Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

Expertise Locator
A system for connecting knowledge seekers with knowledge holders to facilitate knowledge
exchange.
Supports: knowledge sharing, decision-making
LEVEL OF EFFORT
SIZE OF UTILITY
SCOPE OF WORK
MED
SCALABLE
WIDE
With today’s technologies, information can be rapidly transferred from one place to another.
Only how do you know whom to contact to learn more about a specific topic? Who is the
―expert‖ in your utility? This may be a particularly challenging question in larger utilities.
Many organizations have identified the need to develop systems to help locate expertise
across an organization. The expertise locator can also be called a ―utility yellow pages‖. The
objective becomes to create a locator system that can be easily and successfully queried from
any part of the organization.
The Expert Seeker developed by NASA goes beyond locating specialists to providing a
unified interface to access NASA competencies, assisting in the organization of cross-functional
teams, offering NASA experts more visibility, and helping to perform gap analysis. See KM at
NASA-Kennedy Space Center.
While there are software programs that can scan the Utility document repository and
automatically generate an Expertise Locator, there are many potential sources of expertise that
may not be captured in that repository. For example, the expertise residing in retired personnel
who may be easily accessible for short engagements. See Engaging Golden Expertise.
Expected Outcomes:
Increased communication.
Less time wasted in locating and obtaining information and knowledge.
See:
Project Study #23 (Louisville Water Company, KY)
Case Example #6 (SHELL HP)
Case Example #10 (IWSD Zimbabwe)
Case Example #15 (U.S. Army TEAM C4ISR)
Case Example #16 (Virginia Department of Transportation)
KM at NASA-Kennedy Space Center Case Study
Tools: Document Repository
Engaging Golden Expertise
Key Learnings Document
C-48
©2011 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.