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TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING

1. Why is it helpful to view the building of a KM system as a life cycle?

It is important to have a life cycle in building knowledge management systems, because

the life cycle provides structure and order to the process. Additionally, the life cycle
provides a breakdown of the activities into manageable steps, good documentation for
possible changes in the future, coordination of the project for a timely completion, and
regular management review at each phase of the cycle.

2. In what ways do conventional and KM systems development life cycles differ? How
are they similar?

There are many differences between the conventional and knowledge management
systems development life cycle:
a. A conventional system is sequential (certain steps are carried out in sequence),
while the knowledge management system life cycle is incremental and interactive.
b. In the conventional system, testing generally occurs at the end of programming,
while the knowledge management development life cycle provides for testing
throughout various phases of system development as the system evolves.
c. The conventional system is process-driven and documentation-oriented, with
emphasis on the flow of data, while the knowledge management development life
cycle is result-oriented.
d. The conventional system does not support rapid prototyping or advanced
languages, while the knowledge management development life cycle promotes
rapid prototyping and incorporates changes on the spot.

Along with these differences, however, are many similarities as well:

a. Both cycles begin with a problem and end with a solution.
b. Both cycles require the initial gathering of information (conventional) or
knowledge (KMSDLC) for the process to begin and ending up with a tested
system ready for use.
c. Both the knowledge developer and the systems analyst need to choose a tool to
design the system.

3. Distinguish between:
a. verification and validation
b. knowledge developer and systems analyst
c. pupil-user and tutor-user
d. projection and avoidance
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a. Verification determines if the system was built right, while validation ensures that
the correct system was built to meet the users expectations.
b. A knowledge developer is a specialist in building knowledge-based systems. He
or she is the key architect of such systems. In contrast, a systems analyst is a
specialist in building information systems. He or she is the architect of such
systems, which includes designing, testing, and installing the system.
c. A pupil-user is an unskilled worker trying to learn or gain some understanding of
the captured knowledge. A tutor-user is a user with a working knowledge of the
knowledge management system and is responsible for system maintenance.
d. Projection is resistance to knowledge management system development through
employee display of hostility toward peers. Avoidance is resistance to a
knowledge management system through employee withdrawal from the job or
scene.

4. Successful KM system implementation depends on several factors. Briefly, explain

each factor

a. Level of motivation of the user. Good documentation cannot compensate for low
motivation or poor attitude toward the system. Promoting motivation and
commitment takes time and must be planned in advance.
b. Computer literacy and technical background of the user. A computer literate user
can be easier to work with than someone who has no background at all. First-time
users often require education and training before they are able to support
development and use of knowledge-based system.
c. Communication skills of the trainer. Selling people on change is sometimes
considered more an art than a science. Communication skills can make the
difference between a users acceptance or rejection of the installation.
d. Time availability and funding for training. A training program run on a
shoestring is usually a loser. Also, squeezing training time to the bare minimum
often results in trainee impatience, resistance to learning, or nonuse of the system.
Training should be part of the implementation phase offered around the schedule
of the user.
e. Place of training. The location of training can make a difference. On-site versus
off-site training continues to be an issue with plusses and minuses for each
alternative. Off-site training is generally dedicated uninterrupted learning. Its
positive benefits include privacy and focus on the projects. The feasibility of off-
site training depends on distance, location, and funding. In contrast, on-site
training requires no out-of-town transportation or room and board expenses. Yet,
it can be interrupted by telephone calls, secretaries, and uninvited gawkers.
f. Ease and duration of training. This aspect depends on the caliber of the trainer
and the attitude and motivation of the trainees. Chemistry often affects how
well all parties work with each other. Also, the training period should be
reasonable and able to meet measurable goals. A long, drawn-out three-week
training period does not promote the same excitement and motivation as a one-
week session.

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g. Ease of access and explanatory facilities of the knowledge management system.

Knowledge management systems should be easy to access and work with. A
software package that provides adequate explanations is bound to satisfy most
users. The explanatory facility of the package promotes ease of use and provides
convincing evidence of the integrity of the solutions provided by the system.
h. Ease of maintenance and system update. At this stage, good documentation and
easy-to-follow procedures in a module-oriented knowledge management system
can make the difference between easy maintenance and a nightmare. In this
case, maintenance implies update, although update is more often considered
enhancement.
i. Payoff to the organization. A systems benefit to the organization is usually
measured in terms of cost reduction, improvement in sales or overall
performance, and so on. Measurable payoff early in the development life cycle
promotes successful implementation.
j. Role of the champion. Solid top management support and a champion pushing for
system adoption can make a difference between a successful and a lukewarm
installation.

