Need For Science

Information may travel in real time, but good decisions are made by people who take time to reflect... Answering questions that have complex ramifications takes time - more than it takes to click on the "sell" button or to seal a deal with a phone call. Speed kills. Taking the time to get it right could mean the difference between survival and oblivion." ...E-Commerce Times, 2000.

There are three points of significance in the quote: that information has speeded up substantially, that decisions need reflection and that the primary need is to follow the right way to keep disaster at bay. An implication is that IT has yet to offer the right way for taking decisions.

In risk it is not isolated knowledge that counts but an understanding of the nature involved and a plan of action that gives emphasis to safety and profit, viz., a strategy. Experience provides valuable insight for discerning patterns to initiate decisions in keeping with the strategy, the perspective to avoid haste and the awareness to limit the downside of engagements. Access to history assists in the mental preparation that must precede any encounter with uncertainty for firm and timely action.

The human tendency is to engage in wishful thinking and be dominated by fear in making judgments under pressure or sustain a judgment gone awry in the hope that events shall redeem expectations. Submitting to hope amidst uncertainty can vitiate the timing of decisions to bring about defeat rather than victory. The question is how to ensure dispassionate reflection.

Personal factors apart, misinterpretation of facts and misguided use of experience can be fatal. Both are very possible with colored glasses.

It follows that it is not the availability of information that decides success but its assimilation, overcoming fear and desire and engagement in timely and constructive action. This requires a reliable way to deal with facts, comprehensively dwell upon problem definition, strategy, safety, procedure for follow up, etc., and develop courage of conviction before progressing action. Failure to engage in the way will almost certainly lead to lost opportunities unless individual heroics leap in to protect the organization's interests. Decision making is hence a competency needed by all organizations.

The way of decision making covers the following major processes, conducted in any permutation and combination:

Drucker's 1988 observation that the Colonial era administration in India was the 'epitome of successful Knowledge Management' shows the way to engage in these processes. The administration's success lay in organized collaboration to evolve opinion, without same-time contact or process definition. The associated give and take forwards an issue with context, an opinion and an expectation. Conducted at ones own convenience but with accountability, it supports debate for swift clarity, involves experts, and provides time for contemplation. Its collective responsibility aids learning, strengthens risk-taking ability and motivates its flow. It is a major component of Ikujiro Nonaka's seminal definition: "knowledge management is not to do with processing `objective' information but with concentrating on tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions and hunches of individual employees and making these insights available for testing and use by the company as a whole".

The history of adoption of new technology, in particular the cycle and rapid spread of the email culture, establishes that a 'marvelous sensation' is the deciding factor for inducing adoption. In context of conduct of the knowledge processes this would imply the following:

Organize teamwork for effortlessly capturing, categorizing and processing Documents through their entire life cycle.
Establish effortless procedures for the collaboration in context and progress of constructive action on a Document.
Transparent integration of the physical aspects of the daily Business Communication, viz., Collaboration, Work Flow, Document and Performance Management, and Communication .
Offer a way of working and interacting to satisfy personal needs within a flexible framework that adapts across the departments of an enterprise.

The prevailing conventional wisdom is that IT cannot organise the knowledge processes that take place on an event because they are discretionary and therefore unpredictable. The best that can therefore be offered are User friendly technology products for Communication, Collaboration, Workflow, Document Management, Performance Management, etc., that can easily be self-organized to engage in Business Communication and knowledge accumulation. Very efficient software is available for information dissemination and access. For IT this completes the means for exchange of knowledge among personnel. However, the abysmal adoption of IT for give and take establishes this belief is inadequate to promote adoption.

Further, the efficient assimilation and application of knowledge requires a free flow for the process of debate to strip away fond and specious beliefs. Depending upon the User to engage in capture threatens the free flow of knowledge by distinguishing between Give and Take. In the absence of flow there is the risk of personnel thinking what they like and acting in isolation.

It follows that the conduct of the discretionary give and take of daily knowledge exchange demands a specific means to manage the unpredictable flow of knowledge interactions in an appealing way to deliver the experience. In its absence the notoriously busy business administrator shall consider IT a waste of time.

Drastic changes in the work experience face stiff resistance by way of alienation and opposition. The means for managing the unpredictable flow has to be an evolution of the existing way of Group working, which is more or less uniform across the world. Only a science governing interactions can harness IT for evolving teamwork to deliver the required marvelous work experience.