Stephen Gall

Bachelor of Science in Business Administration Program

MGMT 3103: Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning

Walden University

Professor Kelley Lovati, Instructor

July 12, 2006

Creating the foundation for knowledge management at TCS

Overview of this document

The goal of this document is to tie together five key principles of KM with a strategy and plan to actually change KM practices at TeleCommunication Systems, Inc. The five KM principles supporting second generation KM include:

1. Valuable organizational knowledge does not simply exist – people create it. [McElroy, 2001, page 9]
2. The social pattern of organizational learning and innovation is largely self-organizing and has regularity to it. However, this social learning must be strongly supported by leadership and integrated with everyday business processes. [Ibid.]
3. KM is a management discipline focused on enhancing knowledge production integration and use. [Ibid., page 11]
4. KM is not an application of IT – it uses IT to help it have impact [Ibid., page 16]
5. KM can only have indirect impact on knowledge process outcomes; impact on business outcomes is indirect. [Ibid., page 19]

Overview and Description of the Organization

TeleCommunicationSystems (TCS) [http://www.telecomsys.com/] headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, is a public company since the autumn of 2000 and is traded on the NASDAQ as TSYS. TCS also has an office and network operations center in Seattle (TCS-West). TCS provides the logistics, software, and databanks that are used to appropriately route emergency (911) calls that are made with cell phones, to the nearest emergency services providers. TCS also provides other related VOIP and cellular services. TCS-West has at about 200 engineers and another 100 support personnel and management staff, while TCS-East in Annapolis also has about 300 on staff.

Strategy for implementing KM practices at TCS

Without an overall strategy, any KM approach can become subject to organizational behaviors that get the project sidetracked. Therefore, good project management principles are required to be successful, even though there are facets of implementing KM which are unlike a typical project. Using good project management principles supports principle #2 because it recognizes the role of good business processes as a success factor.

According to these practices, the opportunity, scope, risks, assumptions, costs, and most importantly, the relationship of the project to the overall corporate objectives – should be documented and approved by an executive sponsor. This also supports principle #2 by recognizing the role of leadership as a success factor.

Moving forward with the project management theme, the next best practice is to determine what precisely is being implemented or delivered, and what the phases or milestones are, at least generally. It is also a good idea to include an ‘as-is’ analysis of the current situation, because it’s hard to envision a path to the ‘to-be’ environment without this analysis. This supports principle #2 because it recognizes that organizations tend to create self-organizing patterns, and recognizing these patterns can be a valuable indicator of how the organization is likely to view and use any new knowledge management activity.

The next strategic objective is to educate the business unit’s (divisional) managers about how a knowledge management change program will impact their businesses. But even before that, it’s a good idea to have a frank discussion or ‘reality check’ on how KM impacts organizations generally, how information assets contribute to learning, and the role of KM in the organization. This helps set the stage for success because it starts the conversation about KM within the organization, demonstrates action, and get the process started. Because KM projects can seem overwhelming in scope at the beginning, it’s important to stop procrastinating, and start doing something. [Collison and Parcell, 2004, pages 65-71]

At some point, the organizational leadership must decide on how to deliver on the promise of KM. For TCS, we chose to implement a Knowledge Base (KB). We chose a knowledge base because it can be used as a catalyst for other KM activities in the knowledge lifecycle, especially because a KB can support the knowledge validation process and the development of new knowledge processes. [IBM principle, 1999, page 2]. The KB also supports principle #1 because it recognizes that people must create knowledge, and the process of entering knowledge into the KB strengthens the codification process in the KM lifecycle.

Even during the early analysis phase, before any action items are assigned, it’s good to keep the conversation going. Meeting with the managers to discuss various strategy options and how they relate to corporate objectives, including addressing any initial concerns of the managers, further solidifies the belief that the organization’s executive leadership is ‘getting on board’ with a KM program. This supports principle #2 by addressing the fact that social patterns and beliefs need to change starting with management, and also supports principle #3 by helping managers realize that knowledge production, integration, and use is going to require changes to activities which must be supported by both senior and middle management.

Finally, according to good project management practices, a solid implementation plan should be developed, and this should include specific milestones, dates, roles/responsibilities, and most importantly, the actual deliverables. There should also be a plan to test measurable outcomes. We, as implementers, asked a lot from the organization, what did they get in return? Asking (helping) managers to identify KM success metrics, supports principle #5 because it forces managers to connect indirect effects with the KM initiative.

