PLANNING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

PLANNING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS IN A NETWORKED WORLD
JAN AIDEMARK
The School of Mathematics and Systems Engineering, Växjö University
Unviersitetsplatsen 6, 352 95, Växjö, Sweden
E-mail: jan.aidemark@vxu.se
The paper presents a strategic planning approach for knowledge management systems. This research approaches the problem of failing KMS’s by focusing on the planning phase. The result can be summarized as a set of frameworks for the strategic planning of knowledge management systems, i.e. information systems for the support of organizational knowledge processes. The approach is built on a broad set of theory, which has been used to discuss issues in KM/KMS from very broad perspectives. We approach the problem area from a strategic point of view, assuming that the problems of the area are based on a socio-technical dimension and that a multiple-paradigm approach is necessary for dealing with the problems of the various KM areas.
1. Introduction
The paper presents a strategic planning approach for knowledge management systems. There is an uncertainty in the academic study of KM about how to understand what it really is about (Spender and Scherer, 2007). Spender and Scherer talk about foundations and epistemologies, i.e. that there are several ways of understanding KM. This research approaches the problem of failing KM systems by focusing on the planning phase. We argue that it is in the planning phase, i.e. the process of generating ideas of information systems to develop, that the problems starts. A general assumption of the research is that different planning frameworks are needed when different organizational processes and activities are targeted. The frameworks, consisting of sets of models and methods, of this current research are directed towards the early stages of a KM systems planning process.
The goal is the support of a problem exploration phase that directs the further development process. This process is often identified as a strategic aspect of information systems planning (Lederer and Sethi, 1988). In focus are the problems of how to plan the integrated efforts to support knowledge creation and distribution processes in an organization.
The intended outcome of the planning process is a portfolio of support systems and other initiatives or activities. A KMS portfolio is a structured set of information systems that could be developed for a planning unit (organization /department /work group/work process). A central part of the strategic planning process is the generation of ideas, in this case suggestions for possible systems, the goal being to arrive at a more effective and efficient handling of the knowledge-related work of that unit by suggesting the right set of systems. The proposed approach aims at tackling the problem of suggesting a set of knowledge management systems for a particular organizational process or activity. The aim is to suggest knowledge management systems that reflect the complexity of the organizational situation, systems between which the internal relationship creates a balanced support in the particular organizational situation at hand.
2. Theoretical Framework of the Approach
Figure 1 provides an overview of the approach, displaying the five frameworks, their internal perspectives, and the central activity of balancing a KMS portfolio. The approach is built on three levels of analysis. First, analyses on a perspectives level within each of the frameworks (for example, cognitive / social or critical in Frame 1, knowledge processes, fig. 1). Analysis on this level is the core part of the approach, asking questions or raising issues from each perspective (or concept of the framework) that might provide ideas about the needs of support systems and how the use of that system might affect the organization. On the next level, the frameworks level, we consolidate the findings of KMS on the perspectives levels. In this process a better and deeper understanding of needs and consequences is developed.
The frameworks draw on theories from a diverse set of academic fields. Short overviews are given here, but for the full picture refer back to the original authors.
Framework 1: Knowledge process: Knowledge processes are viewed from three perspectives, a cognitive (Piaget, 2001), a social (Berger and Luckmann, 1966), and a critical (Foucault, 1979) perspective (c.f. Aidemark 2003, for argument around the selection of these authors as sources for the three perspectives). All three are continuous, human perception taking place within a social discourse that is controlled by a set of powers. Knowledge is what we see, what we talk about and it is also a way of limiting what we may think of. An information system directly contributes to the cognitive perspective, but operates in a field of social interactions and power struggles.
Framework 2: Flexibility approach to work process support: This perspective investigates the usefulness of the concept of strategic flexibility (Evans, 1991) for the planning of information systems as support for knowledge work. Flexibility is an ability that organizations in fast moving environments are in great need of. The concept of strategic flexibility describes a set of manoeuvres that an organization should be able to perform in order to deal with changes and emerging developments. The strategic flexibility concept has been used for planning information systems (Eardley et al., 1997) and understanding the role of information systems for organizational flexibility (Levy and Powell, 1998).
Framework 3: Strategic perspectives, linking strategy to KM support systems. The four perspectives of the balanced scorecard model are used, including economy, customers, internal processes and earning and growth (Kaplan and Norton, 1992, 1996). A balanced scorecard provides top managers with a fast but comprehensive view of critical business factors, expressed in terms of objectives, measures and targets. Traditionally, performance measurement systems have been concerned with financial and operational objectives, often with emphasis towards one of the categories. Reflecting recent management trends of customer orientation, quality, organizational learning and innovation, the balanced scorecard approach is suggested as a basis for the design of more effective performance measurement systems. Framework 4: Organizational contexts, ie. political, rational, garbage can and programme (March and Olsen, 1976).
