BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Pass the tomato test
The key to successful implementation of a knowledge management system is to build succeed in that they are more flexible
it around the human processes, rather than the technology, writes Nick Booth
KEY POINTS
● Classic mistake is developers
trying to make humans work
around their systems
● Knowledge management is
something you do, not a
system you buy
● Social networking tools can
help to galvanise a workforce
into sharing intelligence
22 | 15-21 JULY 2008
T
he concept of knowledge
management is nothing new:
organisations have always
struggled to maximise their
intelligence. It can be defined as the Edwards, information management
process by which an enterprise gath-
ers, organises, shares and analyses its ler Group. As silos of information
knowledge in terms of resources,
documents and skills.
The knowledge management
culture evolved in response to the in- ess.
creasing number of disparate silos of
information that emerged in corpora-
tions as departmental computing
evolved.
Yet according to analyst firm
Gartner, at the turn of the century,
surprisingly few enterprises had a
comprehensive knowledge manage-
ment practice operation. Although if
one includes groupware, or collabo-
ration, in the definition of knowledge tells you it is a fruit. But only knowl-
management, then the first systems
would have been Lotus Notes (which
later became IBM Lotus Domino).
But, as Peter King, office server
group manager at Microsoft, says,
“Ask 10 people what they mean by
collaboration, and you will get 10 dif- opers tried to make humans work
ferent answers.”
other way around.
“Knowledge management is some-
thing you do, not a system you buy,”
says analyst Jeffrey Mann, research
vice-president at Gartner. “What
enterprises should have done is work
out what they wanted to do, and
picked the best tools to fit around
that way of working.”
The problem was that in the early
days, IT systems were not fluid
enough to be adapted as tools. If
groupware could be clunky and un-
workable, the corporate intranet was
even worse. “Only a fraction of peo-
ple used corporate intranets,” says
Edwards. “It was too time consuming
to look at, let alone contribute to.”
Charles Armstrong, CEO of Tram-
poline Systems, says, “The first gen-
eration of knowledge management
systems was a disaster, because it was
all focused on documents, rather
than people.”
Trampoline is one of a new breed
of suppliers that proposes to harness
social networking tools as a way to
connect people. Gartner also identi-
fied Connectbeam and SocialText as
emerging players in this space.
Web 2.0 tools, such as Wikipedia,
Digg and Facebook, are more likely to
and able to fit around how we work.
But they need to get back to basics,
says Edwards.
“Originally, the internet was
pulled together to allow academics to
This illustrates one of the supreme work together, and that was knowl-
ironies of the information age. It edge management working at a social
would be more accurate to call it the level, but somehow, when the inter-
disinformation age, says Richard net went corporate, we lost the plot,”
he says.
practice director at research firm But- As technologists became bogged
down by issues such as the choice of
were crudely cobbled together, cor- servers, browsers and interfaces, the
porations created a data monster that original concept – who knows
hindered the productive proc- whom, and who knows what –
was lost. “Person-to-person
If early incarnations of “Data tells you connectivity lost out to
knowledge manage- that red thing is a system-level obses-
ment had a failing, it tomato. Information sions,” says Edwards.
was in the information tells you it’s a fruit. But Clive Longbottom,
overload they created. service director at re-
only knowledge tells
“Information without search company Quo-
context is simply raw you not to use it in circa, agrees.
data, which is not knowl- a fruit salad” “The big problem with
edge. Data tells you that red old-style systems, built
thing is a tomato. Information around document management
and databases, is that they can only
edge tells you not to use it in a fruit deal with knowledge that has been
salad,” says Edwards. captured and is under direct manage-
ment – about 20% of a company’s
Flawed approach electronic information – which in
The classic mistake in knowledge turn is probably about 20% of its total
management is that software devel- information,” he says. “So companies
try to make their decisions on what
around their systems, rather than the they can find in 4% of their actual in-
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BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY
formation; not a good idea.”
Social networking can be good, but
Remember, it can also create difficulties, says
Longbottom. Say there is a highly
bombarding
specific problem, and only one per-
everyone with too son out of the target audience re-
much information can sponds. The information they give
be worse than giving appears authoritative and a decision
them too little is based on it, only for it to emerge
that the individual is talking non-
sense.
“Or, as more often happens, infor-
24 | 15-21 JULY 2008
mation is offered by someone that
starts a firestorm. Then you have to
try to find the truth among all the
crap that is spouted. The wisdom of
the crowd can be a dangerous thing.”
