421-672 Management of Technological Enterprises

Managing Knowledge in Technological Enterprises (II) – Knowledge Engineering in the OrganisationWilliam P. (Bill) Hall (PhD)Evolutionary Biology of Species and Organizationshttp://www.orgs-evolution-knowledge.net

Ex Documentation and KM Systems AnalystHead OfficeTenix GroupWilliamstown, Vic. 3016

National FellowAustralian Centre for Science, Innovation and SocietyMelbourne UniversityUni Office: ICT 3.67, 111 Barry St., CarltonPhone: +61 3 8344 1488 (Thurs-Fri)Email: bhall-u@dis.unimelb.edu.au

1 April 2008

People

Process

Infrastructure

Organizational knowledge

Leave one of the legs off, and the stool will fall

over

What are organisations?

A level of complexity in a hierarchically complex world

• Stanley Salthe (1993) Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology

HI GH LEVEL SYSTEM / ENVI RONMENT

SYSTEMSYSTEM SYSTEM

SUBSYSTEMS

boundaryconditions,constraints,regulations

FOCAL LEVEL

Possibilities

initiatingconditions

universallaws

"material -causes"

ORGANISATION—

People, Machines—

Living Cells, Parts

Emergentproperties• Synthesis cann

ot predict higher level properties

• Behaviour isuncomputable

• Boundary conditions & constraints select

• Analysis can explain

The organisation is a self-sustaining complex system in the environment

Processes (which may be complex subsystems in their own rights) are necessary responses to imperatives:

– Survival– Self-maintenance of the processes themselves

Constraints and boundaries(laws of nature determine what is possible)

The organisation's imperatives and goals

Hall, W.P. 2006 Emergence and growth of knowledge and diversity in hierarchically complex living systems.

ProcessesProcesses

Energy (exergy)

Recruitment

Materials

I ncomeObservations

Entropy/Waste

Products

Departures

ExpensesActions

Where can knowledge be found?

Popper's three worlds

EnergyThermodynamics

PhysicsChemistry

Biochemistry

Cyberneticself-regulation

CognitionConsciousness

HeredityRecorded thought

Expressed languageComputer memoryLogical artifactsReproduction/Production

Development/Recall

Drive/Enable

Regulate/Control Infe

rred

logic

Descr

ibe/P

redic

t

TestObserve

Existence/RealityWorld 1

World 3The world ofexplicit/ objective knowledge

Produced /evaluated byworld 2processes

World 2

World of mental orpsychological states and processes, subjective experiences

Emerges from world 1processes.

Tacit organismic/personalknowledge

Polanyi's epistemology of personal knowledge encompassed within Popper's World 2

What kinds of knowledge exist in a complex hierarchy?

Tacit knowledge (= Popper's dispositional knowledge)– Humans - Personal propensities or capabilities to behave or

perform in certain ways that cannot readily be expressed in words: experience, natural talent, unconscious knowledge, etc.

– Organisations - structure of networks formed by members of the organization, electronic networks, computational apparatus, production lines, organisational routines, and the physical layout, capabilities and etc., (Nelson and Winter 1982).

Implicit knowledge– Humans - personal knowledge that can be expressed linguistically– Organisations - Some undocumented personal knowledge held

by individuals relates to organisational roles rather than to the person's life and activities independent from the organisation.

What kinds of knowledge exist in a complex hierarchy?

Explicit knowledge– Humans - linguistically articulated knowledge preserved and

disseminated for intersubjective understanding and criticism in the form of discussions, books, papers, on-line articles etc.

– Organisations• Explicit knowledge produced by individual humans for

organizations they belong to that conveys meaning that is important to the functioning of the organizational entity, but has little or no relevance to the individual person in isolation

• Explicit forms of knowledge stored in computer memories and disseminated electronically to effect actions (e.g., regulatory instructions in a continuous flow chemical plant, instructions for numerically controlled tools in a robotically controlled assembly line, etc.). May be automatically produced without human involvement

Individual knowledge in the organization

Important difference– individual knowledge (in any form), known only by a person – organizational knowledge is (socially) available and accessible to those

who can apply it for organizational needs– Even where explicit knowledge exists, individual knowledge may be

required to access it within a useful response time. Individual knowledge addresses questions like:

– who has the tacit capabilities and experience to perform a task– what knowledge is needed– where explicit knowledge may be found– why the knowledge is important or why it was created– when the knowledge was or may be needed– how to apply the knowledge.

To improve organizational OODA performance a way is needed to rapidly find and coordinate people who have appropriate individual knowledge but don't know the problem exists.

Vines, R., Hall, W.P., Naismith L. 2007. Exploring the foundations of organisational knowledge: An emergent synthesis grounded in thinking related to evolutionary biology. actKM Conference, Australian National University, Canberra, 23-24 October 2007.

