Ch03 Knowledge Management Life Cycle PDF

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CHAPTER 3 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS LIFE CYCLE TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING 1.

Why is it helpful to view the building of a KM system as a life cycle? It is important to have a life cycle in building knowledge management systems , because the life cycle provides structure and order to the process. Additionally, the life cycle provides a breakdown of the activities into manageable steps, good documentation for possible changes in the future, coordination of the project for a timely completion, and regular management review at each phase of the cycle.

2.

In what ways do conventional and KM systems’ development life cycles differ? How are they similar? There are many differences between the conventional and knowledge management systems’ development life cycle: a. A conventional system is sequential (certain steps are carried out in sequence), while the knowledge management system life cycle is incremental and interactive. b. In the conventional system, testing generally occurs at the end of programming, while the knowledge management development life cycle provides for testing throughout various phases of system development as the system evolves. c. The conventional system is process-driven and documentation-oriented, with emphasis on the flow of data, while the knowledge management development life cycle is result-oriented. d. The conventional system does not support rapid prototyping or advanced languages, while the knowledge management development life cycle promotes rapid prototyping and incorporates changes on the spot. Along with these differences, however, are many similarities as well: a. Both cycles begin with a problem and end with a solution. b. Both cycles require the initial gathering of information (conventional) or knowledge (KMSDLC) for the process to begin and ending up with a tested system ready for use. c. Both the knowledge developer and the systems analyst need to choose a tool to design the system.

3.

Distinguish between: a. verification and validation b. knowledge developer and systems analyst c. pupil-user and tutor-user d. projection and avoidance

a. b.

c.

d.

4.

Verification determines if the system was built right, while validation ensures that the correct system was built to meet the user’s expectations. A knowledge developer is a specialist in building knowledge-based systems. He or she is the key architect of such systems. In contrast, a systems analyst is a specialist in building information systems. He or she is the architect of such systems, which includes designing, testing, and installing the system. A pupil-user is an unskilled worker trying to learn or gain some understanding of the captured knowledge. A tutor-user is a user with a working knowledge of the knowledge management system and is responsible for system maintenance. Projection is resistance to knowledge management system development through employee display of hostility toward peers. Avoidance is resistance to a knowledge management system through employee withdrawal from the job or scene.

Successful KM system implementation depends on several factors. Briefly, explain each factor a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

f.

Level of motivation of the user. Good documentation cannot compensate for low motivation or poor attitude toward the system. Promoting motivation and commitment takes time and must be planned in advance. Computer literacy and technical background of the user. A computer literate user can be easier to work with than someone who has no background at all. First-time users often require education and training before they are able to support development and use of knowledge-based system. Communication skills of the trainer. Selling people on change is sometimes considered more an art than a science. Communication skills can make the difference between a user’s acceptance or rejection of the installation. Time availability and funding for training. A training program run on a shoestring is usually a loser. Also, squeezing training time to the bare minimum often results in trainee impatience, resistance to learning, or nonuse of the system. Training should be part of the implementation phase offered around the schedule of the user. Place of training. The location of training can make a difference. On-site versus off-site training continues to be an issue with plusses and minuses for each alternative. Off-site training is generally dedicated uninterrupted learning. Its positive benefits include privacy and focus on the projects. The feasibility of offsite training depends on distance, location, and funding. In contrast, on-site training requires no out-of-town transportation or room and board expenses. Yet, it can be interrupted by telephone calls, secretaries, and uninvited “gawkers.” Ease and duration of training. This aspect depends on the caliber of the trainer and the attitude and motivation of the trainees. “Chemistry” often affects how well all parties work with each other. Also, the training period should be reasonable and able to meet measurable goals. A long, drawn-out three-week training period does not promote the same excitement and motivation as a oneweek session.

g.

h.

i.

j.

5.

Ease of access and explanatory facilities of the knowledge management system. Knowledge management systems should be easy to access and work with. A software package that provides adequate explanations is bound to satisfy most users. The explanatory facility of the package promotes ease of use and provides convincing evidence of the integrity of the solutions provided by the system. Ease of maintenance and system update. At this stage, good documentation and easy-to-follow procedures in a module-oriented knowledge management system can make the difference between easy maintenance and a “nightmare.” In this case, maintenance implies update, although update is more often considered enhancement. Payoff to the organization. A system’s benefit to the organization is usually measured in terms of cost reduction, improvement in sales or overall performance, and so on. Measurable payoff early in the development life cycle promotes successful implementation. Role of the champion. Solid top management support and a champion pushing for system adoption can make a difference between a successful and a lukewarm installation.

