For My Next Dissertation - BPO

I am currently working on my second masters dissertation as I near the end of my MSc in Operations & Technology Management at DCU.

The topic of BPO seems to be hot right now with recent M&A activity in this domain, including the acquisition of EDS by HP. Just last week, HP announced a re-branding of EDS which will now be known as "HP Enterprise Services".

My own specific focus on BPO relates to the challenges that a captive O&T unit faces in exposing BP services on the commercial market in their industry. This will build on the core competency theories of Prahalad and Hamel which would suggest that organisations can use their existing expertise to provide services to others.

Classic cases would include the spin-out of EDS from General Motors, 6-Sigma from Motorola and the likes of Canon becoming a key market player in the printing business.

I will share some of my research and thoughts here, but I am finding the subject very interesting and especially in a recession, where organisations are looking for new revenue channels when traditional income sources are suffering. Disruptive Innovation and Discovery-Driven Growth are two topics which are quickly growing my reading list currently!

Introducing RSS to your Organisation - The Business Case

As part of my current MSc in Operations and Technology Management, we are undertaking a module in Technology Management. One of the current assignments I am researching is the investigation of how RSS (Really Simple Syndication) can be used as a new information channel for those areas of your organisation whose product is knowledge/information.

The examples I am looking at in relation to financial services are the press office and research units which produce press releases, market commentary, financial outlooks and other research material. I want to understand the relationship between these departments and their prospective customers (investors, journalists and the wider customer audience).

The first hurdle to overcome is the language used to introduce and explain RSS technology to the primarily business users who work in these areas. I presume it is unlikely that they will fully understand RSS, let alone know what it is (I am basing this on a statistic from my first dissertation in knowledge management where out of 101 people surveyed in a large financial services organisation, only 24 had heard of RSS - approx 24%).

I am a big fan of the Common Craft Show and their suite of videos which explain technology concepts in "Plain English". Their video "RSS in Plain English" is a good place to start:




I have also begun looking at existing financial services organisations who are using RSS to deliver updates to their prospective customers. Here is a sample set of RSS listings:

Northern Trust Corporation
ING Wholsale Banking
UBS Investment Research
Royal Bank of Scotland
Bank of America
RaboDirect

I will update how I get on here again, but my thinking is that if I was a journalist, I would appreciate automated feeds instead of having to visit each site every day to keep up-to-date with what is happening. Hopefully I can pitch RSS as a valuable, inexpensive tool which can enhance the offerings of the press office / research unit in the pilot organisation.

COP - Dublin Wiki Wednesday

As mentioned in my previous post, I presented a case study of my dissertation project to the MSc in Knowledge Managment course last Saturday at the Dublin institute of Technology. During this presentation, it emerged that a number of the current class are also working on enterprise wiki deployments in their organisations.

As we discussed the many aspects of introducing "the wiki way" into an organisation, I realised that there were lots of things that we could share with each other as this young technology starts to take hold. I suggested that we could investigate the creation of a wiki community of practice to provide a forum for idea sharing and best practice to be accessible to those around Dublin.

So, this week we are in the early stages of working out how best to approach this initiative. I am quite excited about the prospect, as I have read about other "Wiki Wednesday" groups in places like Toronto and London. I hope that we can engage an enthusiastic group of practitioners to participate towards making it a success.

Lots more on this to come!

KM Dissertation Advice

I met with a friend and former KM classmate of mine, Colman McMahon, today in preparation for a presentation we will be giving to the current students of the MSc in Knowledge Management at the Dublin Institute of Technology. We will be sharing our experience of tackling a dissertation in KM and also an open Q&A about our views on the current state of KM.

It was interesting to compare thoughts on where we see the future of KM, particularly on the technology and tooling side. We both had looked at wiki-use during our research and agreed that they are certainly useful in demonstrating the human elements of KM (capture, sharing, organising of knowledge etc). We also spoke about Sharepoint and Lotus Connections - we both agreed that there is huge potential in relation to the power of these environments to provide a solid infrastructure for KM and Enterprise 2.0 features going forward.

