de Stricker

Where does KM Report? A Montague Institute Member Q&A

Recently, Jean Graef of the Montague Institute (www.montague.com) issued a member Q&A query entitled "KM in the Org Chart" requesting input as to the organizational placement of the KM function within organizations.  She and I had a lengthy conversation as a result, and she did such an excellent job of summarizing my verbal commentary that I obtained her permission to bring her writeup here (slightly adjusted for brevity).  The full summary of responses resides at www.montague.com/abstracts/KMOrgchart.html.

"Stephen Denning is absolutely right:  KM lacks clout (and perhaps also sizzle!).  In the career paths leading senior managers to the position they now hold, they may not have encountered any "Johns Hopkins tragedy" or "good KM husbandry makes billions for company indicents" to cement conviction that it is worthwhile to invest in solid KM practices and due diligence and to enforce and reward them.  Any feeling that "the levees won't break on my watch" is understandable.

It is true that some KM roles evolved out of a corporate information center, but there are instances of business team leaders holding the role.  In the latter case, the credibility factor (he's an engineer like us) is worth watching. My hunch is that a combination of subject matter expertise and information expertise is the way to go ... but that may not be easy to achieve.

The inquiring Montague Institute member was interested in health care organizations - they are probably hard pressed to tie health outcome successes to KM activities and I'm guessing that may be one reason for the interest in the placement of the KM entity (either because it's perceived as a difficult function function to manage or becuase someone is looking to give the function some clout).  Unfortunately, in the view of those of us who work in KM, the activity is awkward to position because it is difficult to see what calamity would result from its absence (whereas no one has any dificulty imagining the consequences of the absence of an accounting department).

After my over 30 years of working in the information/knowledge space, I could point to how concrete pressures (Sarbox'll come and get you if you don't behave) have driven investment in records management, how the cost of litigation has driven email management, and how ediscovery is now the latest flavor of applying technology to the orchestration of activity evidence.  What I'm not seeing as clearly is any improvement in the elusiveness of KM:  What does it "look like" for a knowledge worker to "do good KM"?  How do we demonstrate that good KM is a contributor to corporate success on a par with skill and experience on the part of a professional?

A common refrain among busy professionals (I paraphrase from numerous interactions over the years) is there's no time to use the e-room or wiki or read the alerts; I have trusted contacts to seek out if I need help; I know it sometimes wastes time to be asking around but it still seems the most effective method for me; no KM person can know what my job is and therefore I don't believe any such person can address my work practices ... and so on.  Knowledge workers develop their own methods to get their work done - and this week's deliverables trump any theoretical willingness to participate in e.g. intranet teams and the like.  KM gets pushed off today's table because time runs out."

Do We Know the Cost of Information Imprecision?

I have commented on 'true but incomplete' information in the past.  Here's an example that raises the aspect of cost:  What is the price to be paid when information is unclear and confusing and fails to orient people accurately?

 

 

Having more than three decades of airport navigation under my belt, I take weather delays and the resulting rerouting in stride.  "You need the Service Center, straight ahead" seemed actionable recently in a European airport … but straight ahead turned out to feature a Service Center sign pointing directly into a freight elevator.  To be on the safe side (as opposed to trusting I could just aim in the general direction), I decided to return to the milling gaggle where another employee helpfully added "near gate 35".  A quarter mile later (or so it felt with the carryon luggage I had wisely decided on, knowing the risk of a missed connection), I reached gate 35 and saw nothing but another 'Service Center' sign pointing back the way I had come.  Like a hawk, I circled ... and around two corners stumbled upon a series of counters looking quite service-center-ish.  The lines were packed and an employee told me "the wait isn't as long in the service center downstairs".  That sounded like an option to consider until another triager instructed "you MUST go downstairs for your transfer".  Once down a level, I yet again had to ask a couple of uniformed people in succession in order to find my way (same type of sign pointing to another freight elevator!). 

If the signage designers missed the opportunity to hang a few extra signs near gate 35 and downstairs, employees might have compensated by saying, for example, 'when you get to gate 35 turn right around the coffee stand and then right again into the shopping area and go just past the jewelry store'.  It's an untoward scenario when an airport serving millions of people from all over the world supports the cost of the type of information imprecision I experienced: Adding up the employee time needed to deal multiple times with confused travelers goes only part way.  What about the airlines having to rebook people who miss connections not because of weather but because they are unable to navigate in time?  What about the impact on the travelers themselves?

 

Could it be that information imprecision, vagueness, or ambiguity might cause the organizational equivalent of missed connections and wasted time repeatedly redirecting dazed information seekers?  Airports may not engage mystery travelers to examine the clarity of their signage and the instructions employees give, but I believe most enterprises could benefit from such an investigation:  Just where and how long is the path through the enterprise or intranet maze when someone needs to find something or someone?  How useful is the immediately available information? How often must an inquirer return to an informant for clarification? How much cumulative time is needed to arrive at the correct department, person, or data inventory for proper assistance?

 

 

I want to stress how much I appreciated the employees who helped me in that airport; they were extremely pleasant, courteous, and approachable.  But an extra sign here and there - or, say, a map to hand out showing the location of the service center relative to landmarks like gates and coffee stands - would reduce the need for them to deal with quite so many harried passengers.  Said another way: I'd venture that a one-time investment in information precision (signs, maps) could pay for itself in no time and then eliminate the year-in, year-out cost of making up for its absence.