TWELFTH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE

CONVENED ON FEBRUARY 6, 2002 AT NASA HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, DC

Resources:

Roundtable Announcement

Agenda

Participants

Organization List

NASA APPL Knowledge Sharing Initiative
(Please contact to ICASIT for slide Presentations)

BRIEF

NASA hosted the twelfth event in the Washington DC region's Knowledge Management Roundtable (KM RT) series at its Headquarters in Washington, DC on February 6, 2002.

Held in conjunction with the School of Public Policy's International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology (ICASIT) and Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology (CIT), the KM RT seeks to broaden the application and advance the effectiveness of KM practice in organizations in the region. CIT seeks to increase the Commonwealth's economic competitiveness and quality of life by advancing the development of Virginia as a technology state and by creating and retaining technology-based jobs and businesses.

As part of its efforts to achieve these results, CIT provided a grant to ICASIT to help initiate a shared KM culture among organizations in Virginia by identifying organizations interested in KM and convening the first KM Roundtable that was held in March 1999 (KM Roundtable, March 1999). Subsequently, a KM RT has been convened nearly every quarter: KM Roundtable, June 1999, KM Roundtable, September 1999, KM Roundtable, February 2000, KM Roundtable, May 2000, KM Roundtable, August 2000, KM Roundtable, November 2000, KM Roundtable, February 2001, KM Roundtable, May 2001, KM Roundtable, August 2001 and KM Roundtable, November 2001.

With this event, eleven meetings have been held since initiation of the KM RT three years ago; an average of 58 individuals have participated in each event. Attendance by 89 participants (Participants) at the February meeting (Agenda) just broke the "record" for attendance at such events. The previous high mark was set at CSC in August, 2000 during a presentation by Kent Greenes, CKO at SAIC, who presented a talk entitled "E-Knowledge: Learning Faster than the Speed of Change." (Attendance at the earlier meeting was 88 participants.) Sixty-four participants attended the recent KM RT event for the first time. Based upon this first-time attendance, now more than 350 practitioners representing some 170 organizations (Organization List) have become involved in the KM RT program.

INTRODUCTIONS

At this meeting, Virgil Frizzell, KM consultant to ICASIT, welcomed the day's participants, presented an overview and history of the KM RT, and introduced five leaders of NASA's Knowledge Sharing Initiative (KSI). The range of the academic and experiential backgrounds presented by members of this team demonstrates the importance and nature of the cross-disciplinary and collaborative effort required for successful KM programs.

Dr. Edward Hoffman (My Future Revisited http://www.appl.nasa.gov/knowledge/ask/sept_01/dir.htm) serves as Director of NASA's Academy of Program and Project Leadership (APPL). The APPL enhances leadership skills in program and project leaders and teams for NASA. Dr. Hoffman develops training curriculum, consulting services, research projects, and special studies that address leadership. He earned a doctorate, an MS, and an MA from Columbia University in social and organizational psychology.

Professor Alexander Laufer (Laufer http://www.cee.umd.edu/laufer.html) serves as Editor-in-Chief of ASK Magazine, as a member of APPL's advisory board, as a visiting professor of civil engineering at the University of Maryland, and as Dean of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. He is an expert on project and change management. Dr. Laufer earned a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering and an M.Sc. in Civil Engineering and Construction Management from the Technion in 1971 and 1976, respectively. He also earned a Ph.D. in Civil Engineering and Project Management from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980.

Dr. Michelle Collins, who is on a detail from Kennedy Space Center, serves as Knowledge Sharing Initiative (KSI) Project Manager within APPL as well as the managing editor of ASK Magazine. She has worked for NASA since 1985 as a facilities engineer, researcher, and project/program engineer. Dr. Collins earned an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at Portland State University, an M.S. in Environmental Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the University of Central Florida.

Todd Post, who works for EduTech Ltd. and serves as Editor of NASA's ASK Magazine, has more than 15 years experience as a professional writer and editor working with clients in both the private sector and government. In previous positions, he has been a technical writer, providing documentation support on many telecommunications systems, and has taught writing at several universities. Mr. Post has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Creative Writing.

Denise Lee is a Knowledge Sharing Manager with EduTech Ltd. and a key participant in the NASA KSI. She is active in the knowledge sharing community within the Federal government and the local vendor community in Washington, DC. Ms. Lee earned a B.A. in Business and an M.S. in Social and Organizational Learning with a concentration in Knowledge Management from GMU.

