Have you heard the story of the Empire that Lost Its Memory? It’s more embarrassing than the fable about the Emperor’s Clothing, where it took someone courageous to exclaim that the Emperor was naked.
Large organizations have IT budgets valued in the hundreds of millions, or billions, of dollars. Yet some are attempting to govern the IT Empire without a usable Corporate Knowledge Base. Sometimes, it’s as if Enterprise IT had no memory, vulnerable to ignoring lessons learned or to making uninformed decisions.
The Problem
The Project Management Institute (PMI) makes a big deal of establishing a Corporate Knowledge Base as an organizational asset for boosting performance through enterprise experience and lessons learned. Unfortunately, the people who are planning, managing, and making decisions about IT in your enterprise may have limited access to a comprehensive, usable, up-to-date knowledge base that is enterprise wide.
A telltale indicator of the problem is that essential information remains scattered: Estimates are in isolated business cases and planning documents. Actual costs are in financial systems. Schedules are on one or many project servers. Technical characteristics are in an arcane Enterprise Architecture system. Details of investments are in the PM’s computer. Vendor performance is in a contracts database. Baseline change requests, risk logs, user satisfaction data are somewhere else.
The Solution
One quick step toward a solution is to develop and deploy structured Wiki style Knowledge Management software, available from multiple software companies. It often works in a cloud environment and will often be integrated with familiar workplace tools (Microsoft Office Apps, Google Apps). The structure of the Wiki can be defined by the individual enterprise. An added advantage is that many of these environments enable workforce collaboration, enabling peer feedback and advice.
You should also consider several additional questions:
- How will we keep the knowledge base up-to-date? Require that current documents be posted for posted for all key reviews (budget reviews, Integrated Baseline Reviews, life cycle gate reviews, Post-Implementation Reviews, Operational Analysis Reviews, re-baseline approvals, etc.). Documents can be posted to a Pending section of the Wiki—possibly with restricted access---and then moved to full Wiki access if approved or modified.
- What won’t be covered by the Wiki? Knowledge Base users may need real-time data from other corporate systems, such as monthly performance measurement data. The Wiki might link to canned reports of these other systems.
- How do users find the information they need? An effective search capability will be needed.
- How can we add value to the Knowledge Base? Analytic reports with enterprise lessons learned can be helpful. Tagging documents that describe success stories may also be helpful. You could also develop case studies of methods that improved results or reduced costs.
When considering how to build or improve your Knowledge Base, you may also want to review resources that you already have. For example:
Enterprise Portfolio Management Systems. Software makers like Oracle and Microsoft market systems that provide a suite of enterprise portfolio management functions, sometimes including investment-related document repositories..
Database Integration and Reporting Systems. Other software makers offer solutions that integrate information from multiple existing databases—sometimes with real time data.
The solution is to strengthen or establish an accessible Corporate Knowledge Base for all enterprise IT management and technical professionals. The solution should:
- Serve as a one-stop repository, with feeds to high-quality information sources
- Be automated and avoid labor-intensive support
- Promote corporate learning, not just information collection and sharing
- Provide access controls for sensitive information but also break down barriers between organizational units to achieve enterprise-wide transparency and data sharing
- Support all or almost all IT management functions at the enterprise level
- Integrate existing data and documentation requirements (thus avoiding a new layer of work)
- Be searchable so that users can quickly find and retrieve needed information
- Identify the dates, points of contact, and context of the information
- Incorporate new knowledge as it becomes available
- Include data quality management control
- Take into account user workflows and minimize new work requirements
- Establish metrics for its utilization, value added, and customer satisfaction/suggestions.
What’s New
Today’s enterprise software excels in integrating information from diverse databases into usable screens and reports for end users. In addition, content management systems have become very capable in supporting and searching large stores of documents and related information.
Another trend is to reduce the number of legacy systems, providing an opportunity to streamline data sources into consolidated knowledge repositories.
Social networking software can quickly link your workers needing information to those who have experience to share. The resulting commentaries can be organized to build topical knowledge bases that are easily searched.
QT Plan
The purpose of this Quick Task is to develop a plan for implementing or improving a Corporate Knowledge Base at the enterprise level. Estimated period of performance for the task: 2 – 4 months depending on organizational complexity and resources available. Actions to take:
- Organize a high-level Work Group to guide IT Knowledge Management
- Conduct a needs assessment at the business requirements level
- Support the Work Group in preparing a draft Concept Of Operations (CONOPS)
- Identify information requirements
- Survey information sources, documents, and gaps
- Set priorities so that implementation can be phased to achieve near-term results
- Review alternatives for an enterprise-wide solution
- Develop a "discussion draft" of a plan of action, business case, and Project Charter for review and refinement by the Work Group
- Prepare a final CONOPS
- Develop a written plan of action, a business case, and a Project Charter.
Reference
- See PMBOK Guide( © 2013 Project Management Institute), Fifth Edition: 2.1.4.2 Corporate Knowledge Base.
- Knowledge Management Institute
More Help
Jim Kendrick and the P2C2 Group, Inc. provide management consulting and Subject Matter Expert services in this Quick Task area: kendrick@p2c2group.com.
Last Word
Your organization’s Corporate Knowledge Base is a potential gold mine for cost, schedule, technical design, and risk history. Mine the data to improve IT performance for ongoing and new investments.
