Today we’ll begin exploring the process, people, and technology considerations for implementing an expertise locator system—first with a look into the key process considerations. Each recommendation is supported by research into the experiences of other companies as they implemented similar expertise locator and management systems. In addition to the experiences gleaned from such organizations as the St. Paul Companies, the MITRE Corporation, and NASA, of particular note is the information gained from BP Amoco’s experience (Collison, 1999). BP Amoco’s experience is very relevant as much of their expertise locator experience comes after the merger of British Petroleum and Amoco—similar to the upheaval and change occurring in the company for which this initiative is recommended.
In determining the process for implementing an expertise locator system, it is helpful to consider three main phases—up-front design, initial rollout and implementation, and ongoing maintenance.
During up-front design, it will be critical for the company to first link the use of the system to a business process, work process, or other defined purpose (Harney, 2002, p. 6; Thompson, 2003, p. 12; Smith & McKeen, 2006, p. 50). Experience at other companies has shown that if the problem to be solved is not clearly known—and a corresponding strategy developed to specifically solve that problem—“the level of usage and value of usage is going to be compromised significantly” (Harney, 2002, p. 6). It is also important to be aware of how the principles and perceptions of expertise can present some challenges for manually-populated expertise locator systems. For example, expertise changes and evolves over time, expertise is often distributed across a group of people, and some may be hesitant to provide access to their expertise (Maybury, D'Amore, & House, 2002, p. 214). Thus, the system needs to be designed to address these considerations. In addition, it will be important to the design and success of the system to eliminate self-assessment issues of overstating or understating capabilities, define a required minimum level of information required on each employee, and determine how to solve the issue of employees with the same last name (Becerra-Fernandez, 2001, p. 35). As possible, it would also be desirable to consider having a “humanware solution to expertise location that is really closer to solution resolution” by allowing for questioning of the experts and archiving of the resulting answers (Harney, 2002, p. 6).
During the initial rollout and implementation phase, it is recommended to do a pilot program and include mechanisms for feedback and revisions (Smith & McKeen, 2006, p. 51). In addition, utilizing techniques from the rollout of BP Amoco’s expertise locator system (Connect) would be encouraged:
In order to build momentum, an awareness campaign was mounted by a group of “Connect champions” from a variety of backgrounds… who each believe strongly in the benefits of a connected organization. Posters, competitions, deskdrops, learning fairs and lunchtime publicity booths with digital cameras have all been used to great effect. As token recognition, promotional pens are awarded to good examples with a personal thank you from the program director. The note concludes with a request to encourage their peers to use Connect, and invariably results in a series of conversions in the office of the pen recipient. (Collison, 1999, p. 14)
For ongoing maintenance of the expertise locator system, it will be important for the company to design the process considering both how to maintain expertise information after it has been initially collected and the social factors that go into selecting who someone may ask for assistance (e.g., ability to understand the context of a problem, skill at sharing knowledge, willingness to share, and time available) (Smith & McKeen, 2006, p. 48). The former may be solved through the Technology approach, and the latter solved through the People approach (both described later in this paper). Experience from BP Amoco’s rollout of Connect also shows that to maintain the expertise locator system it can be desirable to appeal to people’s egos and encourage their natural competitive natures:
Among the engaging features of Connect is the “Fifteen minutes of fame” that an employee gains when updating their details. A post-itTM icon on the front screen displays their name and photograph until another employee supplants them by updating their own details. Occasionally staff can even be seen to duel for prominence on the front screen, frivolous perhaps, but the end result is an increased likelihood of current, relevant information – the lifeblood of any knowledge directory. (Collison, 1999, p. 15)
References
Becerra-Fernandez, I. (2001). Locating expertise at NASA. Knowledge Management Review, 4(4), 34-37.
Collison, C. (1999). Connecting the new organization: How BP Amoco encourages post-merger collaboration. Knowledge Management Review, 2(1), 12-15.
Harney, J. (2002). An innovative take on expertise location. Knowledge Management, 6.
Maybury, M., D'Amore, R., & House, D. (2002). Awareness of organizational expertise. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 14(2), 199-217.
Smith, H. & McKeen, J. (2006). Development in practice XXII: Expertise location and management: Hope or hype? Communications of AIS, 18, 44-54.
Thompson, E. (2003). Effective knowledge management in a cost-cutting environment. Knowledge Management Review, 6(1), 12-15.
- Robin
Copyright Robin Donnan 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Performance Associates, Inc.
