442 Part Three Key System Applications for the Digital Age
INTERACTIVE SESSION MANAGEMENT
Sargent & Lundy Learns to Manage Employee Knowledge
Sargent & Lundy is a 125-year-old firm providing
comprehensive engineering, project management,
and consulting services for complex power genera-
tion and power transmission projects. During its
125-year history, the company has designed 958
power plants all over the world. The headquarters
are in Chicago, with global offices in Canada and the
United Arab Emirates. Sargent & Lundy is noted for
its industry knowledge, engineering expertise, and
high-quality work. Approximately 87 percent of its
2,500 employees are engineers and designers.
The company takes pride in the depth of knowl-
edge of its employee experts and their loyalty to the
firm. On average, employees stay with the company
for 15 years—often much longer. Sargent & Lundy
tries to cross-utilize its staff in various types of work
because it believes they are the best people for
the job. Deanna Myers, Sargent & Lundy’s Senior
Manager of Learning and Development, works to
ensure that employees have the skills, tools, and re-
sources they need to achieve excellence throughout
their careers.
In December 2010, Sargent & Lundy’s manage-
ment learned that around half of the company’s most
experienced employees, including engineers, design-
ers, and power experts, would be eligible to retire by
2015. When they left the company, they would be tak-
ing critical business knowledge with them. Although
engineers had access to a knowledge database of the
firm’s documented processes and procedures, experts’
tacit knowledge was more difficult to capture.
The company hired a large group of new recruits
very quickly to replace the retirees. However, with a
worldwide footprint and ambitious expansion plans,
the company needed to find better ways of transfer-
ring seasoned employees’ expertise—including their
tacit knowledge—to the new recruits wherever they
were located. Corporate training hand learning facili-
ties needed to be centralized and overhauled to make
it easier for experts to share industry experience and
skills as well as tacit knowledge.
In the past, Sargent & Lundy had used an un-
tracked schedule of instructor-led courses, which
often overlapped with existing training. The moment
an instructor-led course had finished, the company
might have just hired another two or three people
who needed that course. This meant that a portion
of the employees who really needed the instruction
were not getting it. There was no in-house computer-
based training available for new employees.
The company decided to transform its learning
model and implemented a new talent management
platform based on SAP SuccessFactors Learning
Management System. SAP SuccessFactors is a cloud-
based human capital management (HCM) software
suite. It integrates software for orienting and train-
ing a new employee, social business and collabora-
tion tools, a learning management system (LMS),
performance management, recruiting software, ap-
plicant tracking software, succession planning, talent
management, and HR analytics to enable companies
to manage their employees more strategically and
maximize their performance. SAP SuccessFactors
provides detailed capabilities for reporting and track-
ing individual employee development.
Working with company experts, Sargent & Lundy’s
technical training team used SuccessFactors to de-
velop a wide range of training programs and learning
plans for specific technologies. Videos and online
courses were added to the company’s training arse-
nal, along with personalized learning plans for people
working with specific disciplines and technologies.
For example, an electrical engineer working on a
transmission project would follow a learning plan with
courses and objectives that differed from those of an-
other electrical engineer working on a nuclear plant.
Sargent & Lundy’s new recruits wanted more
discussion and feedback on how well they were
performing on a day-to-day basis, so the company
also implemented SAP Jam, SAP’s cloud-based social
collaboration program. Using SAP Jam made it even
easier for employees to share knowledge, often in
real time.
Face-to-face meetings are still the primary way
for staff to share knowledge about industry trends,
best practices, and innovative solutions. But Sargent
& Lundy’s employees were too geographically scat-
tered to always meet in person. The company’s
knowledge-sharing model had to change to provide
more knowledge sharing and employee conversa-
tions online.
Sargent & Lundy’s new social platform features
online discussion forums covering everything
from seismic analysis to specific types of valves.
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Chapter 11 Managing Knowledge and Artificial Intelligence 443

New employees with questions are able to connect
to experts via SAP Jam with just a few mouse clicks.
The in-house experts respond to the questions and
share their experiences. Before implementing SAP
Jam, only a small percentage of regional staff par-
ticipated in discussions for communities of practice.
Sargent & Lundy’s Communities of Practice (CoP)
program makes it possible for employee experts to
collaborate with novice staff around specific topics
(see the discussion of CoPs earlier in this chapter).
The main focus of SAP Jam is on discussion
groups. When users log in, they are presented with a
home feed showing events in the discussion groups
to which they subscribe. They can drill down to a
specific feed or browse all the CoP groups for topics
of interest. There are no restrictions on who can post
a question, discussion topic, or article. A designer in
the transmission group might look at how designers
in other groups solved similar problems by review-
ing what these groups discussed in their last CoP
meeting, references and visuals, and which experts
or solutions might be helpful.
SAP Jam was launched in late 2015, and in the
year that followed there was a 125 percent increase
in participation. Many CoP groups are now using SAP
Jam, including groups for specific technical topics
such as thermo hydraulics and non-technical groups
such as one for women in leadership. Employees of
all levels can use Jam to discuss topics of interest,
find answers to questions, and check facts. Besides
improving employee learning, the tool has increased
employee engagement. Conversations in SAP Jam
have identified areas for process improvement
and problems that need immediate technical staff
attention.
Sources: www.sargentlundy.com, accessed May 28, 2018; Lauren
Bonneau, “Creating a Culture of Collaboration at Sargent & Lundy,”
SAP Insider Profiles, March 24, 2017; and SAP SE, “Sargent & Lundy:
Powering the Next Generation on Blended Learning with SAP
SuccessFactors Solutions,” 2016.

CASE STUDY QUESTIONS

1. How is knowledge management related to Sargent
& Lundy’s business model?
2. Identify the knowledge management problem
faced by Sargent & Lundy. What management, or-
ganization, and technology factors contributed to
this problem?
3. Describe the solution selected for this problem.
Was it effective? Why or why not? How much
did it change the firm’s operations and decision
making?
4. What management, organization, and technology
issues had to be addressed in selecting and imple-
menting the solution?

are critical to the organization and to the managers who work within the
organization:
• Keeping the organization current in knowledge as it develops in the external
world—in technology, science, social thought, and the arts
• Serving as internal consultants regarding the areas of their knowledge, the
changes taking place, and opportunities
• Acting as change agents, evaluating, initiating, and promoting change
projects

Requirements of Knowledge Work Systems

Most knowledge workers rely on systems such as word processors, email, vid-
eoconferencing, collaboration, and scheduling systems, which are designed
to increase worker productivity in the office. However, knowledge work-
ers also require highly specialized knowledge work systems with powerful