In this context, the knowledge focus is on gathering experience as openly as possible. In a political environment, decisions are made in order to reach the goals of the group or of the individual decision-maker. The central knowledge issue is to understand one’s own values and the values of others. The knowledge needed here is about under-standing why and for whom. In a rational environment, the aim is to make a rational choice among possible solutions to a problem. This implies gathering information, forming alternatives and making a choice among the alternatives that satisfy the preferences in the best way. The effort is put into the task of proving and refining the current paradigm. This means to put knowledge to work, which includes externalizing the knowledge and making it useful in the decision-making process. Creativity is difficult in this environment. In a program environment, decisions are made according to clearly stated rules. The explicit knowledge of solutions will be formed into pro-grams and then given to people in the organization in the form of instructions or rules. These will be used to make organizational processes more effective
Framework 5: A networked world. Castells (1996), knowledge acting on knowledge is the source of productivity in a networked world, and a number of aspects can be concluded:
1. Information systems must be understood in the context of culture and identities. The use of symbol-manipulating machines change the ways of symbolic interactions between people that produce cultures and identities.
2. A network perspective on how enterprises organize production, using information technology, is needed. This leads to flexible production and globalized markets; with changes in both where and by whom products are produced and consumed. The network logic is not new per se, but developments in information technology lead the way for a change towards a society where the network logic dominates.
3. Knowledge is the source of productivity and by extension, knowledge management is becoming the key activity for organizations.
4. There is no absolute technological determinism, but society cannot be understood without its technology. The outcome of the use of information technology depends on the choices made by owners, planners, developers and users. However, society does not determine its technologies in an absolute sense either, because there is a dialectic interaction between the two, technology embodying society and society using technology.
The outcome of these processes is a balanced set of KMS’s (represented by the central circle in Fig. 1), balanced in the meaning that the interactions of the different types of KMS are investigated (which made sense in their respective perspectives) as well as what the joint outcome might be.
3. A Process View of the Approach
The approach can be illustrated with a process model (fig. 2). The process model of an organization is based on a simple and generic organization. In figure 2 the different organizational levels of analysis are laid out and how they connect to the frameworks. Figure 2 can be seen as a process description for the work with the approach, in a generic case, moving from the details and then towards the more general conditions of the situation. From the particular KM process, (Step 1) on to the work process (Step 2) that it supports, and then to the context (Step 3) in which the work group resides. Then moving
on to the strategic step (Step 4) and then to considering the problem on a more general and organizational level, including the network dimension (Step 5). Other ways of configuring a working method are of course possible. A more top-down-inspired approach might begin with Step five, understanding the broader context using Frame 5, then a strategic analysis (Framework 4), then looking at the particular problems using Frames 1 and 2, and, finally, checking the feasibility of the suggested KMS, up to this point using the context/culture Frame 3.
4. Working with the Approach: Interviews and Portfolios
As with any planning approach there are some basic outlines, including creating ideas about the future, making decisions, and doing this in a structured way. An approach should support the process of gathering information about possible information systems and providing tools for handling and balancing these suggestions in an effort of suggesting a consistent set of information systems for further development.
As background a generic definition of planning approach, can be looked at. The concept of a “system approach” developed for some specific purpose was discussed as a: “… way of going about tackling a problem. ” (Checkland, 1981, p. 5) while using a: “… broad view, which tries to take all aspects into account, which concentrates on interactions between the different parts of the problem” (Checkland, 1981, p. 5).
4.1. Gathering Knowledge and Formulating Suggestions
One of the difficulties with such an approach is making large quantities of theories into some kind of planning support that actually makes things easier. The goal is to make complexity manageable. At the same time, there is a need for letting contradicting ideas contribute to a multi-faceted whole. For all practical reasons the work, with the approach and its frameworks, in essence consists of deducing questions to be asked or issues to be raised with people in the organization. The basic set of issues could be summarized as in table 1.
Table 1 presents theoretical knowledge interests, and can be used as pathways into a situation in general. These questions/issues could, in interaction with an early insight into the situation, be “translated” to fit the problem situation at hand, making the investigation richer and more oriented towards organizational goals. The answers, in turn, should be understood in the context that they were asked, but should also be brought back to the theoretical field and understood there. An example of this is provided in table 2 (based on material, Aidemark, 2005, where a full case is to be found).
Furthermore, during the first encounter with the organization, an even more simplified questionnaire could be used. A short list of introductory questions that lead the way, but avoiding that the theoretical background takes too much control, hiding what might turn out to be important factors.