5. How important are organizational factors in system implementation?

The primary organizational factor is top management commitment to the proposed

knowledge management system. This is evident by the way it promotes the development
effort through adequate funding, ensuring the availability of hardware and personnel, and
allowing the champion to function within the development process.

The second organizational factor is user participation in the building process. Doing so
tends to increase commitment and foster a sense of ownership of the system. Other
organizational factors include organizational politics and organizational climate. Politics
is jockeying for leverage to influence ones domain and control procedures, technology,
or the direction of an area of operation. User readiness can also influence the success of
implementation.

6. Why is the place of training important? Why is duration of training important?

The location of training can make a difference to a successful knowledge management

system. Off-site training is generally dedicated uninterrupted learning environment. Its
benefits include privacy and focus on the project(s). The feasibility of off-site training
depends on distance, location, and funding. In contrast, on-site training requires no out-
of-town transportation or room and board expenses. Duration of training should be
planned around the schedule of the users. Squeezing training time to the bare minimum
often results in trainee impatience, resistance to learning, or nonuse of the system.

7. What do you think determines the success of user training?

Two factors determine the success of user training:

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a. The users knowledge of knowledge management systems. Training should be

customized to fit the target user group.
b. The trainers experience and communication skills. The trainer for successful
user training needs to be well educated in the subject field and seasoned with user
training. The trainer also need to possess excellent interpersonal and
communication skills when dealing with users.

8. How do users differ from experts?

a. The expert does not have the same vested interest in the system as the user and, in
most cases, the expert will not be the final user.
b. The user is readily available for the systems analyst to build the information
system or the knowledge management system; the expert is not that readily
available. This author learned the hard way that the more successful the expert is,
the more difficult it is to secure his or her services.
c. The user is usually cooperative, as he or she needs the product. Experts tend to be
independent and cooperation is not required and sometimes not even there.
d. The expert has knowledge of the problem and the solution, while the user has
knowledge of the problem, but not the solution.

9. Of the steps making up the KMSLC, which one do you consider the most critical?
Why? Which would be the most time consuming?

Problem identification is the most critical part of the KMSLC. This is because the
problem selected is often a unique problem and the rest of the cycle will be based on this
initial step. So, it must be correct. The most time-consuming aspect is the knowledge
capture phase, since the planning and conceptualization of the rest of the project takes
place here.

10. What is rapid prototyping? How is it useful in building KM systems?

Rapid prototyping is the spontaneous, on-the-spot, interactive building of a KM system.

It is useful in building the system, because the initial prototype from the knowledge
developer is shown to the expert, expecting the expert to add new ideas or rules.
Together, on-the-spot review and update of the prototype continues until the final system
is completed to the satisfaction of the expert.

11. Elaborate on the main steps of a feasibility study. When should a feasibility study
be conducted? Why?

A feasibility study involves taking the problem to be addressed, evaluating it in detail,

and plugging in the total costs against the tangible and intangible benefits of the system.
Doing this will then be able to answer the following questions:

a. Is the project doable?

b. Is it affordable?

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c. Is it the next best project for the firm?

d. Is it practicable?

This study should be done before any KM system is started on.

12. What does it mean to scope a project? Give an example.

To scope a project means to determine the projects capabilities and how well it will fit in
with the organization. For example, for a firm that needs a KM system but has never had
one before, in scoping the project, the firms inexperience should be accounted for and
the system should not be as complex as a system for a more experienced organization
may be.

Another way of looking at scoping is to consider constraints such as money, time, and
talent. For example, if a system that is supposed to take four months to complete has a
deadline of three months, the developer will have to scope the project around the
deadline, either by working late nights or by cutting corners to provide enough of a
system to do the job within the time constraint.

13. What is your understanding of a human expert? How would you select one?

There is an old saying, an expert is someone who knows what he does not know and is
the first to tell you so. An expert is someone who has spent a number of years or
thousands of hours diagnosing or troubleshooting a particularly difficult problem and is
known to be good at solving it. This goes from the seasoned and licensed auto mechanic
to the open heart surgeon. Obviously, the latter expert requires education (e.g. MD) as
well as trainingyears of residency and dozens of successful operations.

Unfortunately, such experts are hard to access and are not readily available. So, in most
KM system development, either the company assigns the so-called expert or the
knowledge developer has to settle for second best.

14. Write an essay in which you describe the role of the knowledge developer and his or
her relationship with the key persons in the knowledge capture process.

Students should be required to search the literature, especially on the Internet, regarding
such a topic or preferably talk to someone in the industry who has done knowledge
development work. The computer science or systems engineering department is another
source, where such activity might be going on.

