Knowledge Managementin a Service Organisation

Patrick KeoghKnowledge and Innovation Manager, Lucid IT

© Copyright 2009 Lucid IT. All rights reserved

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Agenda

• Some background• Where we have been• What we did• Where we are going• Some lessons

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Background• In eight years Lucid IT has

grown from nothing to being a leading IT Management consulting and training organisation.

• From the very beginning we knew the value of KM and have incrementally improved our approach.

• It has grown as we have grown!

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Why Do Knowledge Management?

• The Lucid IT KM value proposition– Costs of not doing KM– Risks from not doing KM– Benefits of KM– Costs of KM

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Costs of not doing KM

• Bringing new employees up to speed• Reinventing the wheel in consulting

engagements• Errors leading to

rework• Reduced customer

satisfaction

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Risks of not doing KM• Risk of inconsistent style and

quality• Reduced efficiency could make

our services uncompetitive• Harder to adapt our service

catalogue to changing requirements

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Benefits of KM• Enable more rapid growth and

change• Capitalise the experience of our

best people and use it to develop all our people

• Support our distributed workforce• More efficient service delivery• Increased staff retention (they can

see the value)

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Costs of doing KM

• Time to lead and manage• Tools• Time to learn and contribute

THE JOURNEY SO FAR

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The early days• Handful of experienced consultants• You knew what everybody was doing• You knew the individual strengths of everybody• We could all meet around a kitchen table

– and we did!• KM through stories• No formal process or tools• Starting to accumulate

valuable IP but notmanaging it

Big win #1

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We started to grow and to disperse• Knew the value of the “Lucid IT family”

– Continued to meet face to face• Knew the value of our IP

– Developed a project-based repository for IP• Knew the value of KM

– Each consultant’s compensation has a part for KM• But cracks started to appear…

– Release management for our training materials– Consultants not aware of existing IP from other locations

Lesson: Our earlier intuitive approach was not going to be sufficient as we grew further – we needed level 2 maturity.

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… so we responded• Acquired tools to make sharing of IP easier, and

moved to a subject matter based repository• Acquired a mobile phone service where calls to each

other are “free”• Implemented a teleconferencing facility and

encouraged its use• Ensured that all employees had internet access• Instituted regular location meetings with a semi-

social emphasis• Formalised our face-to-face meetings as “knowledge

days”

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Our #1 tool• Groove (now part of

Microsoft Office)• On each consultant’s

laptop• All of the “must have”

IP such as training materials

• Paid for itself many times over

Big win #2

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Groove• Strengths

– Automatic peer to peer replication – Internet-savvy– Always available (workspaces automatically updated on

each user’s laptop)– Centralised backup– Secure– Rich toolset (file repository, discussion groups, simple

project management, IM…)– Great for ad-hoc and unstructured

• Weaknesses– NO searching– NO management reporting

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We did some things right in implementation• “No Work Zone”

– non threatening introduction to the tool– social discussion, family photos etc.

• It is compulsory (eg. you have to open Groove to teach ITIL Foundation Certificate)

• Gave individuals control:– What information they can see– Ability to create workspaces for ad-hoc sharing,

projects etc.

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Lucid IT Knowledge Days• Twice a year for two days• Bring ALL employees together• Balance of formal and informal

sessions• Social events• Dinners, drinks

and lots of fun• Lots of story telling• Defines in part who

we are• Capture information

for later sharingCosts real money but we understand the value

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… and then we grew some more• More people, more locations, more diverse portfolio:

– Expansion in IT Governance, PPM, ITSM, IT Strategy… nobody knows it all

– Expansion into Asia and New Zealand– ITIL V3

• Showed up deficiencies in our tools and process– Process ownership a “spare time” role– Lots of IP but hard to extract the best bits– Even finding the “expert” became hard– Difficult to measure and reward the right behaviours

• Conflict between short term and long termLesson: Time for some formalism – we needed level 3 maturity

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… so once again we have responded!• Reinforced importance of KM to leadership and

defined our vision and strategy• Appointed Knowledge and Innovation Manager• Established Communities of Practice• Updated toolset and IP lifecycle processes• Starting to integrate KM with other key

processes– Service Delivery– Service Portfolio Management

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Knowledge and Innovation Manager• 50% job role

>1% of our workforce• Process owner for Knowledge

Management process• Process owner for Service Portfolio

Management process

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Communities of Practice• Examples

– IT Service design, transition and operation– IT Strategy and governance– Project and programme management

• Each COP has a leader(a part time role)

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The COP Leaders• Genuine expert on the subject• Focal point for management of IP• “The person you ask”• Responsible for creating and maintaining

knowledge– Driving internal awareness, contributing to training– Identifying gaps

• Explicitly measured, goaled and rewarded on KM performance

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Updated toolset• Implemented SharePoint

to complement Groove• Most useful for large

amounts of fairly static IP• Good searching and adequate document

management• Could replace Groove in future• Using SharePoint workflows for document

lifecycle• Better reporting on IP creation and use

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What’s next?

• Extend KM to our customers and partners– Disintermediate access to our knowledge where appropriate– Use “Web 2.0” concepts (we already have a presence in

LinkedIn, Facebook, SlideShare, Wikis, Second Life, Twitter, Skype and others)

– Integrate knowledge from our customers and partners– Extend our Communities of Practice

• Get better at capturing implicit knowledge (webinars, video and audio capture etc.)

• More extensive use of metadata to build knowledge around our IP

• Better measurement of the process

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Lessons• KM always WIP• 4Ps (not really a lesson)• Management commitment

(not really a lesson)• Don’t be afraid to try things …

some things that we have tried didn’t work• Plenty of cheap or free tools out there, the trick

is to find the ones that fit your organisation• KM can make a critical difference to the

organisation

Questions?

p.keogh@lucidit.com.au