Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

CROSS-UTILITY COLLABORATION
Inter-Utility Communities of Practice. A community of practice is focused on a specific
domain of knowledge and is comprised of people who work (practice) in that domain. The
CoP is defined by knowledge within some domain (not by task), has an evolving agenda
driven by members of the community, and is managed by making connections and building
relationships. While the focus is on value added, mutual exchange and continuous learning,
CoPs members are often brainstorming and seeking solutions to specific issues and
problems forwarded by other CoP members. Thus, participation in and reliance on CoPs
increases over time, and they often become the primary source of knowledge and a
continuing source of ideas and energy for community members. See Community of
Practice. When this powerful form of collaborative advantage is engaged across utilities,
there is an opportunity to learn from each other’s successes and mistakes, fill missing
knowledge gaps in multiple organizations, and build new, synergistic solutions for emergent
issues. When two organizations can openly share in a mutual environment of trust and
interdependence, there can only be a win-win result.
Conference. Formal meeting for presentation, consultation and discussion. Brings
geographically-dispersed ( or organizationally separated) participants together to share
knowledge, assess and evaluate their experiences and dialogue on issues core to the
drinking water utilities. Presentations often relate to best practices, lessons learned, recent
research findings, implementation approaches and results of shared insights. Recognized
national leaders and experts may be invited to speak about innovative responses to issues.
Can be an annual event with geographical location rotated. May be tied to significant policy
actions. Conferences are an effective tool of the various associations in the water industry.
International conference. Platform for widely sharing newly discovered knowledge.
Provides opportunity to gain valuable insights from researchers, policy makers and
drinking water community members around the world working on similar issues. May
be a single or periodic event.
Creating and maintaining a small regional network of Utility personnel who have highly
specialized expertise that is not available in a single Utility. As these individuals get to know
each other and share their know-how, even visiting each other’s sites, they can then support
all of their Utility’s emergency needs. This is particularly helpful where many small Utilities
coexist in a region and manpower and expertise is limited. On a broader sale, such Utilities
coold even share manpower, spare parts, etc., when emergencies arise.
See:
Project Study #11 (Greenville Water System, SC)
Project Study #30 (Salt Lake City Department of Public Utilities)
Additional Resource:
APQC study on Virtual Collaboration
H-9
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