Based on presentations and article published in the internet: http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/1999/nt_1999_11_01_knowledge_development.htm

Please click on a question to read its answer.

ANSWERS

Q: What is the underlying faith that your work will deliver results?

My paper http://www.waykm.com/Organizing_The_Way_To_Excellence.htm introduces the studies that link the flow of knowledge to the pursuit of excellence. The management of flows cannot be hypothesised as a necessary and sufficient condition for successful pursuit since there are other obvious requirements such as a clear purpose or enlightened leadership. However, Jack Welch did make a clear statement of faith in his address to Yale Business School students that free flow of knowledge across departments is all that good leadership needs to assure itself of the pursuit of excellence. Bmail delivers the free flow.

 

Q.                Why do you believe your work will transform administrations?

Today administrations conceive specific processes to satisfy particular decision related goals, e.g., brain storming for innovation, meetings for collective thinking and consensus, Knowledge Management for knowledge sharing, etc. Today, the processes impose a heavy demand on personnel time and energy. For processes like Knowledge Management, personnel must also exercise data capture discipline on a sustained basis, viz., live a culture, for tangible results. It follows IT is at best a tool or passive energy that needs to be employed, viz., it cannot organize and drive free flows in chaos (see next answer) and is incapable of inducing a culture.

The pursuit of excellence has been dependent on personnel energy since for ever. It has always been difficult to unify the energy for action with a culture. Besides, the energy is now inadequate to cope with the demands placed on it. Its limitations explain why excellence is very rare.

My science of interactions regards free knowledge flows as the building block of all knowledge processes and practices. It provides the intelligence to organize, channel and drive free flow of knowledge across and within work-groups. Invested in IT, it harnesses the inexhaustible energy of IT to transform IT from passive to intelligent energy. Its anticipation creates compelling means for the daily work and communication to assure the adoption needed for inducing a work culture. The systematic free flow of knowledge efficiently organizes and drives the processes and practices critical to excellence apart from releasing personnel energy for superior contribution.

Please explain the breakthrough nature of your work

Collaboration technology promotes better thinking and Workflow technology aids better coordination. As yet there is no means for Workflow within Collaboration. This holds the key to the organized free flow of knowledge for conduct of all the processes and practices that decide the pursuit of excellence by a collective. The ad-hoc nature of knowledge flows has proved a stumbling block for conventional IT.

The science and technology community has been helpless to foster the pursuit of excellence across the world – it does not believe IT can organize and drive free flow of knowledge across multiple processes, practices, people, departments and topics.

My work does not contest the prevailing conventional wisdom that a one-size-fit-all process is impossible. It achieves the desired objective of a compelling way to organize and drive collaboration in decision making by creating the all-sizes-fit-one process. Hence I have used ‘breakthrough’ to describe my work.

Q. What distinguishes your model from the conventional approach to Knowledge Management?

Both approaches regard success consciousness and domain competencies as the key to success. The Cognitive Enterprise Maturity Model (CEMM) reflects the conventional approach. It accepts IT's inability to organize Knowledge flows and fosters motivation and business process development to establish the flows and leverage competencies for innovation, strategy formulation, decision making, etc. Training is imparted in Knowledge Management component technologies like Document Management, Collaboration, Search, etc., to facilitate the capture, storage and sharing of Knowledge.

CEMM relies upon the Knowledge maturity of the worker for performance of the tasks that support Knowledge capture and sharing. This is quite like teaching children to master the complex process of walking using software that manages its components, and motivating them to run in unison. The problems of CEMM may be understood by visualizing the child as a reluctant learner because its priority is playing. IDC has projected the Fortune 500 shall loose $31.5 billion in 2003 due to knowledge inefficiencies in spite of Knowledge initiatives.

My work recognizes that the unstructured business processes (USBP) that deliver success are conducted by Knowledge interactions. The Knowledge Worker is provided a single intuitive interface invested with intelligence to organize and anticipate all her/his Knowledge work and interactions. It harnesses technology to effortlessly coordinate, conduct and control all USBP on each issue. Collaboration in context is made simple irrespective of the load of open issues. The knowledge flows are captured systematically. Personal benefits like ease of working, reduction of anxiety, superior judgments and contribution, and collective responsibility induce adoption of the way. The Cognitive Enterprise evolves as personnel seek to promote their marvelous work experience. For all practical purposes the worker is treated as a child who enjoys playing, and provided facilities to heighten the experience. Walking and running are built into the play. The child ensures all problems are resolved and grows healthily.