In terms of what advice we would pass on to the current class, we have yet to conclude on this. My own thoughts include:

• KM is more than just a technology discipline, in fact it encompasses many aspects of a working organisation. This is an important lesson to learn, as many people have fallen at this first hurdle of understanding what KM is and how it will provide value and enable internal growth for your organisation.
• The role of HR in KM is very important. "Learning & Development" has out-grown its welcome, and the days of simply attending courses and returning to the desk are over. The next generation of "Learning & Development" is continuous learning & development - KM! The knowledge workers of Gen X/Y want to search and discover knowledge instantly (instead of attending a 3-day course to do so).
• The tie between Web 2.0 and KM is a growing discipline. However, it is important to remember and focus-on the core KM principles. Don't deploy a wiki or blog because it's cool - deploy them for what they can add to your organisation, and be clear on what you are using them for.

Once we narrow down our thoughts on KM research and our experiences in the next few weeks, I will share them here.

Connectr #4 Presentation from ILUG 2008

As per my previous post, I presented at the Connectr #4 event as part of the ILUG 2008 at the IBM campus in Dublin last week (see slides below). This was a great event to be part of as we got to meet the IBM development team and hear their views on working towards Lotus Connections 2.0 which has just been announced.

Other presenters on the day included:

• Heidi Votaw (IBM Lotus Program Director, Social Software)


• Alan Crean (Process Master)


• Neil Burston (Oak Ridge Business Solutions)


• Ian McNairn (IBM Program Director, Web Technology & Innovation)

Some interesting features of Connections were also demoed (eg Blogs, Communites, Activities, Wiki Integration, Atlas). Given that Enterprise 2.0 is a hot topic this week due to the Enterprise 2.0 conference taking place in Boston, there has been lots of discussion around Connections 2.0 and the comparison to Sharepoint.

My thanks to Neil Burston and Stuart McIntyre for organising the event, and also to IBM for being excellent hosts on the day. I will post more on Heidi's presentation again. Here are my slides from the day:

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Internal Blogging at BT

Another great post by Richard Dennison called Blogging Inside BT in which he describes how "BT management is prepared to allow its employees to express themselves and their opinions on ‘unregulated’, self-publishing platforms". It is a great read and another example of how to link the use of Web 2.0 tools to providing value internally behind the firewall.

I also like a response he has added to a comment on the post, relating to how blogs can have a longer life span than traditional discussion forums as "the owner feels responsible for keeping it going because it is part of their personal brand." I like this enterprise blogging idea, as it allows all employees to become experts in their own area, and makes individual knowledge more available to the wider internal community.

I have linked to Richard before, relating to his post on Web 2.0 adoption at BT. It seems that they have a clear vision of what they can achieve by empowering their employees with information and knowledge resources.

Anyone interested in real examples of how to formulate Web 2.0 strategy and learn from the BT examples should subscribe to Richard's blog Inside Out.

Implementing KM - Success Factors

I gave a presentation tonight at the Dublin Institute of Technology based on my dissertation. In it I was demonstrating the high level findings of the research and some of the learning points and experiences of piloting an enterprise wiki as a knowledge management enabler.

First off was the idea that knowledge management is much more about people, their knowledge and embedding a knowledge sharing culture than any particular technology. IT will inevitably be part of any large KM initiative, but is only the enabler of the end goal. It is important to tie the goals of the KM program to the objectives of the organisation in which it is positioned. This will help senior management to sell and promote it.

I have tried to promote the benefits of KM as part of the initiative. I have found it is important to communicate these in a language which makes sense to all stakeholders, without too much jargon. The first 3 are recommended by Stan Garfield. They were:

• Avoiding redundant effort.
• Avoiding repeated mistakes.
• Taking advantage of existing expertise in the organisation.
• Making individuals more effective.
• Making teams more effective.

Given the people focus of my research, collaboration and knowledge flows became important. If we examine the knowledge networks which exist in an organisation, we can better understand how knowledge flows throughout it. Large Organisations are made up of many networks, with key players who act as information brokers, boundary spanners, central connectors, and peripheral specialists. These flows can often create knowledge bottlenecks of bureaucracy, which can prevent free knowledge sharing.