NATIONAL AERONAUTICAL AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION

NASA (NASA http://www.nasa.gov/) operates at 15 centers and facilities throughout the US with an annual budget of about $14 billion in support of human space flight, space, aeronautic, technology, and mission support activities through the efforts of some 18,000 full time employees and about 270,000 contractors. About 12,000 of NASA's civil service workforce undertake day-to-day project activities in support of NASA's mission.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING INITIATIVE AT NASA

Michelle Collins served as moderator and presented an overview of the morning's program, APPL, and the KSI. The KSI, one of five programs fostered by the APPL, cultivates a knowledge sharing community among NASA's program and project leaders. APPL's KSI activities are funded at about $1 million per year through NASA's Office of Human Resources as a leadership training and development activity; APPL is one of several of activities fostered by Human Resources all of which promote NASA's environment for learning (Learning Umbrella http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/codef/codeft/). NASA's CIO, Lee B. Holcomb, leads several other components of NASA's KM activities maintained throughout the agency.

Edward Hoffman welcomed KM RT participants to NASA and briefly provided a more detailed description of APPL and its goals (See APPL http://appl.nasa.gov/about/about_home.htm), which became critical to NASA in the wake of the Challenger accident.

Using various products and services, APPL addresses two main goals:

• Insure all people possess the preparation required for success, and

• Increase the likelihood for project success.

The several approaches include a competency model, live training courses in project management, web-cast courses, direct project support for teams, research on project management based upon benchmarking studies of other federal agencies, and the knowledge sharing component of NASA's KM program. Dr. Hoffman offered that the KSI approach was both fun and effective. Essentially, this involves identifying the leaders and "best" managers and listening to their stories.

Dr. Collins explained that in addition to striving for more success for project leaders and projects, other factors made knowledge sharing important to NASA's future. First, the mantra "faster, better, cheaper" tripled the number of projects at NASA, and, second, agency reductions in force cut very deep. Thus the agency needed, on the one hand, to reevaluate the training needs of the remaining workforce, because many senior practitioners were lost under the RIF, and, on the other, determine how to capture the knowledge of senior practitioners who may be nearing retirement.

In his presentation, Alexander Laufer convincingly argued for reflective leadership in today's increasingly dynamic business and research environments. We need to become and train leaders, not managers. With just 8 PowerPoint images addressing required mind-set shifts and expected benefits of the KSI, Laufer presented the core of the issues as well as the nuggets from several leadership and knowledge management texts.

Mind-set Shifts
Professor Laufer notes that while organizational success requires that we share needed knowledge, overcoming the "knowing-doing" gap is even more important. While sharing knowledge derived from one's organizational leadership and from other organizations makes an important contribution to an organization's knowledge base, the knowledge gained from practitioners close to the action is the most critical. Organizations need to find their competent, suitable, and credible practitioners and turn their tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

Knowledge is not a commodity or substance in the sense of being implanted into our minds, but is created in the spaces between us. Therefore, NASA increasingly creates communities of practice where knowledge may be shared openly in order to convert tacit knowledge and hunches into explicit knowledge. These communities stress dialogue, sharing, listening, exploring, finding out, and questions and answers over debate. The communities also promote storytelling as an excellent method to convert tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge.

This traditional activity fosters rapid assimilation of new knowledge and is attractive for a number of reasons. Telling stories about our successes (or failures overcome) is attractive and provides us with our share of attention. We remember the stories, for we visualize images when we hear them and become emotionally involved; these visual and emotional cues help us remember the stories and their lessons. Stories are a rich vehicle for learning and understanding, for in this non-threatening format we may tell and hear about and acknowledge real-life paradoxes and contradictions.

Expected Benefits
Dr. Laufer summarized expected benefits of the KSI that he categorized as being for knowledge in general, for NASA's people, and for NASA as an organization. General knowledge will benefit through dissemination and transfer of knowledge, conversion of tacit to explicit, and innovation. People will gain enhanced discriminative, judgmental, and adaptive capabilities, emulate successful practitioners, and become more reflective. The organization will benefit in terms of organizational identity, image, and values, and change.
Denise Lee provided an overview of two components of APPL's KSI (Knowledge Sharing), the Forum of Master Project Managers and Knowledge Transfer meetings. The first forum was held in December 2000 (See Forums http://www.edutechltd.com/nasa/ksi/homepage.htm). KSI project leaders invite senior project managers who have been nominated or referred by members of the community at various centers to the three-day conferences (Masters Forum Slide), which focus on project management. About a fifth of the participants at a given forum are from other federal agencies or are guest speakers. The forum leaders distribute appropriate leadership books in advance of the conferences and invite the authors to discuss their findings in the context of project management.

