Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

Mohamed Farid
3.5 Problems with <strong>the</strong> current IDSC business process
Reinvention <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> same work, unless most if not all <strong>the</strong> projects are registered in projects tracking
system, but still “Reinvention <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Wheel” is highly recognized inside <strong>the</strong> organisation due <strong>the</strong> lack <strong>of</strong>
information <strong>of</strong> certain work that have been developed in <strong>the</strong> past.
Repeated mistakes, as <strong>the</strong>re is no logs for previous similar works exist; mistakes could occur again,
learned lessons get lost.
Inconsistence <strong>of</strong> multiple knowledge versions, as <strong>the</strong>re is no common workspace for projects
members that centralise knowledge outputs exist, redundant versions <strong>of</strong> explicit knowledge could be
generated, scattered across <strong>the</strong> organisation’s file system or emails.
The loss <strong>of</strong> tacit knowledge, knowledge experienced by employees considered as hard to be
codified, articulated and transferred to <strong>the</strong> o<strong>the</strong>rs. Due to high turnover inside <strong>the</strong> organisation, this
tacit knowledge could be completely lost.
The absence <strong>of</strong> knowledge transfer across organisational units, while transferring knowledge
between unit members could be easier as <strong>the</strong>y are working toge<strong>the</strong>r in <strong>the</strong> same location sharing <strong>the</strong>
same domain’s problems, sharing across o<strong>the</strong>r units could be more difficult.
3.6 Recommendations for action
As a result <strong>of</strong> investigations, provisions to IDSC work process and to <strong>the</strong> organisation culture,
numbers <strong>of</strong> recommendations were proposed concerning <strong>the</strong> development <strong>of</strong> KMS to improve <strong>the</strong>
organisational learning:
Knowledge repository: a central repository that handles all codified knowledge <strong>of</strong> workers, or at
least refer to <strong>the</strong>ir locations, will simplify retrieving <strong>the</strong> past created knowledge, best practices, learned
lessons and How-to’s in <strong>the</strong> context <strong>of</strong> work.
Community <strong>of</strong> practice (CoP): virtual platform that community <strong>of</strong> practice members can share <strong>the</strong>ir
ideas, work process, and handle <strong>the</strong>ir documents and organise <strong>the</strong>ir events through. Levels <strong>of</strong>
permissions should be declared to identify each member’s role in <strong>the</strong> community.
Knowledge communication and network: communication channels that member <strong>of</strong> community can
exchange <strong>the</strong>ir ideas on, i.e. discussion boards, forums and instant messaging. This network also
provides a mechanism that allows individuals to find particular communities <strong>of</strong> interest to join.
Organisational routine for knowledge sharing: simply, related “know-how” needs to be codified in
order to be used by o<strong>the</strong>rs, especially for new comers to <strong>the</strong> organisation.
Search <strong>the</strong> knowledge asset <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> organisation: single point interface to <strong>the</strong> knowledge workers
as <strong>the</strong>y could search all knowledge assets inside <strong>the</strong> organisation.
Integration to o<strong>the</strong>r existing IT systems: <strong>the</strong> developed KMS should be integrated and correlated to
<strong>the</strong> existing IT tools and infrastructure, to guarantee <strong>the</strong> flow <strong>of</strong> information and provide integrity <strong>of</strong>
data.
Codifying <strong>of</strong> tacit knowledge: knowledge workers experience, business consultants, and academia
expertise should be codified.
4. Designing and Implementing KMS to IDSC
In our research to find <strong>the</strong> desired solution, <strong>the</strong> To-Be mode, we ga<strong>the</strong>red demanded requirements,
explored experienced practices, made research over available solutions in <strong>the</strong> market and examined
new enabled technologies for <strong>the</strong> new IDSC’s KMS design. A platform, named “MyIDSC”, has been
decided to be developed in IDSC. “MyIDSC” basically based on two major subsystems, an (1)
enterprise search engine and (2) enterprise collaboration platform based on Enterprise 2.0. The
platform design is shown in figure 8.
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