How important are organizational factors in system implementation? The primary organizational factor is top management commitment to the proposed knowledge management system. This is evident by the way it promotes the development effort through adequate funding, ensuring the availability of hardware and personnel, and allowing the champion to function within the development process. The second organizational factor is user participation in the building process. Doing so tends to increase commitment and foster a sense of ownership of the system. Other organizational factors include organizational politics and organizational climate. Politics is jockeying for leverage to influence one’s domain and control procedures, technology, or the direction of an area of operation. User readiness can also influence the success of implementation.

6.

Why is the place of training important? Why is duration of training important? The location of training can make a difference to a successful knowledge management system. Off-site training is generally dedicated uninterrupted learning environment. Its benefits include privacy and focus on the project(s). The feasibility of off-site training depends on distance, location, and funding. In contrast, on-site training requires no outof-town transportation or room and board expenses. Duration of training should be planned around the schedule of the users. Squeezing training time to the bare minimum often results in trainee impatience, resistance to learning, or nonuse of the system.

7.

What do you think determines the success of user training? Two factors determine the success of user training:

a. b.

8.

How do users differ from experts? a. b.

c. d.

9.

The user’s knowledge of knowledge management systems. Training should be customized to fit the target user group. The trainer’s experience and communication skills. The trainer for successful user training needs to be well educated in the subject field and seasoned with user training. The trainer also need to possess excellent interpersonal and communication skills when dealing with users.

The expert does not have the same vested interest in the system as the user and, in most cases, the expert will not be the final user. The user is readily available for the systems analyst to build the information system or the knowledge management system; the expert is not that readily available. This author learned the hard way that the more successful the expert is, the more difficult it is to secure his or her services. The user is usually cooperative, as he or she needs the product. Experts tend to be independent and cooperation is not required and sometimes not even there. The expert has knowledge of the problem and the solution, while the user has knowledge of the problem, but not the solution.

Of the steps making up the KMSLC, which one do you consider the most critical? Why? Which would be the most time consuming?” Problem identification is the most critical part of the KMSLC. This is because the problem selected is often a unique problem and the rest of the cycle will be based on this initial step. So, it must be correct. The most time-consuming aspect is the knowledge capture phase, since the planning and conceptualization of the rest of the project takes place here.

10.

What is rapid prototyping? How is it useful in building KM systems? Rapid prototyping is the spontaneous, on-the-spot, interactive building of a KM system. It is useful in building the system, because the initial prototype from the knowledge developer is shown to the expert, expecting the expert to add new ideas or rules. Together, on-the-spot review and update of the prototype continues until the final system is completed to the satisfaction of the expert.

11.

Elaborate on the main steps of a feasibility study. When should a feasibility study be conducted? Why? A feasibility study involves taking the problem to be addressed, evaluating it in detail, and plugging in the total costs against the tangible and intangible benefits of the system. Doing this will then be able to answer the following questions: a. b.

Is the project doable? Is it affordable?

c. d.

Is it the next best project for the firm? Is it practicable?

This study should be done before any KM system is started on. 12.

What does it mean to “scope” a project? Give an example. To scope a project means to determine the project’s capabilities and how well it will fit in with the organization. For example, for a firm that needs a KM system but has never had one before, in scoping the project, the firm’s inexperience should be accounted for and the system should not be as complex as a system for a more experienced organization may be. Another way of looking at scoping is to consider constraints such as money, time, and talent. For example, if a system that is supposed to take four months to complete has a deadline of three months, the developer will have to scope the project around the deadline, either by working late nights or by cutting corners to provide enough of a system to do the job within the time constraint.

13.

What is your understanding of a human expert? How would you select one? There is an old saying, “an expert is someone who knows what he does not know and is the first to tell you so.” An expert is someone who has spent a number of years or thousands of hours diagnosing or troubleshooting a particularly difficult problem and is known to be good at solving it. This goes from the seasoned and licensed auto mechanic to the open heart surgeon. Obviously, the latter expert requires education (e.g. MD) as well as training—years of residency and dozens of successful operations. Unfortunately, such experts are hard to access and are not readily available. So, in most KM system development, either the company assigns the so-called expert or the knowledge developer has to settle for second best.

14.

Write an essay in which you describe the role of the knowledge developer and his or her relationship with the key persons in the knowledge capture process. Students should be required to search the literature, especially on the Internet, regarding such a topic or preferably talk to someone in the industry who has done knowledge development work. The computer science or systems engineering department is another source, where such activity might be going on.

15.

Briefly highlight the functions and attributes of the chief knowledge officer (CKO). Key functions:  Maximize the returns on investment in knowledge—people, processes, and technology

  

Share best practices and reinforce the goodness of knowledge sharing among employees on a regular basis Promote and improve company innovations and the commercialization of new ideas Minimize “brain drain” or knowledge loss at all levels of the organization

The key attributes include:  Broad knowledge of business practice in general and the ability to translate technical information at the employee level  Dynamic interface, making effective use of technical and nontechnical elements in KM design, especially if the CKO is the chairperson of the KM team  Knowledge of information technology, information systems, software, and technology in general  Teaching and selling  Communicating  Understanding (see pp. 428-429 in text) KNOWLEDGE EXERCISES 1.

