Knowledge Matters™

As a junior officer in the Australian Army I was taught many principles. These included the 10 principles of warfare, the six principles of administration, and the seven principles of medical support. These principles were supposed to be enduring, and used as guides against which plans were tested. Now it seems we have 12 principles of knowledge management , or at least the US Army does. Their principles are:

• Principle 1. Train and educate KM leaders, managers, and champions.
• Principle 2. Reward knowledge sharing and make knowledge management career rewarding.
• Principle 3. Establish a doctrine of collaboration.
• Principle 4. Use every interaction whether face-to-face or virtual as an opportunity to acquire and share knowledge.
• Principle 5. Prevent knowledge loss.
• Principle 6. Protect and secure information and knowledge assets.
• Principle 7. Embed knowledge assets (links, podcasts, videos, documents, simulations, wikis...) in standard business processes and provide access to those who need to know.
• Principle 8. Use legal and standard business rules and processes across the enterprise.
• Principle 9. Use standardized collaborative tool sets.
• Principle 10. Use Open Architectures to permit access and searching across boundaries.
• Principle 11. Use a robust search capability to access contextual knowledge and store content for discovery.
• Principle 12. Use portals that permit single sign-on and authentication across the global enterprise including partners.

Now this is a pretty interesting list, especially when I compare them to the TARDIS principles used in one part of the Australia Defence Force, and developed five years ago. The TARDIS principles were: ...

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Just of late I've encountered a number of capability maturity models aimed at knowledge management. Capability maturity models have been around for a while in other disciplines, most notably in software development projects. Almost all of the models owe their origins to the collaboration between the US Department of Defense and the Software Engineering Institute of Carnegie Mellon University. The Capability Maturity Model was originally a tool to assess processes - in particular the processes of a contracted third party. In that sense its intent was to reduce risk.

Capability models now abound and even have been internationally standardised as part of ISO 15504 . ISO 15504 sets six levels of capability maturity as follows:

• Level 5 - Optimising Process,
• Level 4 - Predictable Process,
• Level 3 - Established Process,
• Level 2 - Managed Process,
• Level 1 - Performed Process, and
• Level 0 - Incomplete Process.

Notice anything here? It's all about process. Putting aside definitional issues, last time I looked knowledge management was about people, process, technology, and content. Capability maturity models are about process, so it begs the question "Does knowledge management really need a maturity model"? ...

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Yesterday was my last day working on the TARDIS knowledge management system and for HolisTech® Pty Ltd . It was both a sad day and a relief. It's a relief because for the past fortnight I've been somewhat schizophrenic. I've been schizophrenic because despite my best efforts I've found myself thinking and working (albeit unpaid) for my new organisation, and at the same time working in TARDIS and for HolisTech®. The net effect has been very long hours where I've been burning the candle at both ends, and is my defence for failing to blog in recent days! But I digress. I thought today (to stay with the medical theme) we would look at corporate amnesia.

Amnesia is a devastating disorder, which results in short or long-term loss of memory, and sometimes an inability to imagine the future . Amnesia is sometimes the result of a disease, but more commonly occurs from physical or psychological trauma. Now it seems to me corporate amnesia - the loss of collective organisational memory - is endemic these days, and is the result of both physical and psychological organisational trauma. ...

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I've been head-hunted to be the principal change champion in a large health services organisation, and to work up the information/knowledge management requirements for what will be potentially a multi-million dollar initiative. Whilst I am very excited I am also quite sad because this means I will be leaving HolisTech® Pty Ltd and TARDIS .

TARDIS is a joint venture between HolisTech® and the Australian Department of Defence to build and maintain a knowledge management system. I believe it to be one of the most significant attempts at knowledge management within the Australian public sector: an attempt that truly has tried to integrate people, process, technology and content. I'm very proud to have been associated with TARDIS, so today I thought I would share with you some of the lessons I will take away.

Just over four years ago Pat Byrne and I began to put the TARDIS dream into reality. We began with an interesting set of high-level requirements and constraints, with the constraints largely setting the direction of TARDIS. The two most important constraints were:

• only existing software and hardware were to be used, and
• software coding was to be absolutely minimised and kept to the application level.

Now with the benefit of hindsight I think these two constraints were truly inspired. ...

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It has been a busy week again, but a thoroughly enjoyable and productive one. On Wednesday and Thursday I attended the ‘Promoting a Culture of Knowledge in the Public Service’ conference in Sydney, which was organised by the Ark Group . On Friday I helped to run two post-conference workshops with my business partner Patrick Byrne . The conference was a small boutique affair with only about 30 people attending, which provided plenty of opportunities for networking. Several themes emerged from the conference, which are not new and are consistent with the popular literature. I’ll recount them below and offer some comment.

Unfortunately I missed most of day one, but the slide set and notes give some pretty good insights. Further because of the small size of the conference it was possible to talk to most of the participants. The keynote was given by Paul McDowall who talked about knowledge management in the Canadian Public Service . The slide set shows some models in use by various departments in the Canadian Public service and highlights to me the absolute need to tailor an initiative to the organisation. It also seems in common with Australia that “knowledge management” is a dirty phrase, and hence knowledge management initiatives are badged as something else. This was a theme in one of our workshops, where we suggested the value proposition of a knowledge management initiative is “using knowledge productively”, rather than “we are going to manage knowledge”. ...

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The Journey of a Knowledge Management System in the Department of Defence - TARDIS . A presentation to the KM Australia 2007 Conference given in July 2007.

TARDIS: Data Looks Small from the Outside, but the Information is Huge on the Inside . A presentation co-authored with Patrick Byrne and presented to the SEPG 2003 conference.

TARDIS - An Update: Moving Towards a Genuine Knowledge Management System . A presentation co-authored with Patrick Byrne and presented to the SEPG 2004 conference.

TARDIS: A Journey Through An Enterprise Knowledge Space . My Masters of Knowledge Management minor thesis presentation submitted in 2004.

TARDIS: A Knowledge Productivity™ Update . A presentation co-authored with Patrick Byrne and presented to the actKM 2005 conference .