The practical application of these instruments can be broken down into a number of work steps. As a first step, perform initiating interviews with the central project people. The purpose is to get a first impression on how the approach works in practice, and more concretely to form a useful interview guide. Building on the lists presented above (table 2), a handful of open questions were put to the project leader (table 3).
The questions should work as doorways into the situation. The more detailed questionnaires, as shown above, could in the best case be used as a checklist to see if all aspects are covered during the following conversation. The reflexive conversation around these general perspectives is hoped to lead to an insight into the central issues of the problem situation. For each conversation, with the same person or other people, the list should be reworked using the full list and the background articles. The difficulty here is the sensitive balance between direction from the frameworks and a necessary openness to the current situation. There is always a possibility that theory hides what is important rather than puts the focus on it. Therefore, it is the diversity of the framework, rather then the details, that is the important feature of the planning approach and its planning frameworks.

5. Two perspectives on people/technology: work vs. managerial
The planning approach integrates people and technology dimensions of KMS. Also the dimension looks different depending on the perspective used, work or managerial. There are connections that become visible when comparing the items in the two tables (table 4 and 5). Issues that are raised by such an analysis include a number of problematic dimensions:
* Control vs. creativity. The portfolio has a leaning towards management activities like control and measuring. These efforts are probably necessary to obtain effectiveness from a KMS effort. However, this might hamper spontaneous problem-solving by creative staff. The initiative with the incentives could counterbalance this. Creativity might also be encouraged by the use of the best practice system, i.e. that an insight into previous solutions inspires to new and deeper practical knowledge. For all of these possible systems there is one central precondition, the motivating forces of learning and problem-solving must be well understood and the systems that are implemented must not interfere with these forces.
* Formal vs. informal. Here we find the contradiction between formalization of knowledge and informal knowledge. The formalization of knowledge, by using templates for knowledge elicitation is one approach. However, the informal aspects of knowledge creation are personal and individual and are not easily supported by any kind of system. The approach to this balance is rather to limit the impact and intrusiveness of the systems that are built.
* Strategic vs. operational. The strategic dimension is taken care of in the suggestion of a value creation model. By this approach we gain a better understanding of the overall impact of knowledge on the organization, providing facts of decision for the founding of these projects. However, we should also see this from a work practice point of view. This could imply investigating the workers’ view of these systems and knowledge management processes. This could include surveys, work-manager meetings or focus groups. The material from such KM-related activities could be supported by HRM-styled systems.
As soon as technical solutions (for example a best practice database) are provided, the systems become clearer and the IT aspect begins to dominate the field of vision for the planner. It is very crucial to keep the organization-people-technology triangle alive and working as long as possible, the KMS portfolio being one way of doing this.
6. Final Comments
As discussed in the introduction section and in several of the literature sections, many traditional planning models have problems in dealing with a complex and multi-faceted world. Information systems are motivated by the complexity of the world today. Our planning approach will direct the possibilities to deal with information systems and subsequently our daily activities.
Here we try to conclude a number of aspects on what seem to be the success factors that might characterize a viable planning approach.
1. Individual and organizational knowledge. The interconnection between the individual with a subjective and situated knowledge (e.g. personal knowledge, Polanyi, 1958) and the organizational use of knowledge as a key resource is a central theme in knowledge management. This raises the complexity of the planning situation and makes it necessary to be even more sensitive to the situation and the implications for the usefulness of information systems for the achievement of organizational goals. These connections are made in several places in the approach. On the higher level, this is reflected in the general portfolio, where an individual and an organizational dimension are included. This can also be found in the frameworks, for example, the “Knowledge process framework”. Suggestions about IS from a cognitive perspective are discussed in the context of IS that makes sense in the social constructivist view of knowledge.
2. Interaction of perspectives. The working mechanism of the approach is the interaction between perspectives. The idea is not to find the exactly right set of perspectives or frameworks. It is the connections between rather general and, for that matter, rather contrasting concepts that create the pluralism and breadth of the analysis.
3. A Singerian learning style (Churchman, 1971; Mason and Mitroff, 1973). This means a simplification of the perspectives rather than making them more complicated and specific. This is done in order to make the approach easier to work with and get the large lines of the picture to emerge more clearly. Critique against socio-technical approaches often points at the abundance of volumes of descriptive and ethnographic analysis. This problem is connected to research by Newkirk et al. (2003) stating that planning should be performed in the right amount; both too much and too little can lead to an unfavourable result.
4. Easy of use vs. complexity of the problem. Although the framework draws on a substantial body of theory, the “front end” material used by the analyst can be expressed in rather simple terms. The translating process is a central step in the planning process. However, the guidelines for doing this are harder to discern, since the planning situation must be the most influential factor, and for all practical purposes it must be an interactive, trial-and-error-styled process.
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