Crozet Country Club’s use of a knowledge management system can be justified on several fronts. The system captures the human resources manager’s knowledge of how she makes her hiring decisions. If she leaves the club, the system will help to ensure that her expertise and know-how are not lost. The hiring KM system saves the club time and money by making accurate decisions more rapidly than the normal way of deciding on an applicant. Because the club receives a large number of applications to fill a relatively small number of positions, efficient applicant evaluation is of critical importance. However, handling and sorting the plethora of applications was formerly time consuming and haphazard. This system reduces the time taken to fill vacant positions. More importantly, it helps to ensure that employees have the necessary qualifications. The hiring KM system promotes a higher level of consistency and quality in hiring decisions. Prior to implementing the system, the manager did not have a “wage matrix” to use in determining appropriate wages for employees, and the process was quite random. This led to some conflict within the organization. Furthermore, the manager hired some applicants without focusing enough on their ability, and they turned out to be poor employees. In essence, the KM system helps guarantee that all of the necessary variables are fully considered in each decision. a. Is this sufficient justification for the KM system? Why or why not? b. Is the system likely to replace the human resources manager, who was instrumental in sharing her knowledge, which is captured in the knowledge base? a. For all practical purposes, the country club was happy to capture the basic hiring rules in a system that promotes standardization and consistency in hiring decisions. When it comes to matching human skills to job requirements and determining the fair wage,

hiring as a human resource function becomes a serious step. Unfair or inconsistent hiring decisions could be discriminatory as to invite lawsuits. The only limitation of such a system is that real-life decision-making on recruitment is flexible and cannot be based on a set of rules that won’t size up personality, nonverbal cues, and the like. b. Probably not. The way this system turned out, the human resources manager relied on the system for deciding on clear-cut applicants—those with a close match that don’t require special evaluation or consideration. Belatedly, however, it was found that as the club grew in size and the profile of the members changed from the once senior citizens to the younger members, the job requirements for snack bar attendant, lifeguard, and swim coach has changed. Without the capability of updating the requirements and the resulting decisions, the system would soon become dated. In this case, the students graduated and moved away, leaving the human resources manager without someone to update the knowledge base. 2.

The goal of this project is to develop a consumer-lending knowledge base to guide the junior bank officer through the decision of whether an auto loan should be approved. In the loan department, there are experienced senior loan officers who are willing to share their knowledge with others. You have been assigned the job of building a KM system for the bank. Explain in detail the life cycle of this project. The goal of this exercise is to see how well students can plan the building process. The most important aspect of such exercises is for the knowledge developer to be aware of the steps that lie ahead and plan accordingly. This is more like strategic planning. The major steps of this project’s life cycle are: a. Identify the problem domain and attempt to justify it. This includes finding out how useful the system is going to be to the consumer loan department or its officers, who will be using it, what benefit it is going to provide, how committed the firm is to seeing it done, whether there is a champion in the bank, and the availability of a knowledgeable loan officer. b. Knowledge capture. Assuming an expert is available, this second step involves meeting with the human expert and tapping his or her knowledge via appropriate tools and procedures. Rapid prototyping plays a key role in this phase. Also, various knowledge analysis tools such as semantic nets and decision trees are used during this phase of system development. The knowledge developer should project the role of the architect of the system. c. Knowledge codification. This step is essentially coding or programming the knowledge captured from the human expert. The actual working code is represented by rules or frames. Rule-based systems are the more popular knowledge-based systems. d. Implementation. The implementation step is a first-draft completion of the coding and initial testing of the system in preparation for logical testing and user acceptance testing. e. Logical and user acceptance testing. Both of these steps make up testing as we understand it in testing conventional information systems. Logical testing precedes user acceptance testing. Once these steps are completed, certification follows.

f. Maintenance. This step ensures that the system continues to function according to the initial standards of performance. Many professionals do not consider maintenance as a step in the life cycle of building systems, because it normally follows system installation. In our case, we promote maintenance as part of the process of commitment to integrity of system building. 3.

A KM system for a large retailer was designed to help human resources develop a qualified candidate pool from the many applications they receive on a daily basis. The knowledge on hiring available in the KM knowledge base suggests the wage each accepted applicant should receive, based on his or her skills and relevant experience. The three positions addressed are (a) floor salesperson, (b) customer service representative, and (c) gift wrap employee. The system encodes the knowledge of the expert in each area and the knowledge of the person who makes the hi...