There
are actually numerous landscapes within which knowledge and collaboration
appears. We can talk about them in
several ways, starting with historical “problems” and their “solutions”:
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Too much information.
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People can’t get the information they need.
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People can’t find an “expert”
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Explosion of new media.
Tools for creating, organizing and publishing content most constantly
adapt to these new media types.
Solutions
have appeared for numerous of the knowledge “problems” workers have
encountered. Please realize that neither
the “problems” nor the solutions always fall into precise categories. These categories have emerged out of dialog
between vendors, customers and industry analysts. They are useful for discussing similarities
and differences among these various solutions and for determining the
suitability of a product in a specific setting.
We’re
focusing more on “knowledge collaboration”, which we’ll define for the purposes
of this paper.
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Document management |
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Project management and life-cycle
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Collaboration tools |
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Workflow management |
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Content management |
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Portals |
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Knowledge Mgmt |
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Founding Idea |
Large
organizations needed to keep track of large numbers of documents. Where the revisions and versions of
documents have high-stake consequences, organizations needed to be able to
distinguish between revisions and to manage updates. Access should be controlled by user
permissions, yet be facilitated via directories, keywords, and perhaps summary
abstracts. |
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Strengths |
Does a very good
job within its defined scope (see above). |
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Weaknesses |
It becomes more of
a library or archival function and is thus removed from the key location of
knowledge creation and sharing. |
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Founding Idea |
Large
organizations needed to keep track of complex interdependencies among a large
number of tasks, their staff resources and resulting deadlines. Project management tools could also
identify “critical path” tasks and could present charts showing the project
plan. These tools also identified
deviations from plan. With the advent
of powerful desktop systems, these tools became affordable and prevalent. Life-cycle management tools acknowledge the
adherence of many organizations to procedures for managing a project through
different life-cycle phases. |
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Strengths |
These are methods
that derive their value by guiding workers through a highly defined sequence
and procedure to produce predictable and reliable results. |
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Weaknesses |
These tools offer
little support for the flow of knowledge in and around the project. |
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Founding Idea |
Organizations
wanted to improve the productivity where multiple contributors are creating,
organizing, and publishing content in an individual or group of documents or
other information objects. The toolset
may include the capability for online discussion with “threads” or response
“trees”. |
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Strengths |
These tools do a
great job of managing the contributions of multiple authors, editors,
etc. They can support complex
collaboration projects and protect against one author “stepping” on the work
of another – at a cost. |
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Weakness |
Because the focus
is primarily on the documents or objects, there is often a weak organization
of the knowledge flow. The more
ambitious these tools are, the more challenging they are to learn and manage. |
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Founding Idea |
In many industries
such as insurance and health care administration, work proceeds via a
sequence of highly defined steps requiring review and approval from many
different “agents”. Thus, productivity
is either enhanced or retarded in the timeliness of the pass-off from one
worker to another. Work flow systems
allow organizations to define the “rules” of the flow of work via the various
“steps”. Managers can monitor the
flow, identifying bottlenecks and then resolving them. |
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Strengths |
Invaluable in
industries where a large number of small delays or misunderstandings between
work stages can produce a serious degradation of customer service. |
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Weakness |
These systems are
focused on work progress and organizational productivity, evaluated via
established metrics. Hence, they are
rather unconcerned with the contents of work products, let alone the quality
of the knowledge. |
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Founding Idea |
The key idea is to
separate content from the delivery structure and delivery media. This can support tool functions for more
convenient update by non-expert users, and better control of access
permissions, and more ambitious scaling of content size. Content management includes numerous
sub-categories. Some content
management is focused exclusively on Web content. Other products are “enterprise” in
scope. Some help customers distribute
content to a number of multiple subscribers (syndication). Others help customers consolidate content
coming from multiple sources (aggregation). |
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Strengths |
Content management
systems are crucial for large organizations to keep large Web sites “fresh”,
while using staff with only modest technical skills. These systems can scale up to support huge
structures, with commensurate costs.
They provide great value by managing publishing in large, complex Web
sites and other publishing structures. |
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Weakness |
The very strength
of making it convenient to manage the publication of “perishable” content is
their weakness. These packages are not
charged with managing knowledge. |
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Founding Idea |
The founding theory has been that workers will respond
well to and become more productive with a single point of entry into an
organization’s business functions.
