All of the initiative’s participants and the stakeholders internal to the business unit realised the need to address KM issues. The team carried out elicitation to enhance their understanding of the current state of KM processes and the intricacies at hand. The discussions were open to anyone interested in or passionate about improving KM in the division. The level of participation in the discussions showed high levels of interest, frustration regarding the current state of affairs, and a desire to rectify the
55 situation. A page was created on the Confluence intranet site to facilitate the sharing of ideas and to keep a record of what was being discussed. The idea was to keep the process transparent, promote open communication, and encourage brainstorming. The site benefited those who could not attend the scheduled meetings, as they could still air their views electronically. The page opened up ideas on how to address the bottlenecks; supported by suggestions regarding new processes that could be adopted. The feedback and contributions on the site were brought up in the subsequent meetings and discussed further. This work was done prior to the commencement of the KM initiative, and formulated the KM team’s structure in terms of how members would be rotated to increase participation. It was also decided to limit the team size at any given point to seven members. The team was to be cross-functional at any given stage, containing at least a software engineer, a business analyst, a software tester, and the team leader. The challenges in the business unit at that time were examined from four perspectives: people, information policy, IT, and processes, as shown below.
Figure 4.1: Perceived knowledge gaps
The above figure illustrates the results of discussions regarding issues attributed to knowledge gaps that prompted the need to address the codification process. The discussions involved the core initiative team and other concerned parties from
56 different business units. It was highlighted that the complexity of the business was exacerbated by the lack of knowledge dissemination and knowledge application, the inability to share knowledge, the lack of clarity regarding who to contact for finance- related matters, finance knowledge being ‘siloed’, and non-standardisation of KM tools. Other noted problems were attributed to the inefficient codification process resulting from the poor relationship between software engineers and the business they serve, valuable knowledge being confined within certain teams, systems’ code not being well-documented, projects being solution-driven at the expense of quality, and lack of ownership for processes and documentation. One surprising concern was about knowledge residing outside of the business unit doing the work. It should be noted that this is an isolated case; but it is concerning nonetheless, because expertise would be expected to reside in the domain that utilises it. One of the most prominent points was the hesitation to survey the existing body of knowledge, out of concern that it would contain outdated information or conflicting sources due to the prevalent duplication of content.
Aspects raised in Figure 4.1 were refined in follow-up meetings. The meeting invitations were kept open to a wider audience and there were focus group sessions, not limited to participants of the KM initiative, aimed at enhancing the level of understanding and appreciation of the proposed initiative’s importance. This was perceived as a way of raising awareness and interest to in the business unit. What came out of the discussions is summarised in Figure 4.2 below:
Figure 4.2: Existing gaps identified from wider audience
It is evident from the above figure that frustration was expressed regarding the state of knowledge in various tools and its implications for employees’ confidence in using the existing codified knowledge. As much as this provides an understanding and an indication of the extent of the problems, it would have been interesting to see whether
57 the audience perceived anything as being done well. This was not asked in the meetings. It may be asked whether this could be an indication that everything is problematic and nothing is being done well in this regard. Arguably, positive elements are often ignored or overlooked, to the extent of being changed unnecessarily or affected negatively because they are not considered from the outset. The KM team’s focus was on ensuring quick and accurate transfer of knowledge. From the team’s first meeting, it was evident that a number of tools were adopted over the years as part of encouraging and enforcing the codification process. This raises the question of why there were so many tools to support codification, which were at the time adding to the existing gaps in the knowledge aspects of the organisation. The gap here was the inability to access related knowledge in one location; as knowledge was dispersed in various tools, leading to time wastage when consulting various sources. This also introduced a potential gap in knowledge re-use, while potentially presenting a problem of ‘reinventing the wheel’. By virtue of not knowing upfront whether certain knowledge about a process or project existed, the same work could be done, potentially missing key elements already noted or recreating a solution that already existed. Some members were of the opinion that KM is considered effective when there is effective capturing and storage of knowledge; a notion that contradicts the secondary data in Chapter 2. The literature does indicate that effectively capturing and storing knowledge contributes to an effective KM standpoint, but posits that knowledge must fit into the bigger picture of the strategic knowledge purposes and take into account whether the approach is biased towards exploration, exploitation, or both (Newell et al. 2009:232).
The disconnect between the academic literature and the professional environment was evident in the fact that the approach was focused on resolving existing challenges without considering related research, which could highlight the pitfalls or benefits of certain approaches. It can be argued that some academic references to similar cases could make the implementation of similar initiatives easier.
As stated in the literature review, the gist of the codification strategy is “people-to- documents”, where knowledge is extracted from people. A case could be made for combining the codification and personalisation strategies to establish a competitive strategy in a knowledge-intensive environment. Hansen et al. (1999:1-2) support this position; placing emphasis on the need for both “people-to-documents” and “person- to-person”.
58 Newell et al. (2009:31) propose looking at KM from a strategic level, and indicate that codification is not done in isolation from the broader scope of KM. The KM team’s analysis focused on the codification strategy due to time limitations and the belief that this was where the bulk of the existing gaps emanated from. There was no clarity on what management expected from the initiative. This disregards what was stated in the literature review about defining the strategic knowledge purpose. There is however an enabling context to address some aspects of KM, and those involved do realise that knowledge is a valuable asset.
The following section presents an analysis of the data collected through participant observation for the first objective.