Q. How does your system facilitate the pursuit of success?

Success is a product of unstructured business processes like coordination, formulation of strategy, interpretation of facts, internalization of experience, innovative problem solving, firm decision making and response, etc., and the influence of wisdom. These processes are progressed by Knowledge interactions at the discretion of the Knowledge Worker to satisfy a need, e.g., information, advice, etc., usually with a follow on expectation. It follows that a reliable means to conduct and follow up Knowledge interactions anytime and anywhere, with access to the related history, shall progress success.

My work harnesses IT to coordinate interaction on each issue in the chaos of the daily Knowledge work and interaction. The intelligence invested in its interface guides debate that promotes prudence and awareness, and leverages competence. Team members participate to contribute, share responsibility, influence action, gain recognition and realize themselves. A culture for efficient assimilation and application of knowledge in the daily work evolves. The organization is released from the mechanics of process, motivation and environment building and can concentrate on maturing the culture.

Q: What are the dimensions of Knowledge capture in the system?

Knowledge is captured as a by-product of interactions. The organization to conduct interactions covers the following:

  • Mapping of human resources for routing. The system framework provides a true picture of the knowledge resources at all times.
  • Effortless capture of Documents for the corporate repository, duly categorized for secure access and reuse of experience.
  • Capture of the order in which events took place on an issue. This accumulates the experience on an issue.
  • Capture of the free form interactions on a Document. Releases personnel from anxiety over who, when, what, how.
  • Capture of discussion on a Document. The Perceptions are auto categorized by Author, Subject, Pursuit, etc. A User can add to the perceptions any time during or post circulation of the Document. During circulation, the Document is reported in the workspace of all the active participants contributing to it with a link to the discussion data base. The structure facilitates free flow of knowledge.

Free knowledge flow protects against the neglect of pertinent knowledge and increases the number of personnel alert to an issue. The process promotes debate that favors the evaluative over the wishful in interpretation, internalizes experience for its effective reuse, isolates fear and guards against indiscretions. Free flow of knowledge is the only protection against poor knowledge application. Apart from promoting prudence, free flow provides the courage of collective thinking to initiate action.

A means for free knowledge flow unifies the organization and promotes the constant review essential for pursuing a successful strategy.

Q: Is the System an example of Darwinian evolution?

The principal is the same. Where there are many contributing parameters a certain common sense gets established that determines the norms that shall prevail. A science comes into play. I have developed this science and modeled it. Professionals behave rather similarly the world over. As a result, the science delivers a universal way of working on free form interactions.

Q: Does the system replace email? If so, what is the gain?

Professionals have adopted the email interface to communicate with their colleagues within the organization. However, they are required to adopt a separate interface for developing, sharing and centrally storing content and perhaps yet another one for collaboration. Codification tasks have to be performed because of multiple interfaces with no assistance for routing. Professionals very rarely have the time and energy to self organize and perform the associated chores. Email usually fails to leverage adoption of the technology for corporate capture and reuse of implicit as well as explicit Knowledge.

The science replaces email for the conduct of interactions over the company intranet. Unlike email it distinguishes between the expectations that initiate interactions and uses this as the basis to organize professionals for satisfying their personal interaction needs. It engages the attention span of personnel while communicating to effortlessly investigate context and collaborate from a unified interface. Contributions are automatically codified. The path of least resistance for working and interacting offered by the way motivates its adoption. A reliable procedure for free knowledge flow in decision-making, Knowledge Management and supervision of problem solving is a by-product of the way. Email remains relevant for the conduct of interactions between the company and the external world.

The company may choose to make selected business partners members of the intranet, viz., create an extranet. The necessary security is provided by the system.

Q: Why is email a poor means for business communication?

Business Communication is conducted by free form interactions.  Only satisfaction of the following important personal interaction needs of personnel can foster adoption of the way of working:

  • Swift review of the outstanding expectations on Documents in circulation where the User is involved;
  • A facility to drill down to Documents based on their perceived importance;
  • A means that shall implement the special privileges associated with the identity of the person attending the Document;
  • Intelligence that shall keep the workspace of the user organized and free of clutter;
  • Facility for the user to control the downstream action that takes place on Documents attended;
  • System for swift review of the group members engaged with a Document, their outstanding interaction as also their response times;
  • A structure to assist in the effortless routing of Documents ;
  • Effortless procedure to establish free knowledge flow on an issue;
  • A practical methodology for capturing and storing the knowledge that evolves, as well as the experience that accumulates, in a central repository for corporate reuse.

Email is unable to satisfy the desired requirements as it resides on the desktop, is not organized to relate to the work content, ignores the expectations that initiate interactions and disregards the structure of the organization. Thus, it cannot incorporate intelligence of the way professionals operate. It must work in tandem with a knowledge library management system and collaboration technology to capture and store knowledge for reuse by the organization. These systems are a different process from emailing. The data entries they require are external to the flow of work. Professionals must organize and motivate themselves to adopt these technologies for their free form interactions. This is impractical in practice as the first priority of professionals is delivering results. By itself, email at best improves communication. It is excellent for personal communication.

