ComputerHunter.org

 

Intranet Portals ? Collaboration through Team Rooms


Knowledge Management for beginners

Knowledge Management (KM) can be defined simply as the process through which organizations generate value from their intellectual and knowledge-based assets. Knowledge assets are often grouped into two categories:

(1) Explicit Knowledge
Generally, everything and anything that can be documented, archived and codified. Examples include patents, trademarks, business plans, marketing research and customer lists.

(2) Tacit Knowledge
The rest. Tacit knowledge is the know-how contained in people's heads. The challenge inherent with tacit knowledge is figuring out how to recognize, generate, share and manage it.

Most often, generating value from such assets involves sharing them among employees, departments and even with other companies in an effort to reach ? or go beyond - best practice.

Where Collaboration technologies can help? and hinder

For explicit knowledge, the focus can usefully be described as "connecting people to things", whilst for tacit knowledge, the focus is "connecting people to people".

As such, structured and unstructured search technologies are usually the core of strategies to encourage greater sharing of explicit knowledge; the user searches for a document either by typing some text into a search engine or by clicking through a document taxonomy.

Similarly, a well structured "yellow pages" directory, where one can search for people with particular skills or experience, forms the centrepiece of tacit strategies; where the aim is to connect people often for 10 minute telephone conversations / requests for help that could save a week's work.

Both explicit and tacit strategies are, however, much enhanced when combined with Collaboration or "work-group" technologies. By creating "communuities of interest" around cross-functional themes, individuals can share documents, plans and other material, find and discuss issues with subject-matter experts and even allocate tasks and calendar items to each other.

For example, a community for "customer insight" might have members drawn from call centre operations, marketing and IT teams (to name but a few) who share a common interest in better understanding the customer need. They could each contribute into the team space document repository materials that (once added together) create powerful new insights and possible future revenue enhancement. By sharing, they (a) gather a sense of belonging to a wider network of similarly minded people, (b) gain knowledge that helps each to better achieve their objectives and (c) gain recognition for being an expert in their particular area.

Benefits (for your business case) include: (a) better customer service through improved response times, (b) faster new product development and time to market, (c) enhanced employee retention through rewarding knowledge sharing, (d) reduced Opex through the streamlining of processes, (e) reduced IT network and storage cost growth through a reduction in email file attachments.

There are, however, risks to collaboration, where poorly implemented. For example, if individual community documents are not accessible through the overall portal search, then you risk creating information silos, where only a select few can access information that is of much wider use. Also, part of your portal benefits are likely to stem from people visiting all areas of the site and learning about other departments and teams. If people spend all their time in their own team rooms, the benefits of this wider perspective will be lost.

Typical Team Room Functionality

Most intranet portal offerings contain some collaboration functionality, either (a) as a standalone optional module, (b) as a partly integrated standard portlet or (c) as a fully integrated function, combined with email systems.

Typical elements include:

1) Shared Calendar:
The team can maintain a single calendar of notable team events or shared deadlines. Where not fully integrated to email systems, this functionality is sometimes only sparingly used.

2) Discussion Forums:
The team can set up and post to threaded discussions, where issues or opportunities can be fully explored. It can take time for people to really get used to using this functionality and taking such discussions off the email system. A key role is that of the moderator, who can (a) spark new discussions, (b) invite people to join them, (c) deal with any abuse of etiquette and (d) capture and structure the result (e.g. a key decision) before archiving the thread.

3) Shared Documents:
The team can workflow, version control, security protect and store / retrieve documents, including policies, reports, analysis and plans. This functionality is often the most heavily used and of particular value for project teams, where many hundreds of key documents may be created in the course of delivery.

4) Allocate Tasks:
The team can set-up tasks and allocate them to themlseves or other team members. Reminders appear in the team calendar and (where there is email integration) in the email inbox of the task owner. Again, it can take time to get people usign this functionality but ? once working well ? can be of immense value for teams driving at particular outcomes and deadlines.

Some final thoughts

Collaboration technologies can be a very powerful addition to your knowledge management strategy, complementing structured search and yellow pages functionality. It is important to get the implementation right. In particular, to really think about ways to move people from email to teamrooms (e.g link to files in a teamspace rather than attach them) and to ensure that documents in teamrooms can be accessible via the wider portal search functionality.

About the author:

David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the Intranet Portal Guide; 31 pages of advice, tools and downloads covering the period before, during and after an Intranet Portal implementation.

Read the guide at http://www.viney.com/DFV/intranet_portal_guide or the Intranet Watch Blog at http://www.viney.com/intranet_watch.







Google News - Top Stories

BBC News

Chambliss Secures Georgia Win
Wall Street Journal - 1 hour ago
By ALEX ROTH ATLANTA -- Democratic hopes of gaining a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the US Senate collapsed Tuesday, as Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss was projected to win re-election in a runoff.
GOP Senate win in Georgia means Dems can't halt filibusters CNN International
Republicans win crucial Georgia Senate seat Reuters
Aljazeera.net - BBC News - United Press International - AFP
all 1,933 news articles


New York Daily News

Bill to Speed Loans Appears to Be Auto Makers' Top Prospect
Wall Street Journal - 1 hour ago
By GREG HITT WASHINGTON -- The Detroit auto makers' best hope for federal aid may be legislation accelerating the release of $25 billion in already-approved government loans.
Detroit's New Bill: $39 Billion BusinessWeek
Contrite Over Misstep, Auto Chiefs Take to Road New York Times
Washington Post - TIME - Reuters - New York Daily News
all 2,283 news articles


Kalamazoo Gazette - MLive.com

College May Become Unaffordable for Most in US
New York Times - 38 minutes ago
By TAMAR LEWIN The rising cost of college - even before the recession - threatens to put higher education out of reach for most Americans, according to the annual report from the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education.
'The world is moving past' USA in higher ed USA Today
US Lags In Providing College Access, Study Finds Washington Post
Salt Lake Tribune - Seattle Post Intelligencer - International Herald Tribune - Education Week News
all 66 news articles


Seattle Post Intelligencer

Haste Could Make Waste on Stimulus, States Say
Washington Post - 2 hours ago
By Lori Montgomery and Michael D. Shear With President-elect Barack Obama vowing to plow hundreds of billions of dollars into the nation's infrastructure, some state officials are warning that public works projects will fail to effectively lift the ...
Obama taps governors for strategy on economy The Star-Ledger - NJ.com
Obama tells governors he'll help with budgets USA Today
New York Times - Los Angeles Times - Dallas Morning News - Stateline.org
all 1,854 news articles


Telegraph.co.uk

Thai protesters abandon the barricades
Times Online - 1 hour ago
Thailand's anti-government protesters have finally abandoned the barricades and lifted their week long siege of Bangkok's airports.
UPDATE 2-Thai protesters lift airport siege, flights due in Reuters
Thai demonstrators leave airports BBC News
Aljazeera.net - MarketWatch - Xinhua - Reuters India
all 10,422 news articles

Google
 

Copyright © 2006 Computer Hunter - A Division of Arthur´s Job Base