Next it was onto Web 2.0, and how the elements and behaviours of web 2.0 applications and communities are becoming increasingly popular in knowledge management. For example, a Forrester paper out last week reported that 85% of companies using Wikis were using them as a knowledge management tool. The match between tools such as wikis to the knowledge cycle (find, organise, share, use/reuse) and the enabling features (Search Link Author Tag Extend Signal) of web 2.0 is one which has not gone unoticed. My approach was simple:

• Engage Senior Management to back the initiative.
• Secure exclusive, high profile use-cases for the portal.
• Brand the portal to promote its use.
• Meet with prospective teams and user groups to gauge reaction.
• Drive wiki adoption by becoming a ‘Wiki Champion’.

The initiative was supported top-down by senior management, driven bottom-up from grassroots, and promoted laterally through communities of practices. This ensures sustained engagement across a wide range of groups within the organisation.

3 high level conclusions:

1. Knowledge management is more about people and the processes which enable knowledge management than specific technologies.


2. Simplicity is important, providing knowledge workers with the tools to quickly capture, organise, share and reuse knowledge which is important to their work.


3. Wiki’s provide users with the collaborative environment required for successful knowledge management.

My KM Dissertation Abstract

Having completed my KM masters dissertation, I thought it would be useful to share the abstract which sums up alot of the work I have been researching. The title of the dissertation was "Wiki based collaboration: An effective enabler of Knowledge Management?":

The World-Wide Web has evolved into a collaborative learning environment, where contribution and participation are replacing consumption and passive involvement. The shift which has taken place towards 'web 2.0' has been extraordinarily rapid, with the true potential of the web to connect people and their knowledge being seen. The use of web 2.0 tools as enabling technologies for knowledge management is becoming increasingly popular, with organisations replicating the success of these technologies on the consumer web behind their firewalls. The goal is to improve the knowledge sharing cultures internally and make better use of their organisational knowledge, so as to gain competitive advantage.

The full potential of the adoption of web 2.0 tools has yet to emerge, however early cases of successful implementation of social tools in support of organisational goals are positive. By closely aligning the aims of the knowledge management initiative with the goals and business objectives of the organisation, together with the early support of senior management, the potential success of the program is improved. An experiment to introduce web 2.0 technologies in a large financial services organisation has been undertaken to examine the challenges which arise and how the approach and language of the initiative helped to overcome potential misunderstanding and confusion about the terms web 2.0 and knowledge management. A pilot of an enterprise wiki platform was implemented, with full engagement of design and technical teams to position the technology as a potential collaboration standard. The focus was always about the capture and sharing of knowledge throughout, with many learning points for wiki champions and knowledge managers emerging.

Confusion around the true definition of knowledge management can be harmful to the potential success of initiatives if the wrong approach is taken. Focusing too much on technology can distract knowledge managers from the most important elements of implementing a successful knowledge management program; people, social networks and their knowledge. While technology will almost always be part of any knowledge management initiative, it is important to recognise that it is only an enabler of the cultural change with which knowledge management is associated. In order to facilitate effective collaboration between cross-functional and geographically dispersed teams, a new suite of enabling technologies is required, as the frequency with which these types of collaboration occur increases. Traditional tools such as email and file share have been overused and actually detract from effective collaboration amongst teams in projects which appear with increasing complexity.

This approach has shown that the terms knowledge management and web 2.0 are not crucial to the success of these programs. Aligning the goals of the project to the business objectives of the organisation allows senior management to better engage with the efforts involved in achieving those aims.

Please let me know if you have any comments or thoughts?

Social Collaboration on the Intranet at BT

Richard Dennison has posted a great case study about Web 2.0 adoption at BT on his blog called Inside Out. It is great to see such transparency and openness in this case, as often this type of information is considered to be the 'competitive advantage' every organisation craves.

However, in the world of social computing, collaboration and knowledge management - things are different! By sharing the experiences of the successes and failures, practitioners can help develop this emerging domain by quickly learning the best practices, do's and don'ts and the challenges they may face.