Q: How is communication performed by your science?

In the system, Documents (a single instance of email may be looked upon as a Document) are transferred amongst the personnel by changing its assignment and creating views based on the assignment. Assignments are defined by roles. Personnel may hold multiple roles. The entire structure is flexible. This does away with dependence on messaging for exchange of Documents between the professionals of a company. Documents may be transferred among wide spread members of a team by the use of replication technology. The science provides the powerful logic to avoid replication conflicts. The approach provides far more depth and detail for ad-hoc sharing and circulation of Documents as compared to email, apart from facilitating tracking and recall. The Document flow is auto-captured as the interactions are assembled.

Q: Please explain what you mean by an Intelligent User Interface.

The interface organizes and anticipates the decision maker to provide an effortless way of working.

The system recognizes that professionals conduct interactions with an expectation which they would like to follow up subsequently. The Interface presents the next action that may be assembled to a Document based on the outstanding expectation, the rights associated with the Document and the role of the User. The routing, whether serial or parallel, is determined by the interaction selected. The intelligent framework offers the likely participants and conducts the execution of the movement.

The User can select the display format best suited to the need at hand. Thus the Interface may be organized by responsibility (Documents forwarded categorized by expectation) and accountability (Documents received for action) or by date the Document first came to the notice of the User (to see Documents delayed) or by the various roles held by the User.

Depending upon the rights associated with a Document, the interface allows reversal of pending action. The User can open a Document for information on the passage of the Document, the opinion that has accumulated, who is accountable for action, the members participating in the Document, etc. Documents concluded by team members are automatically deleted from the Interface of all professionals participating on the Document.

The Interface harnesses the technology needed to fulfil the action requested by the User. Thus Documents are dispatched by email or fax or by hard copy as desired by the User. Collaboration technology is summoned without dependence upon the User for data entry required for categorization. Content management is offered per the need.

The interface's ability to offer the aforesaid services keeps the interface highly focused, makes it a powerful means to organize the routine chaos and reduce associated anxiety, and renders it an effective instrument for building the corporate's implicit and explicit knowledge repository.

Q: Are the Knowledge Maps complex to create and maintain?

Creating the Knowledge maps is quite simple since the model establishes their framework. The maps are an integral part of the system. This is a strength of the system as the daily usage ensures that the maps shall always be up to date.

A Knowledge structure maps the distribution of Pursuits amongst the various groups of the company, the Cases that contribute to the Pursuits and the Reasons why Documents arise in the Cases. Once a Reason for a Document is specified it smartly categorizes the Document for circulation and for the archives. A Resource map creates identities for the company personnel in relation to the groups to which they are assigned. It assists routing in association with the Knowledge structure. Both the maps are very flexible.

No Workflow map is needed as personnel are allowed their discretion to assemble the interaction of their choice to the interactions already assembled on a Document. However, system norms decide which interactions are available for assembly. The norms map is a part of the governing science.

Q: Is the model coverage comprehensive?

I would say that the model covers 80% of the interactions that normally take place among professionals in their decision making or knowledge transfer. The balance 20% may easily be modeled based on the parameters established by the framework.

Q: What are the results achieved?

I first implemented the system in a Government Department here in India with a performance guarantee to deliver change. The fact that I succeeded is significant since it is extremely difficult to induce government personnel to change.

My next implementation was in the Share and Secretarial Department of a blue chip company keen on improving its service to its shareholders. They already had the necessary accounting systems but needed a system to manage the routine operations and free form interaction that took place on the correspondence. The results reported included total adoption, over 300% improvement in productivity, a ten fold reduction in the turnaround time, efficient organization of routine work, control over legal oversights, prompt response to shareholders on their queries, elimination of a level of management and mitigation of anxiety to a fraction of its original level.

Q: What about conventional Work & Project flow?

The system is primarily a means for interaction amongst personnel. It is adept at forwarding Documents and organizing collaboration in context. This power may easily be harnessed to a workflow engine to conduct conventional work, like Document approvals, creating pre-formatted content, and database updates by designated work groups, even specific posts, a single step at a time. The added benefit is that the group members may confabulate among themselves or with others before committing to any action. The system procedures keep track of the Perceptions recorded, give access to previous Perceptions on the subject and protect against actions that may cause confusion.

Project flows are a special case of conventional Workflow. The system provides for project flows but stops short of offering a means to crash projects within time and resource constraints etc.