15. Briefly highlight the functions and attributes of the chief knowledge officer (CKO).

Key functions:
Maximize the returns on investment in knowledgepeople, processes, and
technology

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Share best practices and reinforce the goodness of knowledge sharing among
employees on a regular basis
Promote and improve company innovations and the commercialization of new
ideas
Minimize brain drain or knowledge loss at all levels of the organization

The key attributes include:

Broad knowledge of business practice in general and the ability to translate
technical information at the employee level
Dynamic interface, making effective use of technical and nontechnical elements
in KM design, especially if the CKO is the chairperson of the KM team
Knowledge of information technology, information systems, software, and
technology in general
Teaching and selling
Communicating
Understanding (see pp. 428-429 in text)

KNOWLEDGE EXERCISES

1. Crozet Country Clubs use of a knowledge management system can be justified on

several fronts. The system captures the human resources managers knowledge of how
she makes her hiring decisions. If she leaves the club, the system will help to ensure
that her expertise and know-how are not lost. The hiring KM system saves the club
time and money by making accurate decisions more rapidly than the normal way of
deciding on an applicant. Because the club receives a large number of applications to
fill a relatively small number of positions, efficient applicant evaluation is of critical
importance. However, handling and sorting the plethora of applications was formerly
time consuming and haphazard. This system reduces the time taken to fill vacant
positions. More importantly, it helps to ensure that employees have the necessary
qualifications.

The hiring KM system promotes a higher level of consistency and quality in hiring
decisions. Prior to implementing the system, the manager did not have a wage matrix
to use in determining appropriate wages for employees, and the process was quite
random. This led to some conflict within the organization. Furthermore, the manager
hired some applicants without focusing enough on their ability, and they turned out to
be poor employees. In essence, the KM system helps guarantee that all of the
necessary variables are fully considered in each decision.

a. Is this sufficient justification for the KM system? Why or why not?

b. Is the system likely to replace the human resources manager, who was instrumental
in sharing her knowledge, which is captured in the knowledge base?

a. For all practical purposes, the country club was happy to capture the basic hiring rules
in a system that promotes standardization and consistency in hiring decisions. When
it comes to matching human skills to job requirements and determining the fair wage,

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hiring as a human resource function becomes a serious step. Unfair or inconsistent

hiring decisions could be discriminatory as to invite lawsuits. The only limitation of
such a system is that real-life decision-making on recruitment is flexible and cannot
be based on a set of rules that wont size up personality, nonverbal cues, and the like.
b. Probably not. The way this system turned out, the human resources manager relied
on the system for deciding on clear-cut applicantsthose with a close match that
dont require special evaluation or consideration. Belatedly, however, it was found
that as the club grew in size and the profile of the members changed from the once
senior citizens to the younger members, the job requirements for snack bar attendant,
lifeguard, and swim coach has changed. Without the capability of updating the
requirements and the resulting decisions, the system would soon become dated. In
this case, the students graduated and moved away, leaving the human resources
manager without someone to update the knowledge base.

2. The goal of this project is to develop a consumer-lending knowledge base to guide the
junior bank officer through the decision of whether an auto loan should be approved.
In the loan department, there are experienced senior loan officers who are willing to
share their knowledge with others. You have been assigned the job of building a KM
system for the bank. Explain in detail the life cycle of this project.

The goal of this exercise is to see how well students can plan the building process. The
most important aspect of such exercises is for the knowledge developer to be aware of the
steps that lie ahead and plan accordingly. This is more like strategic planning. The major
steps of this projects life cycle are:

a. Identify the problem domain and attempt to justify it. This includes finding out how
useful the system is going to be to the consumer loan department or its officers, who
will be using it, what benefit it is going to provide, how committed the firm is to
seeing it done, whether there is a champion in the bank, and the availability of a
knowledgeable loan officer.
b. Knowledge capture. Assuming an expert is available, this second step involves
meeting with the human expert and tapping his or her knowledge via appropriate
tools and procedures. Rapid prototyping plays a key role in this phase. Also, various
knowledge analysis tools such as semantic nets and decision trees are used during this
phase of system development. The knowledge developer should project the role of
the architect of the system.
c. Knowledge codification. This step is essentially coding or programming the
knowledge captured from the human expert. The actual working code is represented
by rules or frames. Rule-based systems are the more popular knowledge-based
systems.
d. Implementation. The implementation step is a first-draft completion of the coding
and initial testing of the system in preparation for logical testing and user acceptance
testing.
e. Logical and user acceptance testing. Both of these steps make up testing as we
understand it in testing conventional information systems. Logical testing precedes
user acceptance testing. Once these steps are completed, certification follows.