"Living knowledge“: source of organisational knowledge

The organization may know less than its members

Organizational knowledge is more than the sum of the knowledge of the organization's individual members, but people with their individual knowledge count

People have lives outside their local organizational circumstances ('boundaryless careers') Arthur 1994)

People know a lot the organization doesn't– Tacit (Polanyi 1958, 1966) skills and understandings that cannot

readily be expressed in words; – Implicit knowledge the person can articulate and which could readily be

shared if anyone knew to ask for it (Snowden 2000, 2002)– Explicit documents and other tangible resources the individual may

know about but that are not generally known about in the organization. Social cooperation coordinates individual knowledge for

organizational purposes– Explicit knowledge becomes common knowledge as awareness

spreads– Common knowledge becomes formal knowledge when reviewed,

approved and signed off

Cycling between W2 and W3 to build personal knowledge

Building organisational knowledge

Building and maintaining an adaptive KM architecture to meet organisational imperatives

DRIVERS ENABLERS & IMPEDIMENTS

PEOPLE PROCESS

STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

STRATEGICREQUIREMENTS

OBSERVATIONOF CONTEXT & RESULTS ORIENTATION & DECISION ENACTED

STRATEGY

In competition Win more contracts

Perform better on contracts won

Minimise losses to risks and liabilities

Meet statutory and regulatory requirements

Operational Excellence

Customer satisfaction

Stakeholder intimacy

Service delivery

Growth Sustainability Profitability Risk mitigation

Knowledge audit

Knowledge mapping

Business disciplines

Technology & systems

Information disciplines

Incentives & disincentives

Etc.

Internal / external communication

Taxonomies Searching & retrieval

Business process analysis & reengineering

Tracking and monitoring

Intelligence gathering

QA / QC

Strategic management

Architectural role

Communities of Practice

Corporate communications

HR practices Competitive intelligence

IT strategy Etc.

… ITERATION …

Team Expertise Knowledge Mapping (TEAM)Susu Nousala 2006; PhD RMIT Eng (submitted)

Nousala, S., Miles, A., Kilpatrick, B., Hall, W.P. 2005. Building knowledge sharing communities using team expertise access maps (TEAM). Proceedings, KMAP05 Knowledge Management in Asia Pacific Wellington, N.Z. 28-29 November 2005.

Nousala, S. 2005. PhD Thesis. RMIT University Knowledge pertinent to organizational survival may exist in world 2 and

world 3 in a variety of forms. – Knowledge held individually by people belonging to the organization – Tacit organizational routines belonging to internal communities (i.e.,

CoPs) that may be autopoietic in their own rights– Physical layout (Nelson and Winter 1982)– Corporate documentation

To respond rationally to imperatives and perturbations– Identify, access, assemble and use relevant knowledge – Organizational resources and time available to do it are limited

Effective organizational response is bounded by these limitations TEAM study focuses on individual knowledge

Knowledge mapping

Codification of knowledge vs pointing to people who have knowledge– Snowden's paradoxes

• know more than we can say• say more than we can write• knowledge will be volunteered but cannot be conscripted

– Availability of the knowledge is more important than its form Mind mapping was originally a brainstorming tool to help codify

– Offers flexibility– Substantial textual annotation capabilities– Linking

Used to facilitate social coordination of individual knowledge– Socialization in the interview process

• People happy to share career successes and war stories– Socialization in the search and retrieve process

• Experts introduced as people with rich stores of experience

organisatioalrevolution

evolutionarygrowth

creativity

direction

delegation

coordination

collaboration

leadership

autonomy

control

red tape

-???-

AGE OF ORGANISATION

SIZE

OF

OR

GA

NIS

ATI

ON

Small

Young

Large

Old

L. Greiner 1998. Evolution and revolution as organizations grow. Harvard Business Review May-June 1998

Organisational knowledge in world 3 managing engineering content

Persistent objects of corporate knowledge– Articles of incorporation & employment agreements– Contracts – E-mails & correspondence– Graphics and drawings– Plans, records, process & procedure documents– Enacted workflow systems– Written history– Links & captured contexts– Databases– AV recordings

World 3 comprises the bulk of organizational memory or heredity = "content"

Product and textual data are structured and are managed as content (SGML/XML)

Production mgmt data is transactional and is managed as records and fields

Goal is to manage all project data within a single configuration management umbrella

MRP / PRODUCTION MGMT• MBOM• Production planning• Production schedule• Procurement• Warehousing• Establish & release workorders

ProjectSchedule

HRM

Accounting

CS2

RFT

Capability requirements Documentation requirements

PRODUCT MODELS(structured designs )

MODELS / BOMs:• Component definitions• Component hierarchies

- System- Physical structural- Availability

OBJECTS MANAGED• Drawings• Parts lists• Configurations• Component metadata

DOCUMENT MODELS(structured documents )