More and more we are seeing a culture of sharing and transparency amongst those who realise the benefits of the community-culture that social computing can bring to your organisation. Richard notes the challenges and cultural hurdles which understandably face the 'wiki champions' and the 'internal bloggers' when they present their ideas to the security departments and policy makers.

From my own experience, I think that senior management support at an early stage is critical. This was a key element to the success at BT also, as Richard mentions that it was their CEO who publicly announced his support for a more liberal approach.

An excellent COP success story

This slideshow is a championing story for all trying to get a Community of Practice (COP) up and running. The DIGWWW (A Discussion Group about the World Wide Web) is a COP which has gone from strength to strength with some amazing results.

Book - "Transforming your intranet"

I came across this fantastic chapter today via Bill Ives Portals & KM blog (which is a goldmine for all on KM, portals, blogging and much more!).

This book is called "Transforming your intranet", and the technology chapter "Preparing for Intranet 2.0 - how to integrate new communication technology into your intranet" is authored by Kathleen Gilroy, the Otter Group and Bill Ives.

I will talk about this paper in more depth in later posts, but I really think it is one of the best I have seen in terms providing a great snapshot of the use web 2.0 technologies to encourage innovation, collaboration and platforms for publishing ideas.

In this chapter you can read about:

• Understanding RSS



• Building a blog network



• Wiki's



• Social computing tools



• Search techniques (tagging)



• Case Studies (Siemens, IBM, and Merrill Lynch)

You can download the chapter from here.

IBM's Irish interns innovate with PodSmart

My school moto was - "Mól an óige agus tiocfaidh sí" - This is Irish for "Encourage the young, and they will succeed".

This is no more evident than in the case of the IBM interns at the "Extreme Blue Lab" in Dublin, Ireland. A group of 2006 interns have come up with PodSmart.

"PodSmart is a new technology from IBM that allows you to have your work and personal e-mail, calendar appointments and news feeds read aloud on any MP3 player, including iPods. You can customise playlists, so for example, PodSmart reads your most important e-mails, your urgent appointments and your favourite news sources. You can even listen to music."

and the Sunday Tribune (8th July 2007) reported that:

"IBM likes the text-to-speech personal podcasting idea so much it's planning to incorporate the technology into the latest edition of its new office productivity suite, Lotus Notes 8, and is sharing the patents with Irish students Edward Mackle, Keith Pilson, Declan Tarrant and Eamon Phelan who came up with the "corporate mashup""

"what we're seeing is 20 year-olds coming into the workforce who are not happy doing things the traditional way. These people have grown up through a connected world and workplace collaborative technologies have to reflect that. User interfaces will have to be more functional and user-friendly than old ways of doing email and collaborative technology. They're saying things like: 'why should my online social network stop at the doorstep of the office?'"

I love this example of grassroots innovation. The interns were given laptops, assigned a business and technical mentor, and encouraged to contact any of the 350,000 IBM employees throughout the world.

The result was amazing, generating interest from executives, a user group that's motivated to manage countless emails and information feeds.

Sources:

Sunday Tribune

CIO.com

Case Study: The British Council Using Wikis on the Intranet

Here is an interesting case study by Maish Nichani on the use of wikis in the Singapore branch of the British Council.

The article is called:

Using Wikis on the Intranet: The British Council Case Study.

It shows how a simple implementation of wiki can achieve surprising results. I especially like how the wiki helped to improve their monthly meetings.

In this case the technology was JotSpot by google.

Sony Vaio Support

In a post entitled In praise of Sony Vaio support by David Terrar at Business Two Zero, he airs his frustrations in relation to difficulties he was having with his Sony Vaio SZ laptop, and the subsequent quest for a solution.

David says:

"The battery on my Sony Vaio SZ Laptop failed. It’s out of first year Sony warranty, but still under a John Lewis two year guarantee. John Lewis regard batteries as consumables, and so their guarantee doesn’t apply - doh! Sony’s battery problems are well documented. After a little research I found a forum where people were relating exactly my problem on my model PC, with some who’d got battery replacements from Sony outside of warranty. When I contacted Vaio Laptop Support, explained and pointed them to this forum, they sent me a replacement battery, no questions asked. Excellent. "

This is a great example of how, with a little bit of searching, the web can help facilitate consumer knowledge sharing to the benefit of all.

