SEKE 2012 Proceedings - Knowledge Systems Institute

As the researcher became more embedded in the
problem domain, observations revealed that a lack of justin-time
knowledge during processes related to the
movement of application s oftware to production caused
process delays and degraded communication to upstrea m
and downstream stakeholders. When participants in the
process did not have the knowledge needed to execute their
step in the process, the process stalled and often additional
team members were brought into the situation. This
increase in time and number of human resources increases
the cost of e xecuting the process. Tac it knowledge is
created and shared during process execution, as well a s
creation of new explicit knowledge.
B. Phase 2
Based on the results of the first cycle, the second cycle
research question was defined as: How will organizational
and process changes increase knowledge sharing and
collaboration both within infrastructure support team s and
between those teams and ot her software engineering
stakeholders?
For this phase, the scope chosen was the set of activities
required to move an application from one data center to a
new primary data center on a different set of ph ysical
infrastructure. Frequently, applications must make coding or
other changes to adhere to new technology standards that
are instituted at the new center. The process of bringing
business applications up to those new standards was chosen
as a very specific area withi n which to study and attem pt to
improve team collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Specific deliverables of the process included the following
artifacts: a technical architecture requirements document, a
technical architecture design that includes required
infrastructure, and an envi ronment build docum ent that
documents configuration re quirements for syst em
administrators to follow when building machines for the
target application.
Problems with this process included frequent handoffs,
lost time when information is s hared but not receive d,
sequential steps, bottlenecks, and multiple points of contact.
All of these problems are barri ers to knowledge sharing.
Improvements to the process are e xpected to reduce cycle
time for the process, reduce error, increase satisfaction both
with the development teams and the infrast ructure support
teams, and i ncrease knowledge sharing and collaboration
between subject matter experts and between service
providers and their internal customers.
While participating in t he process im provement
activities, the role of the acti on researcher in this study was
to contribute to the de sign of a collaborative technology to
support a stre amlined process. A n important part of this
process analysis was analyzing the data flows in and ou t of
the process. An i nventory exercise was conducted,
identifying what data and inform ation was needed at each
point in the fl ow of the process. Data owne rs and data
receivers were also ide ntified. T he process timeline was
identified as one to six months depending on the technical
requirements of t he project and the individuals involved.
With multiple handoff points, there was increased time and
the potential for error i ntroduced. The process was very
human-intensive, so progression was directly dependent on
the availability, responsiveness, and knowledge of each
person in the process.
Resulting recommendations for process improvement
following evaluation of this phase included the following:
Reduce the number of a nalysts involved. By
combining roles, handoffs between project
initiation and implementation is eli minated. This
also increases the likelih ood that the inform ation
and knowledge used for infrastructure
configuration and setup is m ore accurate, as the
same person has accountability from the beginning
of the process until the end.
Automate data collection th roughout the process
cycle. T his ensures consistency of data collected
across process iterations. It a lso ensures that input
received across project im plementations will be
shared.
IV. CONCLUSION
Observations in the first cycle revealed that, in a n
environment where revenue generating applications are
given priority for development resources, limited support
for development of a knowledge sharing system is available.
A creative framework that utilizes existing technology with
minimal development for a very specific problem domain is
the most effective way to address cross-boundary
knowledge sharing concerns. However, to be most effective
the scope must be bounded by specific functional processes,
which are the ties that bind a community of practice.
In addition to the technology layer, an effective approach
to increased knowledge sharing and col laboration must
consider the multiple processes that m ake up a knowledge
workers daily context, and the knowledge that must flow in
order to support that workfl ow. The organization of people
and process must be considered in order for kn owledge
creation to be efficient and effective. The layers in the
knowledge management sandcone depicted in Fig. 1 should
be reordered as shown in Fig. 2. P rocess must first enable
knowledge sharing, with organizational changes considered
a part of process improvement. T he technology layer c an
then be applied. Only then is there enablement for cultural
change.
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