How have organisations such as NASA, Arup, Fluor and Teradata succeeded with knowledge management systems whereas others have struggled?

In 2006, Laing O'Rourke conducted a detailed investigation into the reasons for the apparent failure of their best practice management system...

"The system just put far too many barriers in the way of easy submission of knowledge. There were too many hoops to jump through before you could submit; too many hoops for retrieval; the top-level classification was unclear; users had no real indications of what was expected from submissions and who was going to use them; and the detailed classification actually obstructed users from getting to the results."

Lessons Learnt

The KorteQ solution is very much aligned with corrective action taken by Laing O'Rourke during its breakthrough improvement programme, embedding the new methods into the company's project lifecycle management process:

"Best practice is pointless unless it is actually put into practice...it needs to deliver clear results".

A dramatic shift towards low-cost "enterprise 2.0" software, inspired by consumer preferences, favours highly configurable solutions such as Microsoft Sharepoint and GoogleApps. We specialise in this type of rapid, light-touch, user-friendly implementation, ensuring that the priorities are driven by specific business needs.

Drawing on well-proven principles, we synchronise the people, process and content aspects, in order to get the vital knowledge flowing in real-time. Our technology methods place the end-users at the centre of a five-step process:

Requirements
Considering how best to unlock the potential of knowledge resources hidden in individual expertise, staff "black-books", informal collaboration and dusty repositories; and setting specific targets for improvement.

Design
Our independent guidance helps to shape the right decisions on IT architecture and solution specification. Often a simple upgrade to existing systems will suffice to enable breakthroughs in team collaboration and performance of business processes.

Configure
An iterative approach is often preferred, ensuring that basic knowledge-sharing capability is enabled before customising further features, such as social computing using Wikis and Blogs.

Pioneer
Our offering includes full process definition, training, coaching, content management, testing and launch support for the pioneering application of the new capabilities.

Roll-out
The final stage is focused on driving deployment, establishing continuous feedback mechanisms, reviewing metrics and securing the target benefits. The pioneering group(s) typically provide "cascade" training in order to underpin the client's self-sufficiency.
 

The importance of effective knowledge transfer as a key factor in successful systems deployment has been emphasised by Dr. Richard Sykes, the renowned strategic coach in information and communications technology, who chaired our client seminar on behalf of the Bloor Research Group.