MODELS:• Element definitions

- Content- Attributes

• Element hierarchies• Element sequences

OUTPUT OBJECTS• Contract/subcontract

documents• Procedures/instructions• Deliverable documents• All other controlled

documents

COMMON REQUIREMENTS• Config control / Change mgmt

- Develop/Author- Release- Effectivity

• Workflow management- Configuration changes- Document changes- Other business objects

• Track and control source data

Link element to component

Manage elements

LSA toolsLSAR database

Manage design activities

EBOMEBOM

Manage documentation activitie

s

Catalogue

Drawings

Configuration and knowledge management architecture goals for a large project

Managing contractual knowledgeProject A

Design Study

Review, edit, signoff

Negotiate

Review, negotiate, amend

Project APrime Contract

RFT and Bid

Review, edit, signoff

Project ABid Documents

RFQs

BidsNegotiations

Project ASubcontracts

Review,negotiate, amend

Project AProcedures,Design Docs

Review,edit,

signoff

Project ASupport Documents

• 20 - 50 year lifecycle

Project BDesign Study

Review, edit, signoff

Project BDesign Study

Review, edit, signoff

Project BDesign Study

Review, edit, signoff

Operationalexperience

Streamline bidding documentation funnel

SYST

EM B

SYST

EM A

50+ ENGINEERS & ANALYSTS ENTERING OWN WORKAPPROXIMATELY 600+ INDIVIDUAL WORD PROCESSED DOCUMENTS INCLUDED IN TENDER

EACH INDIVIDUAL ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT FILE WILL BE WORKED ON BY MANYAUTHORS

ENGINEERS & ANALYSTS CREATE AND TYPE, LOCATE AND AMALGAMATE DATA & OBJECTS

PRINT? - REVIEW & EDIT / RETURN FOR CHANGE, PRINT? - REVIEW & EDIT AGAIN

1000’S OF SOURCE DATA ITEMS - MAY BE WP DOCUMENTS PRODUCED IN-HOUSE,PREVIOUS TENDERS, DDS DOCS, SUPPLIER SOURCE DATA IN UNKNOWN FORMAT,STANDARDS, GRAPHICS, SPREADSHEETS, DRAWINGS, CLIENT DOCUMENTS, ETC

COORDINATOR AND DOCO PRODUCTION TEAM PRINT 600+ FILES & ASSEMBLE REVIEWVOLUMES

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COORDINATOR & DOCO PRODUCTION TEAM VALIDATE 900+ ELECTRONIC FILES AGAINST DID CONTENTS

DOCO PRODUCTIONTEAM PRINT MASTER

COPY FROM CDDIRECTORY

DATA CONTROL PRINTS COPIES

DOCO PRODUCTIONTEAM TRANSFER VALIDATEDSUBDIRECTORIES TOCD DIRECTORY - BURN CD ROM

SENIOR MANAGERS REVIEW & EDIT CONTENT / STYLE ETC.

DOCO PRODUCTION TEAM ASSEMBLES 900+ FILES INTO SUB-DIRECTORIESTECHNICAL SUPERVISORS AND MANAGERS REVIEW & EDIT TECH CONTENT

TEXT EDITOR PROOFS FOR READABILITY AND ENGLISH USAGE

Huge task– Uses production

resources– Don’t reinvent

knowledge Conflicting views of time

– Supplier: crushing deadline

– Client: inordinate delay Word processing friction

– multiplies task magnitude

– wastes resources & time– major source of delay

Delay generates crisis– disorientation– panic– error

Prime contractor production/mgmt issues

Effective contract management critical to business Prime contractor multiplies all process inefficiencies

many times over!– Customer presents wants, supplier must offer solutions– Tender won must pay for all lost tenders ( 5 to 10)– Contract flows down to many subcontracts ( 10 to 100) – Comparatively unskilled authors ( 2)

Client pays for all suppliers’ inefficiencies!

Exari Pty Ltd

Independent software developer, Queen St., Melbourne– http://www.exari.com

Significant relationships– Oasis eContracts WG– CCH Australia/Wolters Kluwer Pacific

SmartPrecedent– XML based precedent management and

intelligent authoring system– Round trip between XML and RTF– Based on a DTD for the structural hierarchy of

contractual documents

Document Assembly - defined

Document assembly is the process by which

an instance document is

produced from a template

document.

Exari™ Software

TEMPLATEDOCUMENT

INSTANCEDOCUMENT

A template document is a

document which may contain

certain blanks and pieces of optional text.

It captures what is common, and what may differ, between a set of similar instance

documents.

An instance document is a document created to meet a particular need in some transaction.