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f. Maintenance. This step ensures that the system continues to function according to the
initial standards of performance. Many professionals do not consider maintenance as
a step in the life cycle of building systems, because it normally follows system
installation. In our case, we promote maintenance as part of the process of
commitment to integrity of system building.

3. A KM system for a large retailer was designed to help human resources develop a
qualified candidate pool from the many applications they receive on a daily basis. The
knowledge on hiring available in the KM knowledge base suggests the wage each
accepted applicant should receive, based on his or her skills and relevant experience.

The three positions addressed are (a) floor salesperson, (b) customer service
representative, and (c) gift wrap employee. The system encodes the knowledge of the
expert in each area and the knowledge of the person who makes the hiring decisions
into rules that are used to perform the task. The stores human resources manager
played a key role throughout knowledge capture; her experience is stored in a
specialized knowledge base. During her absence, a junior human resources person can
query the knowledge base for information based on the experts (human resources
manager) opinion in various combinations of circumstances and constraints. This
made certain decisions easy to make, which made the hiring process faster and
improved the overall efficiency of the human resources department.

a. Is anything missing from the development life cycle? What made you think so?
b. Do you think more than one person developed the KM system? Explain.

a. As a background for this exercise, Hiring Advisor was developed by two graduate
students who have undergone intensive training in knowledge capture through a
knowledge management course taught by the senior author. With two knowledge
developers, it became easier and relatively quicker to do the capture with the clubs
personnel manager. During the session, one person served as a scribe, while the other
person asked the questions and pondered the responses. In real-life situations, the
commitment is costly, considering the straightforward nature of the problem domain.

The missing aspect of the life cycle was the fact that the expert was chosen by the club
and the problem domain was not subject to a feasibility study to determine if it is doable,
useful, or the like. This happens to be the case in the launching of many knowledge-
based systems in business. The corporation decides on the problem domain, assigns a
person who in the opinion of the company is the expert, and asks the knowledge
developer to build the system within budgetary and time constraints.

b. The system gives the impression it was developed by one person, not two. The way
experience turned out, it could have been completed by one person in two weeks. But
when the developers were carrying a 15-hour graduate load, the project was spread part-
time over the semester before it was finally completed.

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4. A high-tech firm designed a KM system for the student housing office of a major
university in March 2002 and made the system available through the universitys
intranet; three campuses were involved. After the system passed verification and
validation, the knowledge developer held a wrap-up meeting with representative end
users from each branch. She spent 2 hours going through the operations manual and
running examples through the newly installed system to demonstrate ease of use and
ease of access.

The attendees were quite impressed with the many featuresa color screen, easy-to-
follow menu, and display of the reasons to justify all kinds of answers. The system also
links legacy databases such as tuition adjustment and meal plans, depending on the
housing arrangements. One month after the 2-hour training session, the knowledge
engineer sent a questionnaire to all attendees, who, by then, were end users of the KM
system. Some of the questions were as follows:
Did the operations manual help you understand the system?
Did the knowledge developer give you a working understanding of the system?
Did you understand the questions asked by the system?
Does the system meet your expectations? If not, please offer any suggestions you
might have.
Did the system provide adequate and correct answers?
Do you think that the system is usable in your environment with immediate
change? Be specific.

a. Based on the information provided, evaluate the training approach followed

by the knowledge developer.
b. Could you deduce a training plan in this case? Explain.
c. Critique the questionnaire used to follow up on the installation.

a. This is a typical approach to training users. The developer goes through the manual,
explains the procedure, and uses examples to show how the system delivers solutions
to a variety of problem situations. The key question is should the developer be the
trainer? The developer would be an ideal trainer, especially if he or she has
conducted training successfully in the past. Otherwise, training should be relegated to
a specialized person with adequate knowledge in the knowledge-based system being
implemented.
b. No, there was no such training plan. The client was represented by two key users and
the setting was quite stable in terms of personnel turnover. Sometimes, the best
approach to training is the informal route, where the user feels at ease and schedules
such new adaptations by convenience rather than by a plan. In this project, the user
suggested one afternoon for training when the volume of office work is at a
minimum. The developer simply drove over and spent two hours installing the
system, reviewing the easy-to-use manual, and going over a set of examples to show
the variety of ways the system responds to questions or provides solutions.
c. The questionnaire is a set of easy to answer questions, although it lacked the pre-
testing that is normally expected prior to questionnaire administration. For example,
questions d and f are redundant and question 1 should be asked later in the

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questionnaire. Actually, for an installation this size, there is the question whether a
questionnaire is necessary. Normally, such a step is taken with a large-size user
rather than the small installation that this one represents.

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