we have talked about you retain only certain knowledge from classes. From one project management class, I have retained the notion that it is not just time and money, but also quality that are factors that act upon each other. If you are on time and on budget, but quality may not be there. And high quality can mean higher costs and longer timeframes. BI is an attempt to gather information in a form which can help drive decisions.

The five steps that are described in this article are very similar to the six steps in the previous article. Identify, determine, understand, train, and implement the solution are similar to problem solving. I also think that the premise of the article is similar to the data mining article above in that the solutions it often depends on the situation. BI must be implemented with the solution in mind.

General Reflections.

“Decision-making” versus “Problem Solving”

Decision-making implies that there are alternatives from which to choose while problem-solving is making the alternatives. I do believe that the two work together very closely, but are different in nature. I think that people use the terms interchangeably.

True or false: There are good decisions, and there are bad decisions.

True, but there are many times decisions that are in the middle and have good and bad consequences. Many problems do not have a binary outcome and therefore cannot be either entirely good or bad. The definition of a “wicked problem” accurately describes that there is not always a good and bad alternative.

True or false: Better information yields better decision making.

True, again sometimes. Based on the last two articles, I’ll straddle the fence and say that better information can help, but not always. Randomness dictates that even with much information, decisions do not always follow a pattern.

True or false: Better knowledge yields better decision making.

True, again sometimes for the same reason above. However, I would rather have knowledge than information. Knowledge will have more context than just information. Knowledge is knowing what to do with information. Information alone is useless unless it is interpreted correctly.