InformationWeek

March 16, 1998

Knowledge Management Evaluation Scenario

By Jeff Angus with Jeetu Patel and Joe Fenner

ffectively sharing and managing a company's knowledge represents a strategic initiative that many corporations are now considering as a way to improve the bottom line. With this in mind, the Information Week/Doculabs benchmark of knowledge management products will use a general knowledge management scenario, in which a consulting group needs to capture knowledge and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time. This delivery might be prompted by an individual's search, automatic transmission based on pre-defined criteria, or transmission in response to patterns recognized by an inference engine. This distribution maximizes the value of the information itself, because it can be used more effectively in business processes.

Clearly, knowledge management is not a set of technologies, but a way of conducting business that may represent a change in corporate behavior. Technology is the key to magnifying the value of knowledge-sharing business practices. Many technologies can play a role, such as push, document management, information search and retrieval, collaboration, data mining, etc.

Knowledge Sources
Knowledge can come from a number of sources; it can be any information that a person knows. This knowledge can reside in a variety of formats, such as:

Desktop applications
E-mail messages and attachments
Web pages
Groupware platforms such as Lotus Notes databases or Microsoft Exchange public folders
Document management systems
Line-of-business datab ases
Paper documents, both form-based and free-form

Consider the knowledge-management opportunity within a multinational corporation's research division. The division's core service is research about emerging technologies the company might use and competitors' products and strategies. "Research" may exist in many forms:

Internally-generated evaluations of technologies
Minutes describing internal brainstorming sessions
Overviews and comments on patent-filings
Third-party clippings and research firms' analyses of competitors
E-mail messages related to any of the above
Competitors' Web pages
Reviews from trade journals about company and competitors' products
News feeds from wire services
Proprietary update subscriptions on international trade and tariff regulations
Videotapes or transcripts of publicly-broadcast radio or television discussing relevant topics

Using the Knowledge
All of this research represents a core set of knowledge for the research division. This knowledge is useful (often critical) to many different groups within the company. However, the context in which the knowledge is used will vary from group to group.

For example, the research division's analysts may need this information when performing a product comparison, or in trying to determine which emerging technology might be the best fit for one of the company's manufacturing operations' new products. Marketing may need the information to keep abreast of trends, arming them with better, sharper selling propositions. Sales may need it to help target early adopters. Executive management may use the information in annual forecasting to help estimate the business opportunity within a particular market segment. Public relations may use the information to determine companies or media outlets to target for marketing activities.

Once established, a knowledge management system can diffuse to other departments and add value by preserving institutional memory. For example, the quality assurance department at the manufacturing facility for a product line has regular meetings with plant management and line workers to discuss product optimization and ways to cut wastage. The knowledge gained in this effort needs to be:

"Remembered" by all the groups at the facility
"Cloned" for use by analogous groups at other plants
Examined to recognize patterns that might reveal unknown information about the plant or the product

Thus, an effective knowledge-management system must allow information to be captured and disseminated to the right users. If effectively shared, the knowledge can be used by all groups within the company (in different contexts) to help make critical business decisions, improve productivity and customer service, spur innovation, replicate successes, avoid repeating proven failures, etc.--ultimately improving the bottom line.

Evaluating Knowledge-Management Technologies
For products that provide kno wledge-management solutions, there are four key areas of interest. We know that not all products will provide comprehensive solutions in all areas; the purpose of the evaluation is to explore the capabilities and target applications for each product, and to describe each product's intended application or best fit.

Knowledge Capture and Organization

How is knowledge captured?
Which types of users are allowed to capture or contribute knowledge?
Which information types and formats are supported?
Does the system provide ways to categorize the information?

Knowledge Sharing and Distribution

How is information delivered to users?
Does the system allow users to search for information?
What kinds of searches?
Can the system push information to users via E-mail or via channel technology?
Which parameters are used to determine the information to pushed to specific users?
Can information be related and inked with other in formation (providing context)?
Who is allowed to "consume" knowledge? Can knowledge be shared outside the company (e.g. customers, suppliers, and partners) to optimize information exchange and processes? Does the system allow users to collaborate?

Knowledge Refining

Does the system provide utilities for analyzing the contents of a knowledge base?
Can the system project what type of knowledge different users require?
Can the system be used for data mining?

System Architecture

Is the system designed for departments or business units, or can it scale to support potentially many thousands of users?
What type of back-end technologies does the product use (operating systems, databases, etc.)?
Does the system leverage existing groupware infrastructures? Internet or intranet infrastructures?
Does the system require a dedicated client, or can users access the system via a browser from any machine on any platform (ubiquito us)?
Does the system allow information exchange outside the organization?

Jeetu Patel and Joe Fenner are with Doculabs

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