Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

Chapter 6: The Effects of Alignment and Misalignment Between KM and Core Planning Processes | 47
HOW MISALIGNMENT OR AN UNDERDEVELOPED CORE PROCESS IMPACTS
THE SUCCESSFUL DEPLOYMENT OF A KM STRATEGY AND ITS RESULTING
INITIATIVES
Core processes of drinking water utilities are usually aligned with the overall operation of
the utility. When this occurs, a knowledge management strategy or initiative should be designed
and implemented in a manner that maximizes the effectiveness of the core process and also
improves the creation, sharing, leveraging and application of knowledge throughout the utility, or
in the case of an initiative throughout a subset of the utility.
If the drinking water utility’s core process is underdeveloped, action can be taken to bring
the process up to expectations prior to designing a KM project that supports the process. During
this pre-implementation phase it may be necessary to consider both the core process and the KM
strategy or initiative desired and make trade-offs between the two to ensure optimizing their combination
for the benefit of the utility.
When a drinking water utility’s core process is misaligned with its needs and operational
effectiveness, the process should then be reviewed and upgraded to ensure consistency in the
alignment with the utility’s needs. After this has been implemented, the knowledge management
strategy or initiative can then be designed to optimize knowledge effectiveness.
One exception to the above paragraph arises when the drinking water utility has little or no
influence over the core process. An example could be the Human Resource Development process,
which is sometimes part of the city management organization where the process serves not only
the utility, but also the parks, police, and fire department. Under these conditions, the utility may
have little or no influence over the policies and practices of this particular core process. When this
occurs, the KM strategy or initiative must be designed carefully so that it does not interfere with
the core planning processes while, at the same time, maximizing its own goals and objectives relative
to overall utility performance. This may require specific tools (see the toolkit) that can enhance
the utility’s performance without impacting the human resource process. For example mentoring
programs, teambuilding, creating spaces for conversations and dialogue, sending individuals to
specific learning courses, and procuring technology which can store, select and make information
available to workers throughout the utility, may support the utility’s KM needs, while at the same
time being consistent with the HR processes and practices.
As indicated by the data presented in Tables 6.1 and 6.2, one potential finding is that information
technology—and more specifically, ITD—has not been sufficiently developed or effectively
embedded in support of the business needs of drinking water utilities. There is a close
relationship between information technology (IT), information management (IM) and Knowledge
Management.
Information management deals with the classification, storage, and availability of information.
Recall that information consists of data, facts and descriptions that can be written down,
stored and transferred through technology or human interaction. In contrast, Knowledge
Management is concerned primarily with knowledge—the understanding, insight, and interpretations
developed and used to solve problems, make decisions and anticipate the results of our
actions. Since knowledge exists only in the minds of humans, Knowledge Management is primarily
concerned with people and their ability to take effective action. To do this, of course, they need
information as well as knowledge. (Recall the discussion of Knowledge (Informing) in Chapter 1.)
Technology deals with data and information; humans deal with data, information and knowledge.
©2011 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.