The forum he was referring to was here. Sony also have an online user community for customers to collaborate as described in my recent case study post here - Sony Vaio Community .

I say well done to David. How many of us would have given up and just bought a new battery in this situation? Maybe the collaborative sharing emerging in blogs etc, will empower the consumer!

Extacit - KM Blog of the week!

One of my favourite KM bloggers, Stan Garfield, has recommended my post on General Motors as his "KM Blog of the Week" here.

As a novice blogger and KM student, this is a great honour for me. I read many KM blogs daily and I have always found Stan's "Weekly Knowledge Management" blog a fantastic read.

The technique used in dissecting the case study was taught to us by Damian Gordon, my lecturer, at the Dublin Institute of Technology. It was a very powerful tool for understanding and comparing case studies. I intend to use it for analysing material during my dissertation later this year.

So, of course, I highly recommend adding the Weekly Knowledge Management Blog by Stan Garfield to your blogroll for anyone interested in KM.

Case Study: Sony VAIO community

Sony VAIO community: Taking advantage of Online Communities for generating Innovative Ideas

[Robert Tietz & Prof. Dr. Cornelius Herstatt]

What is the case study about?
It’s about the potential online communities can bring to pretty much any business. This is shown on an example of Sony Corporation and its line of VAIO computers.

What is the organisation?
Sony Corporation is one of the leading electronic and entertainment companies in the world.

What are the technology issues?
For many, Sony is perceived a fashionista accessory rather than a working tool. It is often over-priced and under-performing and this is most likely the main technological issue for this company. It is now seen as becoming more of a fashion house than a technology innovator.

Who are the principal actors?
Sony brand, Sony support and outside people interested in Sony.

What types of data were collected?
It can be considered both qualitative and quantitative because Webforums (other name for the described online communities) are a great source of both.

From which sources did they come?
In this case, all the data is coming from the Webforum.

How was the data recorded?
It is saved in the database. Any forum software has a database behind the scene and this one is no exception. Since mvnForum is a Java based application, the DB can be any supporting JDBC interface.

What was the situation previously?
CRM and market research.

What innovations have been introduced?
It is not clear what innovations were introduced in the company’s main business but the online community creation can be seen as an innovation in itself.

What were the general outcomes of this innovation?
People interested in Sony VAIO products could come to the site and utilise the public Knowledge and experience. And it this mutually beneficial process they (outside people) could become a source of innovation themselves.

What new technology has been introduced for this innovation?
The VAIO online community was built by nascom.be on mvnForum software and so is a Java based application using JDBC to communicate to databases. What databases are used is not clear and if there are some advanced database techniques used (like data-mining) is not known either.

What went well in this innovation?
· People came;
· People talked;
· People criticised;
· People suggested;
· Customers have become Prosumers.

Case Study: General Motors

The General Motors Variation-Reduction Adviser: An Example of Grassroots Knowledge Management Development

[Alexander P. Morgan, John A. Cafeo, Diane I. Gibbons, Ronald M. Lesperance, Gulcin H. Sengir & Andrea M. Simon]

What is the case study about?
The case is about the V-R Adviser – one of GM’s takes on KM. The project was meant to help in dimensional control in a vehicle assembly centre and it appeared to succeed.

What is the organisation?
General Motors is one of the world’s leading carmakers, having surrendered the top spot to Toyota only this year. It has about 60 assembly centres worldwide and plans using this system in at least some of them.

What are the technology issues?
The company is big and its environment is very heterogeneous spanning many locations and technologies. Also, the existing Knowledge is very often hard to structure and codify which poses additional challenges.

Who are the principal actors?
GM employees.

What types of data were collected?
Process documents, lessons learned (solved problems), observations, message log. Also, expert Knowledge was captured in form of cases.

From which sources did they come?
GM employees and their records and documents as well as work processes.

How was the data recorded?
Since the system was using a case-based reasoning (CBR), the collected data was organized in form of cases. It was captured by both externalization and combination processes.

