InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
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September 4, 2000 |
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Knowledge Management
Keep Your Knowledge In-House
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Senior IT managers must help all IT staff understand that the only way the entire company will get better is to share information. IT management in particular must foster an environment in which people are willing to talk openly about their experiences without fear of retribution.
The year 2000 date rollover forced some IT organizations to share what they know, and some of them are leveraging what they learned about knowledge management during the Y2K process. In many cases, companies discovered very quickly that they couldn't solve the Y2K crisis by hoarding information or by allowing individual staff members to hoard information.
During its Y2K development work, GTE Corp., which has since merged with Bell Atlantic Corp. to form Verizon Communications, used both knowledge management and process management to disseminate information throughout the company. This was imperative if the company was going to be able to deal with problematic programs and telecommunications switches. The structured processes and enabling software used during Y2K changed GTE's culture by making it a more open work environment where sharing information is considered a positive trait.
The obvious benefit to using knowledge-management systems in an IT department is the reduction in the repeat rate of common mistakes. A good knowledge-management system can reduce project times and costs as IT staffers share best practices, and teach others how to get better at system development.
Historical metrics databases can help project managers better estimate projects to prevent cost overruns and staff overtime. Technical tip databases provide developers with the information they need to solve programming problems.
A knowledge-management system can also reduce the learning curves for new hires, both entry-level and experienced personnel. Best practices databases reduce uncertainty when veterans leave, which prevents information from walking out the door.
If they're properly maintained and constantly updated with new information, best-practice databases can help the IT department and the company as a whole continuously improve quality over time. As the IT department compiles better and more-precise project estimate and mistake databases, IT staffers should be able to avoid estimating errors as well as common mistakes made by previous project teams.
Some key changes must take place to realize the benefits of the transformation to a knowledge-management driven culture. IT departments must move from thinking that each project is an island to an enterprise orientation in which projects become a series of steps toward improvement. This thinking looks for opportunities to work with other project teams to leverage scarce resources.
There's a high degree of management frustration with IT departments regarding goals and measures. Knowledge management provides companies with the ability to gather and use large amounts of measurement data from process-management and data warehouse systems. That data can be extracted from the systems, analyzed, and used to spot trends and problems in management practices in the IT organization.
Many companies buy tools for knowledge management to improve productivity. Tools specific to technical disciplines, such as GroupSystems.com's EasyWinWin OnLine, provide a quick start but may not have the flexibility of a more generic tool such as Lotus Notes and Domino.
GroupSystems does a considerable amount of customization for each discipline it supports. Some tools come with databases that include templates and store previous work. It can be difficult to find a tool that's a clean balance between preset functionality and flexibility.
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