People who worry about knowl-
edge management technology are
missing the point, warns Mann. “If
you talk about this challenge in terms
of the technology or platforms you
want to invest in, you are on the
wrong track straight away. It is about
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what you do, not what you buy,” he
says.
Mann says businesses should start
by identifying the human processes.
What are the needs of your work-
force, which assets do you want to
bring together, and which do you
want to keep apart?
Create an inventory first, then work
out which intellectual or knowledge
assets you need to bring together as a
priority. Remember, bombarding eve-
ryone with too much information can
be even worse than too little. If people
desperately need information, they
can always find a way (through e-
mail, phone calls and instant messag-
ing). But switching off the tide of use-
less information – without cutting
yourself off from the useful nuggets
that might come in – is much harder.
Identify the
bottlenecks, says Case study
Mann. “Where Knowledge
management failures
are the commu- central to 2003 space
nication prob- shuttle disaster
lems? Where are computerweekly.com/
the areas in any 196769.htm
process where
decision times take too long? Once
the targets are well established, it is a
question of bringing in the right
tools.”
Then work out the simple areas
where you can effect change and get
results. This, says Mann, is where so
many projects go wrong. But the
damage caused by overambition can
be rectified.
Prove value
It is important to understand that im-
plementing a knowledge manage-
ment system is a political act, and in
office politics, as in party politics,
you need to introduce some eye-
catching initiatives that will quickly
prove the value of your work. Go for
what Mann calls the easiest “multi-
pliers”, the obvious bottlenecks you
can fix straight away, which will
immediately create value.
Then it becomes a technology
project, and each case has a different
requirement. In some cases, social net-
working technology is the best way of
galvanising the workforce into better
teamwork and sharing more intelli-
gence. In other areas, a specialist sys-
tem, such as IBM Lotus Connections,
could do the job, but will initially
make demands on your staff’s time
and the department’s training budget.
The beauty of social networking
tools, argues Trampoline’s Arm-
strong, is they don’t require training.
Facebook is doing the training for
you. A system such as Trampoline’s
BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY

Flightdeck, for example, gives users customise these interfaces into what-
a front end they recognise, while ever shape their knowledge manage-
underneath it is a corporate ment project requires, says Mi-
tool. crosoft’s Peter King.
On the other hand, in The Department for
the National Health There can be Environment, Food and
Service, Wikipedia and problems if success Rural Affairs achieves
Google have become relies on the users’ its current levels of ef-
the knowledge manage- ficiency using Share-
ment tools of choice. fastidious operation point. A more positive
Visit Kingston Hospital of the system advertisement for
in Surrey, for example, knowledge management
and even an imminent sur- might be the NHS Confed-
geon will be on Wikipedia in eration. The organisation used
minutes, trying to match your symp- Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server to
toms with the various types of hernia create an intranet, Fednet, to promote
described in the online encyclopae- better internal communication across
dia. 200 locations. It claims 90% of em-
ployees use Fednet.
Customised interfaces However, there can be problems if
Having made the case for free tools, success relies on the users’ fastidious
there is an argument to be made for operation of the system. Finding in-
traditional corporate software suppli- formation depends on how well it is
ers, such as Microsoft. tagged, and according to Butler
Arguably, Explorer and Office ap- Group research, only 6% of people
plications have the greatest user base properly tag a document.
of all desktop tools. Microsoft’s It might be better to assume that
Sharepoint platform allows users to users are lazy, and to ensure that eve-
rything is automated, which is where
applications such as Google Search
Appliance could be better used. In-
surance company Royal & SunAlli-
ance, for example, uses the Google
Appliance to locate information on
clients, market conditions and its
own financial products more quickly.
“The number one finding was that
we needed a search engine that
worked,” says David Copp, the insur-
er’s UK intranet manager.
Royal & SunAlliance turned to
Google after integration problems be-
tween its Lotus Notes environment
and the existing enterprise search
technology.
Clearly, knowledge management is
difficult to pin down. And in any
case, the concept could soon be su-
perseded. The future, according to
Longbottom, is ideas management.
“It is about how companies can do
more with their intellectual property,
drive new processes and optimise in-
dividual tasks,” he says. “It is what
companies originally wanted from Add insight to information
knowledge management.” computerweekly.com/229745.htm

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