What was the situation previously?
The problems could be fixed only by experienced staff and even they had to consult other colleagues and some documentation. Very often it required a lot of speculations on possible causes and fixes which nobody was sure about.

What innovations have been introduced?
The mainly tacit Knowledge existing in Dimensional Management team was captured and structured. It was done with help from within the user communities which were organised as Communities of Practice. The system popularity was largely based on the user acceptance of the idea itself and being part of developing this idea into something really useful.

What were the general outcomes of this innovation?
The system was deemed a success and was planned to both get improved and distributed to other GM locations.

Are there any legal, social or ethic issues associated with this innovation?
Overcoming Knowledge hoarding could be a problem for any KM initiative but in this particular case there seemed to be no mention of it which can be attributed to the taken “grassroots” approach where the idea was to promote KM bottom-top rather than top-bottom. Also, centralized control was intentionally sacrificed in favour of emergent sharing behaviour inside Communities of Practice each of which was driven by a dedicated Knowledge leader acting as an evangelist.

How has the organisation changed as a result of innovation?
Since the KM experiment was on a small scale, there doesn’t appear to be any immediate global impact on how the organisation is structured or doing its business. However, V-R Adviser, did an impressive job in its environment and was spreading across to other departments.

What went well in this innovation?
· The climate within the company was fertile for this type of KM initiative and the organisational culture seemed KM-enaled;
· Users accepted the system;
· Users actively contributed to the system;
· The bottom-top approach seemed to work well for such kind of KM tasks;
· The existing tacit Knowledge was largely externalised and preserved.

What is Knowledge Management?

This was one of the questions on my Case Studies in Knowledge Management exam in May.

Here is what I wrote:

There are many definitions for Knowledge Management (KM). Many of these focus on the capturing, organising and storing knowledge and experiences of individuals and groups and making this information available (sharing) to others in the organisation.

For me, the most important aspect of this is the sharing of information. Communication, collaboration and accessibility of the information are key to successful KM. I believe that the “freeing” of information, be it explicit (in documents, folders, intranets etc) or tacit (experts, experiences), to make it visible and accessible to all, allows an organisation to make best use of its intellectual capital.

Enterprise Search, Wiki’s, Document Management Systems, Web 2.0 Intranets, & Communities of Practice are some of the buzzwords associated with KM. All of these contribute towards the “learning organisation”, one which can learn from past success and failures to better its’ future performance. We have seen many examples of these implementations in the case studies during this module and throughout previous modules.

There is also KM at a personal level (PKM), organising ones’ own knowledge. For example, I intend to store documents, papers and conversations with my supervisor on a personal Wiki to enable me to chart my thoughts and progress during my KM dissertation. This will also allow me to implement my 3 key factors above – communication, collaboration and sharing of information.

B-Learning: Learning From Blogs

I am coming towards my exams now, and while revising, I have realised how effective my blogroll has been to me. I call this "B-Learning" (derived from e-Learning, literally blog learning).

I haven't had the chance to blog that often so far, but I will soon get back on track!

One of my exams is entitled "Case Studies in Knowledge Management". We have 2 case studies to write about in the exam:

1. The General Motors Variation-Reduction Adviser: An Example of Grassroots Knowledge Management Development

2. The SONY VAIO Community: Taking advantage of Online Communities for generating Innovative Ideas

When I was analysing these two studies, I found that there were many elements which I was able to digest quicker, as I had read about them every day in the KM blogs I subscribe to.

I will describe these 2 case studies in later posts, but basically, the traits were:

• Collaboration
• Web 2.0 - (Sony online community case)
• Openness - (Particularly the Sony example)
• Improved access to information
• Communities of Practice

I have found the experience of receiving all the interesting posts via RSS an amazing time-saver. Previously, I had found myself endlessly trawling the net for valuable resources, and even my favourites folder was filling quickly!!

RSS, Blogging and Online Collaboration is changing my learning experience, and I can't wait every day to open up my Google Reader and start learning again!

Finally, I don't know if someone else has coined the phrase B-Learning (I'm sure they have), but I like it and it has helped me explain my learning habits to the non-technical.