The Transfer Wisdom Workshops (Workshop Slide) analyze case studies in terms of applicability to an individual center. These one-day workshops target project personnel who are transitional to becoming senior project leaders. APPL seeks to convene a transfer meeting once a year at each center and encourages continuing collaboration within the developing communities of practice at each center.

Todd Post described ASK Magazine (ASK), the third component of APPL's KSI. ASK (Academy Sharing Knowledge) continuously updates NASA's knowledge base for present and future project leaders and addresses all aspects of project leadership, including sub components of larger projects, solving technical problems, scheduling, working with contractors, and building teams, among other topics. ASK (ASK Magazine http://www.appl.nasa.gov/knowledge/ask/current/toc.htm) uses storytelling as a method of personalizing the lessons learned and presents contributions from successful leaders in other federal agencies and the private sector.

Mr. Post works with contributors with different levels of editorial input depending upon the contributor's level of storytelling and writing ability. Some contributors submit nearly ready drafts, others feel more comfortable developing the story during a taped interview, with the taped content subsequently transcribed and edited, and a few just submit outlines in the form of PowerPoint files from which Post creates a first draft for iterative editing by himself and the contributor. The key is to create stories that are interesting, compelling, and enjoyable to read, thus facilitating learning. The magazine resonates with many NASA employees, for the number of NASA subscribers grew from less than a thousand in March of 2001 to three thousand by the following December.

The presentations were followed by a robust comment and Q & A session before the meeting was adjourned.

KM RT participants expressed their gratitude to NASA and the panelists for their informative and insightful presentation.

GAO REPORT ON "LESSONS LEARNED" SHARING AT NASA

The February 6 KM RT meeting nearly coincided with the release of a General Accounting Office report on NASA's need for managers to improve sharing important lessons with one another. See the report at GAO (http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d02195.pdf -- note that Adobe Acrobat is required to view this file) and an article on it at GovExec.com (http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0202/021102m1.htm). Kellie Lunney, for GovExec.com, summarized GAO's findings both in the article and its title "NASA managers not sharing lessons learned, report says."

These findings were primarily based upon an evaluation of manager's use and perception of the Lessons Learned Information System (LLIS) at NASA as determined from a survey of 192 selected project or program managers and an overview of lessons learned and KM practices as represented in the literature and in discussions with leading KM and lessons learned practitioners. The report presents instructive and thought-provoking reading in light of what we learned at the February 6 KM RT.

The report, entitled "NASA: Better Mechanism Needed for Sharing Lessons Learned," indicates that the LLIS serves as the primary lessons learned repository at NASA. The agency funds the system, which contains over 1,100 lessons, at about $150,000 per year.

GAO found several notable cultural barriers to effective learning at NASA, including the perception that the lessons learned system offered no benefits, the pervasive feeling that there wasn't enough time to share, and a perceived lack both of trust and of tolerance for mistakes.

Managers responding to GAO's survey suggested a number of ways to enhance lessons learning, including mentoring (first choice), story telling, and accountability. The report noted that APPL had initiated a story telling program, but that few managers identified APPL as a principal source of lessons learned.

The GAO report addressed two underlying problems that may limit success of the LLIS: "cultural resistance to sharing knowledge and the lack of (both) an effective strategic framework and management attention for overcoming such resistance." With these problems duly identified, the report presented a six-page overview of KM and thoughts about how KM might enhance learning at NASA.

These address the need to tie KM to the organization's business plan, the need for senior management support for KM, the need to appropriately invest in KM, the need to create a knowledge sharing culture, and the need to take KM programs beyond IT solutions.

The report notes that three pilot KM projects were funded at about $570,000 in 2000 and $3 million has been budgeted to fund selected KM initiatives in 2002. These expenditures appear to support IT projects to facilitate knowledge sharing.

GAO concludes, with some reservation, that current KM initiatives should lead to improvements in knowledge sharing at NASA. The report argues for stronger commitment to the creation of an environment that encourages knowledge sharing.

GAO recommends (p. 44 and 45) that the Administrator enhance the LLIS by addressing strategic planning ("Articulate the relationship between lessons learned and knowledge management through development of an implementation plan for knowledge management."), coordination, culture, LLIS processes, and performance measurement. In a series of comments, NASA addressed the report in a very positive fashion, agreeing with recommendations for improving the lessons learned processes and addressing each recommendation in turn. The response mentions a "Strategic Plan for Knowledge Management," which the NASA KM Team completed in March 2001 (See Plan for KM http://stargate.jpl.nasa.gov/devel/km/nasa-km/KM_Strat_Final.doc -- note this is in Microsoft Word format).

