Case Histories

"How do you run this thing?"

Mitigating “knowledge drain” as employees leave

• Situation: A government organization is moving out of state; most of its very experienced workforce are retiring or looking for new jobs instead of moving.
• Solution: A knowledge continuity strategy

challenges

• Concern about the knowledge drain as experienced employees depart
• Concern about new hires'—younger and less experienced—time-to-competency
• Employee integration is currently responsibility of employee and supervisor
• Only a few internal processes and procedures are documented—on a shared drive that is difficult to navigate
• Key managers travel frequently—difficulty keeping the organization current with all the changes
• New employees have a hard time finding the information they need

how we helped — ideas that made sense

• A knowledge management plan to achieve a smooth transition to the new location
• A knowledge continuity program, improving new hires' time-to-competency
• A new knowledge sharing mechanism that
  • Mapped key processes and critical knowledge points, posted on a new portal site so new employees could see the processes and the relevant knowledge required
  • Organized and facilitated process improvement working groups to determine how the knowledge management efforts would best work within their operational construct
  • Identified an information architecture to support transition to a Web-based information repository and portal system (SharePoint)
  • Set up blogs and wikis to support knowledge exchange

reliable results

• Every member of the organization was able to view a map of all internal processes—for the first time
• Reduction of new hires' time-to-competency began nearly immediately
• Side benefit of identifying redundancy and disconnects in their information flow
• Sharing and acting on relevant and current information was made possible by the new web portal

"I didn’t have to bother a lot of people and ask tons of minor questions when I first started. By looking at the knowledge maps, I either figured it out myself or could ask more accurate questions about how to do something."

"Who did I meet that knows that stuff?"

Establishing a learning community for managers

• Situation: A leadership training organization for government managers was moving from a classroom-based to a classroom-plus-online model.
• Solution: Establishing communities of practice for different leadership levels

challenges

• A highly compressed and content-intense new model
• Insufficient time/inadequate mechanisms to develop the strong peer relationships critical to success
• Creating an environment that supports relationship building and continuous learning—and still meets intense learning objectives in a compressed time frame

how we helped — ideas that made sense

• A knowledge strategy centered on a learning community for each course level
  • Identified requirements for communications and learning support
  • Evaluated workable technology options and selected the most effective
  • Designed an online community to support each of four levels of leadership development: learning modules, discussion groups, and relevant content
  • Guided instructors through a visioning exercise on incorporating online community capabilities into their curricula
• Initiated establishment of a steering group to oversee community design and implemented improved internal knowledge sharing processes
• Created steering group charters, best practices recommendations, community user and facilitator guides, governance procedures, and hands-on training
• Developed a change management plan recommending ways to ease adoption of the new processes

reliable results

An online learning and support network to complement the course curriculum and set the conditions for ongoing relationships before, during, and after formal course work.

"We lost...but our client won."

Knowledge continuity in contract transition

• Situation: A large government contractor required a transition plan as part of their proposal.
• Solution: Develop a knowledge transfer plan to capture "how" and "why" things work, not just the system documentation.

challenges

Transition global warfighter support to a new contractor with no loss of system effectiveness.

how we helped — ideas that made sense

Working with the incumbent's transition manager, we developed a four-part knowledge transition program:

• Mapped key processes and identified critical, at-risk knowledge
• Developed a standard for knowledge transfer documents
• Devised activity-based operations scenarios and issue-based retrospectives
• Created change management strategy to address the personal motivation and organizational culture issues that could hinder execution of the knowledge transfer program

reliable results

A disciplined and thorough approach to identifying and documenting critical aspects of the operation to ensure seamless transition of operations.

"We're not the other guys...you guys are the other guys."

A vision for a reorganization effort

• Situation: As a result of an organizational realignment, a new office was established as the parent headquarters for five previously independent organizations.
• Solution: Created a vision and strategic imperatives to guide implementation of cross-organization innovation and knowledge-sharing initiatives.

challenges

• The five organizations had unique purposes and constituencies and had operated independently for many years.
• Headquarters was now mandated to identify opportunities to streamline processes and drive collaboration among and across all five organizations.
• Cultural issues of independence, circumvention, and skepticism of all ideas "not invented here"

how we helped — ideas that made sense

In developing the strategic plan, we incorporated a major goal—to address knowledge sharing and continuous improvement—by:

• Creating methodology and messaging for a senior leader blog to increase visibility of command issues
• A program of engagement opportunities and messages for interacting with the public and between organizations
• Assessment of the most appropriate available technology to increase knowledge sharing, both internally and externally
• Multi-phased plan to establish internal trust and build support for change, including a narrative story, “Day in the Life of…,” describing the quality of operations after desired changes are implemented and adopted

reliable results

The organization had a compelling vision and target actions to begin their long-term change objectives.

"We got that customers aren't supposed to hate us."

Knowledge-sharing improves IT support

• Situation: A government IT organization had a reputation for very poor quality and responsiveness making it difficult to build customer support for IT consolidation initiatives.
• Solution: Knowledge management becomes a major part of the IT support strategy.

challenges

• Customers across multiple, large departments believed they could get better IT support by doing it themselves instead of letting the central IT organization department do it, creating many enclaves of IT support driving up overall costs and impeding the integrated operations that was a stated goal in the their organization’s strategic plan.
• The IT department did not communicate well internally and seemed adversarial to their customers. High turnover exacerbated the disjointed operations.

how we helped — ideas that made sense

We developed a knowledge management plan as an integral part of the IT support program with specific activities to address six key initiatives:

• Improving project and event management within the IT support activity
• Improving responsiveness to customer requests
• Active engagement with the various customer communities
• Maximizing use of the underutilized SharePoint portal
• Reducing time-to-competency for new hires in a high- turnover operation
• Establishing a continuous improvement and learning environment for all IT personnel through communities of practice

reliable results

Incorporating knowledge management objectives as part of the IT support package was so successful that it was replicated for other IT support contracts.

"You mean it's NOT all about us?"

Improving decision making and reducing duplication

• Situation: A large government organization wanted to reduce duplication in its IT investments and change the silo mentality that allowed departments to create systems and processes independent of others' needs.
• Solution: A knowledge-sharing strategy focused on engagement and collaboration at multiple levels

challenges

• Change decades of "business as usual" to make decisions based on overall need and justification—not on the preferences of individual sections
• Address cultural issues of independence, e.g., “we are special,” and “that won’t work here”

how we helped — ideas that made sense

Developed a complimentary information technology and knowledge management strategy signed by the head of the organization

• Five strategic goals, consistent with overall business goals
  • Improve governance
  • Design knowledge sharing processes
  • Consolidate IT infrastructure to enable better reliability
  • Create knowledge exchange across the organization
  • Create workforce initiatives (training, performance support) to support necessary behavioral and cultural changes
• Governance effort included coordinating executive steering groups, work groups, and a portfolio management process driving collaboration across all functional and operational lines to reduce/eliminate siloed decision making
• The accompanying change management strategy included training programs and senior leadership initiatives to promote the desired changes.

reliable results

• Within one year of implementing these knowledge sharing and collaboration initiatives, over $30 million identified in projects that could be consolidated or shared, with funds re-committed to priority unfinanced requirements
• Instituted policy and process changes to reinforce and embed the success