Input from a person or database is required in order to fill in the blanks and choose between the optional texts.

issues and frustrations – keeping things up-to-date

the maintenance monster • clauses copied across hundreds of documents• dependent on technical support for updating• hard to get end user feedback

LOTS OF COPIES TO UPDATE

ONE CLAUSE

Exari™ Software

Strategies and solutions – easier maintenance

shared clause libraries

CLAUSE CLAUSE CLAUSE CLAUSE CLAUSE

BOILERPLATE

CLAUSE CLAUSE CLAUSE

COMMON

CONTRACT CONTRACTCONTRACT

update boilerplate &

other common clauses in one

place

LESS DEPENDENCE ON TECHNICAL SUPPORT AND CODING SKILLS

IMPROVED CAPTURE OF FEEDBACK & SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Exari™ Software

CONCLUSIONS

Electronic content management is revolutionary technology that is reinventing the nature of humanity (to say nothing of organizations).– (Barring differences in the language of expression) one person

can access the persistent memory our our entire species for specific knowledge

• I use Google many times every day when I want to know something• Google can do it in milliseconds!• ISI's Web of Science is better for more specific and detailed

knowledge - searches may take minutes and you may still have to resort to paper (economic issues not technical ones)

– An increasing number of cognitive processes are already automated and many more are in the process

• Indexing• Semantic retrieval• Alerts

The revolution may be essentially complete within my own lifetime. It will affect everything we do and are as humans.

CrossbowValidates and integratesdata across 15 legacysystems

TeraTextContent management

AMPSNavy'smaintmgmt

CSARSProvides correctivefeedback from AMPSinto supplier's knowledge developmentactivities

DESIGN / ENGPRODUCT DATAMANAGEMENT• Product Model• CAD / Drawing

Mgmt• Config Mgmt• Eng Change• Workflow

Process Control

• Doco Revision& Release

DOCO CONTENTMANAGEMENT

DOCUMENTAUTHORING

LSARDATABASE

LOGISTICANALYSIS

TOOLS(prime)

PRODUCT CONFIGMANAGEMENT• Product Model• Drawing Mgmt• Config Mgmt• Change Request• Workflow

Process Control

• Doco Revision& Release

MAINTENANCEMANAGEMENT• Schedule• Resource Reqs• Procedures• Completion• Downtime• Resource UsageRECORDING

REPORTINGANALYSIS

TOOLS(prime)

MRPSYSTEM• Plan• Fabricate• Assemble

SUPPLY SYSTEM

change request

config change

doco change

ECO

change effected

docochangeorder

releaseddocochange

config changes

EC /docochangerequest

maintenancehistory

docoserver

Analysis &optimisation

orders receipts

change task

doco change

shared systems?

data change

& Release

Tenix/Navy architecture developed in Melbourne for managing ANZAC Ship support knowledge

UPDATEMAINT DATA /

PROCEDURE

UPDATECONFIG

Navy Systems

The cost/benefit equation for content management vs DMS

Impl

emen

tati

on

Init

ial d

ocum

ent

set

Proliferation of configurationsIn-service maintenance

Cost

Time

New CMS

Traditional DMS

Note: CMIS cost is for first project only.

Knowledge Based Improvement of Business ProcessesDalmaris - PhD 2006 UTS

Developed in a framework of Popperian epistemology– three worlds– evolutionary theory of knowledge

An "organizational learning" method

Fundamental assumptions about knowledge

Explicit specification of the concept of “Business Process”

A guide to the improvement process

Improvement methodology components

Perfo

rman

ce E

v alu

atio

nPe

rform

anc e

Ana

lysis

Proc

ess

Mod

ell in

gIm

prov

emen

t Sy n

t hes

is

Proc

ess

Audit

i ng

IMPROVEMENT METHODOLOGY

PROCESS ONTOLOGY

EPISTEMOLOGY

TOOLSAuditing and analysis tools facilitate process improvement tasks

Dalmaris, P., Tsui, E., Hall, W.P., Smith, B. 2007. A Framework for the improvement of knowledge-intensive business processes. Business Process Management Journal. 13(2): 279-305Dalmaris, P. 2005. PhD Thesis. University of Technology Sydney

Evolutionary improvement of the methodology

Evolutionary improvement of the methodology– Problem formulation– Reaching the solution

Literature Review

Case 1

Case 2

Case 3

Error reduction

Problem Re-Formulation

Tentative Theory Re-formulation

Tentative Theory

Formulation(Framework)

Problem Formulation

The current state of the methodology

Knowledge Tools

Knowledge Paths

Knowledge Transactions

Identify potential improvement areas¦(desired process

performance)

Process Members

Environment: constraints, policies, targets

Audit:Probing, current state of the process (AS IS)

Audit method shown in Figure 3

Design:Result (AS COULD)

Analysis:Improvement

improvement configuration of process

classes

FunctionsKnowledge Containers

Knowledge Objects

Knowledge Transformations

Observe– Establish business ontology– 'As is'audit

Orient– Map, analyze, synthesize

Decide– Present 'as could'

Implement