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SEVENTEENTH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE
CONVENED ON MARCH 2, 2004 AT
FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION HEADQUARTERS.

Resources:

 

Brief:

The 17 th meeting of the Knowledge Management Roundtable (KM RT) series was held in the auditorium of Federal Aviation Administration Headquarters, 800 Independence Ave., Washington, D.C. on March 2, 2004.   It was jointly sponsored by Defense Contract Management Agency (WWW.DCMA.MIL) and the Federal CIO Council's KM Working Group (WWW.KM.GOV) Community of Practice Special Interest Group.

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, KM Roundtable, November 2001, KM Roundtable, February 2002, KM Roundtable, May 2002 , KM Roundtable, October 2002, KM Roundtable, February 2003, KM Roundtable, September 2003 , and KM Roundtable, March 2004.

MEETING OVERVIEW

The Knowledge Management Roundtable (KMRT) met with 60 members present to hear presentations on the topic of "Communities of Practice (CoPs)." The objective for the session was for the Round Table members (1) to leave with an understanding of the critical issues in initiating and sustaining communities of practice, (2) to share knowledge among the members of community, and (3) to transfer relevant knowledge to the members who need it. The presenters related stories regarding how CoPs were started and supported based on their real experiences within large organizations.   They also talked about lessons learned from the process of establishing CoPs and the critical issues for maintaining healthy CoPs.  

The agenda for the meeting is shown below:

1:00    Communities of Practice at Defense Contract Management Agency (click to download the slides)

                 - Brigadier General Darryl A. Scott, DCMA Director

2:00    Army's CompanyCommand* Community of Practice (click to download the slides)

                 - Major Nate Allen and Major Tony Burgess

3:00    W3 and Collaboration (click to download the slides)

                 - Neil Starkey, Distinguished Engineer & Manager of the Strategic Technology Relationship Team, IBM Software Group Federal, Office of the CTO


Presentation 1:

Presenter: Brigadier General Darryl A. Scott, US Air Force, Director, Defense Contract Management Agency

BG Scott's presentation was about the experiences of Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) in establishing and supporting Communities of Practice to encourage knowledge sharing agency-wide.

DCMA provides full acquisition service for Department of Defense, with 11,000 professionals at 800 locations world-wide.   It provides services to all major weapons system programs, $1.173Trillion in Contract "Face Value", 335,000 Contracts with 16,000 Contractors.

DCMA has a world-wide, 365/24/7 scope of activity.   When asked, people stated that they spend too much time looking for answers to a specific question -- Information overload.   There is difficulty in locating an expert, who can answer to a specific question, and employees are inundated with too much Information that is not needed.   They also stated that people re-invent wheels.   From the survey conducted in 1 st quarter of 2002, employees indicated that they want ability to collaborate on job related subject matter, ability to "ask the expert," permission to try practices that were successful elsewhere, benefit from lessons learned vs. reinventing wheels, access to general references as well as task specific information, ability to find the Right information, not inundated with information that is not needed.

To answer to the employee requests, DCMA started Communities of Practice (CoPs) in 2 nd Quarter of 2002 with 2 pilot CoPs and grew to 21 CoPs with 1224 members.   CoPs facilitate collaboration, allow members to get an answer easily to a specific question because Subject Matter Experts are members of CoP, filter incorrect Information by peer group, provide ways to capture institutional knowledge and reuse it, prevent re-inventing wheels by sharing knowledge, locate and ask the expert, and improve processes from sharing successful practices.

BG Scott pointed out impediments of knowledge transfer are: lack of organization commitment (overt and subtle), resistance to change, failing to communicate the knowledge sharing vision, knowledge Hoarding, and technology "turnoffs."   He described lessons learned from the KM effort: leadership commitment is Critically important; organization strategy must include KM; technology is an enabler of Intellectual Capital, not a substitute; can't do it on the cheap - reasonable funding is necessary.

BG Scott's Powerpoint presentation slides are available for download.

Presentation 2:

Presenters: Major Nate Allen & Major Tony Burgess, US Army

The presenters described how the Army's Company Command Community of Practice was started and how it is progressing as the main community of professionals in the Army providing exceptional leadership at the company level.

The community started because of the conversations on the front porch at Lanai, Hawaii.   Both Major Allen and Major Burgess were neighbors and commanded companies in the same Brigade. Usually during the evening when they hung out on their front porch talking about what was going on in their companies.   They thought, "Wouldn't it be great if commanders could easily share their ideas with like-minded leaders across the Army?"   Every Captain that they talked to got excited about finding a way to better share ideas.   Everyone had already considered capturing some of their command experiences in writing. However, there was no easy forum for this to happen and, once out of command, most Captains were off to the next busy assignment with no established system for them to remain tapped into their community.   As the internet exploded, they realized that the web was the vehicle to accomplish what they had been talking about. By chance they ran into Steve Schweitzer, who volunteered to build the web page (for free!), and the ball was rolling. Over the course of two months, they grew a team of officers who offered up their input and time to make CompanyCommand.com a reality.