Stepping back a moment, it’s important that the executive sponsor knows who is in charge of the project, and is willing to provide the necessary leadership that supports the KM implementation and the project. Executive sponsorship and management participation is a key success factor that is needed in order to reinforce and position ongoing KM activities if those activities are to succeed in creating a true learning environment. [Bixler, 2002, page 1]

It can be an advantage to use a team that is experienced with KM implementation projects, and who can use that experience to avoid any pitfalls and roadblocks before they derail the effort. It is helpful if the team doesn’t have political alliances to worry about. The unbiased, critical eye of these analysts can also map a strategy that helps the organization move toward more mature KM processes and activities. Using an unbiased professional team also supports principle #2 because it deals directly with issues related to social patterns of learning that are often difficult to address by people who are inside or integrated to those social patterns that may need to change.

Plan to Redesign KM practices at TCS

Organizational Goals and Business Strategies

How was the need for a KM project recognized? Where would the initiative fit-in to other initiatives already underway? Was the organization eager to implement a KM strategy, or where they overwhelmed with other initiatives? What was the IT department thinking? Was there already a vision or long-term strategy in place? Answering these questions first was critical to positioning the initiative and getting support.

At TCS a vision was in fact already established, and various components of that vision were being implemented in other projects. For example, TCS has decided to move to a portal-based computing interface for all applications. How would that impact the KM initiative? Could a KM initiative be integrated into this vision?

Because this vision was based on implementing web-enabled software (application) solutions using a portal strategy, it supported the use of a corporate Wiki as a knowledge base (application) solution. It was agreed that this would be an ideal place to begin a KB initiative. This decision also supports principle # 4 because it integrated IT’s (Information Technologies’) vision, strategy, and resources in support of the applications development that would be needed for a successful KB initiative.

Business units impacted

According to best practice, any project must have bounded scope. At TCS, it was determined that eighteen separate business units would participate in the Phase 1 roll-out of a knowledge base system, including: Deployment, Systems Engineering, Network Engineering, Technical Communications, Data Services, Provisioning, Billing, Network Operations, Operations Analysis, and Project Management, among other business units typically found in a high-technology organization.

Phased Approach

After getting agreement and support for the overall strategy and deliverables for the KB initiative, the project was divided into the following phases:

Table 1: Phases and Milestones for implementing a Corporate Wiki Knowledge Base

Phase	Milestone
Design and Development	Create a proof-of-concept wiki system installed as a sandbox for testing and analysis of system functions and feasibility.
Analysis phase 1	Prepare an ‘as-is’ report of current documentation practices using a documentation survey, and include any unique requirements. The survey was to be completed by each business unit. This analysis was a basis for a plan for transitioning information to the new knowledge base.
Analysis phase 2	Populate the sandbox with topics from a selected business unit to test and demonstrate use and functionality issues. (We choose the network operations center)
Analysis phase 3	Write test cases and test for proof-of-concept system issues and usability issues
Deployment phase 1	Implement the information transition plans (per business unit). Write the KB administration guide and documentation on installation, maintenance, administration, and other relevant information. (Document the system)
Training	Develop a training plan, training documentation, and provide training on use of the knowledge base application
Deployment phase 2	Begin adding topics to the knowledge base according to the plan. Monitor to ensure that the plan is working
Post-deployment	Perform an initial analysis, metrics, and usage report. Update process, procedure, and policy documentation to ensure that KB use is integrated with other organizational activities

Conclusion

The implementation of a knowledge base is seen as an important step in creating an overall knowledge management solution because it addresses many of the issues with creating and finding information. However, the goal of second-generation KM is to create a continuous learning organization. [IBM principle, 1999, page 2] With that in mind a life-cycle approach that recognizes continuous process improvements that enhance learning behaviors, and also recognizes the maturity level of those processes, will best address benefits, costs, and outcomes, and have the greatest chance for success.


Bibliography

McElroy, Mark, “Second-Generation Knowledge Management,” Macroinnovation Associates, Oct. 2001, macroinnovation.com, http://www.macroinnovation.com/images/McElroy_On_2ndGenKM.pdf

IBM principle, “The Second Generation of KM,” Destinationkm.com, Oct 1999, http://www.destinationkm.com/print/default.asp?articleid=751

Bixler, Charles, "Applying the four pillars of knowledge management," George Washington University, Jan. 2002, KMWorld, Vol. 11, Issue 1

Collison and Parcell, “Learning to Fly,” Capstone Publishing, 2004, ISBN #1-84112-509-1