In her summary of the 30-page document, KM Team Chair, Jeanne Holm, states that NASA has "many of the key ingredients to making knowledge management succeed--a highly intelligent workforce, a need to learn in order to succeed, and some solid, technical infrastructure." The plan identifies three priority areas where KM can help NASA's ability to deliver its missions:

• To sustain NASA's knowledge across missions and generations

• To help people find, organize, and share the knowledge we already have

• To increase collaboration and to facilitate knowledge creation and sharing

Commentary
NASA should be lauded for initiating and supporting lessons learned and knowledge management processes (See overview at NASA KM http://stargate.jpl.nasa.gov/devel/km/nasa-km/index.html). These activities often prove difficult for organizations because bureaucratic, structural, and cultural barriers impede changes needed for success in such endeavors. The GAO report appropriately suggests improvements to the lessons learned processes and concludes that KM processes unfolding at NASA could enhance improved learning.

It does seem surprising, however, that the KM activities we heard about at the February 6, 2002, KM RT were not better known to project and program leaders at NASA. These leaders would appear to be appropriate targets for such programs. Part of the explanation may result from the fact that the KSI was just getting off the ground; the first KSI knowledge-sharing forum was held just as the GAO investigation started. Thus, the collective understanding of the KSI was at its lowest level. That this has changed in the intervening months may be indicated by the increase in ASK subscriptions that Mr. Post documented. Given this increase in readership and the fact that four Masters Forums have now been held throughout the country, a survey similar to that taken last summer would likely yield improved results.

Clearly, KM champions in NASA endeavor to increase the implementation of appropriate KM processes in the organization to enhance learning and programmatic success. With dissemination of the Strategic Plan, NASA's KM team presents a very acceptable general framework with which NASA may better manage its people, processes, and technology. To significantly increase the likelihood of success for the KM programs, however, NASA should address several issues related to leadership, culture, and funding.

Perhaps the most credible predictor of success for a KM program is the level and enthusiasm of the program's lead champion. Very senior leadership drives KM in those institutions with arguable the most successful programs. The GAO report mentions Ford as an organization that has had a very senior KM leader. Likewise, the President of The World Bank also champions KM. Thus, NASA's new Administrator might seriously consider learning more about KM and how it can enhance program success throughout his organization; he might consider becoming one of the KM champions at NASA. The returns would be very high. A related leadership issue addresses the managerial position that leads KM activities.

NASA should consider creating a new senior management position that would advocate for knowledge and learning and lead the development of knowledge strategies. The GAO report indicates that KM practitioners at NASA report to the CIO. This may have been appropriate in the past, as organizations learned more about the possibilities of KM processes, but more and more large, private and public sector organizations have found that the vision, mission, and goals of a CIO differ from those of the CKO. CIOs generally address the IT components of KM: infrastructure, codification, and storage. While the CKO uses IT as an enabler, the position addresses the personification issues of KM: building and managing relationships, advocating for knowledge and learning, managing knowledge and knowledge managers, solving problems, leveraging intellect, and developing improved knowledge strategies. The CKO position, which should acquire organizational position, reporting protocols, and funding levels similar to the CIO, will require a complex blend of human, technical, and financial skills, for the CKO's activities are multifaceted and very people oriented. Attention to these two senior leadership issues could enhance cultural changes at NASA that appear to impede appropriate levels of learning.

Next to leadership, culture may be the most important factor leading to success for KM programs. Both the GAO report and the Strategic Plan emphasize the importance of culture to the budding KM program at NASA, and changing the entrenched culture may be the most difficult process in the program. The responses from the managers surveyed during the GAO investigation demonstrate the hurdles presented by culture at NASA, but these hurdles can and must be overcome by a KM program that reinvigorates teamwork, lifelong learning, and knowledge sharing. As the culture changes, perhaps the dependence on technical solutions may improve, too.

It would appear that NASA will collectively invest about $4 million in KM in 2002: $3 million in IT initiatives to facilitate knowledge sharing and $1 million for the KSI. One could argue that neither the amount spent nor the ratio is correct. Clearly, 0.02 percent for KM is not enough. NASA must commit an appropriate level of support to KM processes and needs to apportion these increased funding levels less to IT and more to people and culture.