For many officers, Company Command is professionally the greatest experience of their lives. They naturally spend time reflecting on it and have the desire to both remember it and pass on some of what they learned and experienced to others. Those who are preparing to take command naturally would love to tap into the ideas and insights of the thousands who have gone before them.

Major Allen and Major Burgess say, "The consequences of losing in the Army are serious, so it makes sense that Army leaders are passionately committed to figuring out and sharing what works."

As the Company Command became a major space for communication, the Vision of the Company Command became "Every company-level leader worldwide connected in a vibrant conversation about leading and building combat-ready teams."    Values are stated as, "Positive Voice" with a focus on solutions, passion for quality,   committed to the Army, innovative & creative and "Grass Roots." They envision every company-level leader in the Army--past, present, and future--connected together in a conversation about building effective units.   Members of this community are fiercely resolved to prepare for combat.   To continually share what they are learning, make themselves more effective and grow more effective, combat-ready units.  

They described the integrated learning model for the community of practice, and   emphasized that power to transform the organization happens when you bring the formal and the informal together.   It makes the assumption that the Leader/Organization knows what best practices are and tell the field to implement   --hierarchical, formal, and explicit knowledge.   Also the "touch points" of the enterprise know what best practice is - emergent tacit expertise.

Company Command also provides ProReading, which serves company commanders in their professional reading programs by enabling, modeling, and encouraging them as they build their combat-ready teams. It also provide the Army's 20,000 company-level leaders a culture shifting model of how their colleagues mesh professional reading to mission accomplishment by showing them how dedicated commanders "made it happen."

Company Command is a Great CoP site. Visit and learn about how they do it.   URL is http://companycommand.army.mil/

Powerpoint presentation slides are available for download.

Presentation 3:

Presenter: Neil Starkey, Distinguished Engineer, Strategic Technology Team, IBM Software Group Federal.

Neil Starkey's presentation described Knowledge Management in IBM and talked about their transformations with 315,000 people.   He started talking about the importance of human capital.    60% of IBM's 2003 spending was on people, such as salary, benefits, training, travel, etc.   Their internal survey showed that employees wanted the following:

•  I am given a real opportunity to improve my skills at IBM

•  Processes & procedures allow me to effectively meet my customers' needs

•  My job makes good use of my skills & abilities

•  Conditions in my job allow me to be as productive as I can be

•  I can get the information I need to do my job

He said that productivity' improvements required to remain competitive in today's knowledge market translate to increasing employee skills, knowledge management, & productivity

The On Demand Workplace enables IBM to become more productive, bringing IBM closer to customers & partners and provides the 'One IBM' through six basic elements : collaboration, business unit tools, content, e-learning, enterprise tools, and expertise.   Knowledge Management at IBM focuses on people - individuals, teams, communities, and organizations - as each plays a role in the development, management & flow of knowledge.   All initiatives are addressed through the context of IBM's business transformation framework.    Knowledge management must be driven by the business strategy.   Knowledge management drives business value in four different ways:

Neil quoted "When eight people in a garage somewhere can take market share from a company like IBM, then knowledge is a factor of production much greater than land, labor, and capital."   by Larry Prusak, former Executive Director of IBM Institute for Knowledge Management.

The IBM Corporate KM program sets the direction, provides leadership & guidance, and deploys corporate KM solutions:

The objective of IBM's expertise locator initiative is to enable IBMers to tap into the expertise of individuals and communities across the company.   It includes (1) robust information from the employee and business and discovery processes   (2) profiles of communities with access to their knowledge base and members   (3) the ability to easily connect and collaborate with individuals and communities - including question and answer management and knowledge capture capability.

Communities of practice at IBM foster knowledge sharing, intellectual capital management and professional development.    Communities are global professionals centered around domains of knowledge, focused on sharing of tacit and explicit knowledge, established where the business sees requirements

for knowledge sharing and knowledge management, and are not organizational units.   IBM has 250 communities with 3000 page visits and   more than 1000 unique visitors per month.

Neil also talked about collaborations and IBM community tools.   He provided contact information for IBM KM: Renee Marsh, Program Director, Knowledge Management Enterprise On Demand Transformation rlmarsh@us.ibm.com

Neil Starkey 's PDF presentation slides are available for download.

Our thanks are extended to Mr. Giora Hadar, FAA for hosting the KMRT on Communities of Practice and for Webcasting of the meeting. To view the recorded web-cast (177 minutes), visit   http://videoontheweb.faa.gov/Knowledge_mgmt.htm

Moonja P. Kim,  

Coordinator of KM Roundtable meetings, Defense Contract Management Agency, 6350 Walker Lane, Alexandria, VA 22310    (703) 428-1483



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