Analisi - knowledge management case studies - Aetnanet

Evaluation
Evaluation is part of the BT way of working (imperative since TQM project and attaining at
ISO 9001 standard) post project and after action reviews are part of the normal way of
working. Results are typically published on the intranet.
BT have no structured method in place for the identification and sharing of lessons learned /
best practices, such as a central best practice repository. Though they have Business
Excellence Interest Communities and Benchmarking Interest Communities who publish their
findings on the benchmarking web site part of the BT intranet. A ny employee who’s
interested in this information can browse to this web site, they’re not notified as part of a
formal procedure.
Currently, Steve’s team is working on the enhancement of post project reviews, by the usage
of learning history techniques they try to enrich the review data.
Knowledge sharing by connecting or codifying
Connecting people 6 is regarded more efficient than codifying knowledge as a means to
control knowledge erosion and to enable knowledge sharing. The overall strategy
emphasises making connections between knowledgeable people above attempts to codify
their knowledge. The BT connection-making machine is their intranet, which enables people
to find each other through tools such as search engines and directory facilities. These
connections grow organically, people aren’t pushed to become a member of a certain
community, though the are offered the facilities and the benefits of the communities are clear
within BT. This doesn’t imply that BT doesn’t codify any knowledge, they are experimenting
with templates for knowledge transfer and thereby analysing how much has to be written
down (literally) to enable transfer.
ICT
Standardised platform for IT
BT started the standardising process of it’s desktops in 1993, the main reason was that
they’ve been hampered to share information due to the multiplicity of e.g. word processors,
spread sheets and presentation graphics. At the same time BT made significant investments
in e-mail.
After a while it seemed that e-mail solved part of the information management problem,
people could easily get in touch with each other. But simply pushing information out to
people did not work. The ability to find information was still dependant on individuals
managing the information.
In 1994, believing that technology could serve many other purposes, such as directory
services as well as facilitating group working, BT began experimenting its own intranet. It was
based on core information that was needed, rather than the mass of information in general
circulation.
The intranet 7 was extended across the whole of BT in early 1995 and now has over 80,000
dedicated users, with other employees enjoying access via shared terminals and multi media
kiosks.
BT also has set up a number of extranets to provide major customers, suppliers and partners
with access to specific areas within BT’s intranet in order to improve communications and
joint working practices. Extranets are, in fact, an increasingly important element of BT’s
overall strategic use of Internet technologies and provide substantial business benefits,
particularly in the ever-expanding field of e-commerce.
6 Among these people are not the service engineers (20,000 people). BT has connected 80,000 employees by its intranet,
but didn’t connect their service workforce yet, since they haven’t got devices equipped with browser facilities. These
people get in touch by mobile telephony.
7 Its main news page server receives more than 2 million hits each month, making it one of the largest servers in Europe.
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analisi-KM case studies.doc - 25/5/99