NASA's leaders are in an excellent position to enhance learning and knowledge management in their organization. A recent GAO report suggests appropriate enhancements to learning and knowledge management processes, a dedicated team of KM advocates has produced a strategic plan, champions in different centers have initiated experiments with KM processes, and the KSI provides KM training throughout the organization. It is up to NASA's top leadership to study and learn from the report and strategic plan and to more adroitly foster and support learning and knowledge sharing throughout the organization. The benefits to the organization and its mission, as well as to the Nation, will be worth the effort.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SURVEY

Since I presented preliminary results (KM Survey Results) of a survey on KM at our August 2001 meeting, we have obtained 40 percent more responses. I will fold these results into those previously received, but first I'd like to encourage those of you who have not completed the survey to do so. We hope to obtain a broader sense of how KM RT participants and other KM practitioners view the application of KM processes in their organizations.

The survey may be accessed directly (KM Survey) or from the ICASIT home page.

NEXT KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE

Please reserve May 16, 2002 on your calendars for the next KM RT meeting, which will be convened at 9 AM at George Washington University in Washington DC. Topics addressed will include an overview of the GWU KM Institute, KM certificate programs, research on organizational intelligence, the unified KM Framework Project, the Global Forum Conference 2002, and the GW Forecast Project. An agenda, specific venue at GWU, and directions will be forwarded with a more formal announcement in a few weeks.

CHANGE IN KM RT LEADERSHIP

With the completion of this report, the present director will resign as leader of the KM RT. During the three years since its inception, the KM RT has presented best KM practices to an increasingly large and diverse practitioner base, and, with newly identified co-directors, it likely will broaden its scope and vision. Clay Dean and Jay Chatzkel, the new co directors, intend to continue the quarterly KM RT meetings using the same general philosophy, culture, and format.

J. Clay Dean, P.E., provides KM support to the 3000-engineer community at the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC). He is the co-developer of NAVFAC's web portal, www.FoundationKnowledge.com, and of the Engineering Network KM intranet site.

Clay is a former naval officer, IT manager at a leading environmental firm, and CKO at a defense related corporation. He served as a staff member on the National Performance Review and received a Hammer Award for creating an automated customer service program serving DoD customers in the Washington Area.

He contributed to the Department of the Navy CIO KM Metrics Guide, the Cport - Building Communities of Practice Guide, Learning in a Virtual World (e-Learning guide and tool kit), and an article entitled "NAVFAC's E-NET: a KM Solution" in the Spring issue of The Military Engineer.

Clay serves as a member of the Society of American Military Engineers KM Committee and of the KM RT working. He graduated from the Naval Academy, the University of Colorado, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces and received a graduate level certificate in Information Systems from the George Washington University.

Jay Chatzkel is Principal of Progressive Practices, a management consulting organization (www.progressivepractices.com). He assists organizations transform themselves into knowledge-based, intelligent enterprises. These processes include working to develop capacities, skills, and practices in the areas of intellectual capital, knowledge management, leadership and collaboration, business process management and performance measurement.

Jay has developed the Strategic Knowledge Capture and Mapping for major organizational events, as well as the Performance-Based Knowledge Management Measures approach that enables resolving critical knowledge issues in organizations and the achievement of a desired return on investment in an enterprise's knowledge efforts.

He is the author of two books: Intellectual Capital and Conversations: How knowledge-based enterprises really get built. He is on the boards of editors of: Journal of Knowledge Management, Journal of Intellectual Capital, and The TQM Magazine. He has written numerous articles and conference reviews for these journals.

Jay earned a Batchelor's degree from Bucknell University and Masters degrees from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Please send suggestions on topics, speakers, and venues for future KM RT events, as well as suggestions for other improvements to the KM RT to Clay Dean at jdean1210@cox.rr.com or 202/685 9174 or Jay Chatzkel at jchatzkel@progressivepractices.com or 703/556-4255.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The past three years have proven to be very interesting indeed. When I first undertook research on the use of KM in the region, my first phone calls elicited some very amusing responses (including that from an unnamed major consulting firm's phone representative who asserted, "we don't manage any knowledge here, our main client is the federal government!").

Much learning has transpired since that time for me and for organizations in the region, and KM processes now enhance learning for many organizations and their employees. Thanks to the foresight of Professor Stephen Ruth, in the summer of 1998, I started to investigate and facilitate the use of KM in regional organizations at just the right moment. Now three different regional networking communities address KM, two local universities offer graduate level programs in KM, and some 360 practitioners representing 170 organizations participate in the KM RT.

I would like to thank the KM RT Working Group and the score of KM practitioners who shared their acumen with us. As with any community of practice, whatever success the KM RT has achieved has resulted from unselfish support and continuing cooperation from these leaders as well as from you, the KM RT participants at large. Thank you all for your interest and support.

Virgil Frizzell, Ph.D., MBA
Senior Consultant for Knowledge Management
International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology
School of Public Policy
George Mason University
vfrizzel@osf1.gmu.edu