Prior to the ubiquitous presence of the Web, this idea was expressed
as the menu trees within huge ERP systems, using client-server technology. With the Web, however, the idea is to present
a Web page and its many “children” as an entry into all or most business
functions of the organization. |
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Strengths |
It’s all there, accessible via a single
starting point. Users should be able
to navigate their way to important resources and functional pathways. |
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Weakness |
The industry reports that organizations
are discovering that most workers do not need to be presented with the entire
breadth of the organization as an access point to their day-to-day work. In fact, this monolithic presentation becomes
intimidating and counter-productive. |
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Founding Idea |
The availability of inexpensive desktop tools opened
up the way for ordinary workers to create and publish vast amounts of
information. As consumers of
information, we were already aware of “information overload”. Management appropriately found cause for
alarm that corporate information assets were no longer under clear-cut
central control. The emergence of the
Internet as a forum for inexpensive and blindingly fast information exchange
has tended to “democratize” the publishing of information. With so much information available, it is
not always clear how authoritative or legitimate the information is. Due to the availability of inexpensive and
powerful tools, information and knowledge have expanded in quantity, and also
in diversity and specialization. In response to these challenges, industry leaders
reasoned that a productive solution would be to “manage” the great amount of
knowledge created within the boundaries of their organization, or to be able
to access knowledge in affiliated domains, such as in the Internet. Because this initiative has been broad and, perhaps,
poorly defined, the “solution” offerings are diverse and attack problems that
are sometimes divergent and sometimes highly related. |
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Strengths |
It is impossible to characterize strengths within the
entire spectrum of products because they cover so much breadth. Some vendors are advancing research and
development into discovering the meaning within existing loosely structured
data sources. Others are attempting to
locate “knowledge” or expertise by linking humans via profiles. |
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Weakness |
Surprisingly, some respected analysts and
commentators have concluded that “knowledge management” is a failed
concept. While they do not dismiss the
accomplishments of vendors in some specific feature areas, they suggest that
“knowledge sharing” is a better way of thinking about the problem and hence
will better influence resulting solutions. Further, there is emerging opinion that the key
location for knowledge creation and sharing is in the small group. |
infoSavant is not intended to compete with
any “knowledge management” products currently in existence. It is focused on small groups and has a
mission of helping these groups create, acquire, organize, and disseminate
knowledge. It fosters the natural
organizational structures that emerge as the group performs its essential
knowledge functions.
Knowledge and collaboration exists in a
vast sea of human concerns, served by a very large universe of products and
services, in turn organized into a seemingly confusing set of product
categories. At infoSavant, we like to make it simple – but not simpler than
reflects your actual needs.
A framework for
knowledge creation
We realize that the small group is the
engine of knowledge creation. infoSavant provides the framework for the
small group to:
Create knowledge
Capture it and organize it in simple,
intuitive ways
A convenient tool
for knowledge collaboration
Update stored knowledge
Participate in discussion threads, using
them in creative and flexible ways
Organize information intuitively, for
others to access conveniently
No rigid data structures, the organization
flows from the group
Monitor and manage
phased activities
Assign objects to project phases
Generate delivery reports for other team
members, management and marketing
Quickly adjust phasing contents with no
“dropped balls”
A toolkit for
knowledge publishing
Project knowledge is conveniently available
Assemble project knowledge “chunks” into
publishable documents
A repository for
knowledge archive and retrieval
Research the earliest discussions on an
important topic
Trace knowledge evolution in time via
discussions and documents
Build and use Subject
Matter Guides
infoSavant
repositories, views, discussion groups, and templates are pre-configured for a
specific Subject Matter domain – such as ISO compliance or software development
Integrate documents and procedures for key
process in infoSavant
Improve compliance with team process using
built-in forms and tool settings
Empower the wisdom
and effectiveness in the group
infoSavant operates
well under any group leadership model
Permissions and data access are all
determined by the group
infoSavant aims to
stay grounded, highly practical, and close to the needs of ordinary workers of
all kinds.
Shared knowledge is valuable knowledge.
Knowledge is most
useful and hence attains value, when it is shared.
Make it convenient for sharing.
Knowledge can be
best shared when it can be stored, accessed, and transmitted conveniently and
in patterns accessible to workers with ordinary skills and training.
Harmonize content and context.
Knowledge quality is
related to a wise harmony between the content and context of the knowledge
subject, its producer(s) and consumer(s).
The small group is the engine of
knowledge.
The small group, in
many configurations, is the most productive functional organization for
effective knowledge generation, organization and dissemination.
A useful taxonomy is not a universal
taxonomy.
There is no
universal organizing principle for knowledge, other than that it emerges
dynamically in the framework of the group mission. Thus, a useful knowledge collaboration tool
permits small groups to establish the structure that suits their goals and
efforts.
Agnostic towards leadership style.
A useful knowledge and collaboration tool
should function equally well in a variety of leadership settings. Its design and feature set should not
restrict an organization’s leadership style, nor should it overly influence a
group’s approach. Thus, it should
support a functional team, whose leadership is highly defined. Team members report to the “owner” of the
collaboration world. It should excel in
the hands of a cross-functional group led by a
facilitator. It should be equally
effective in the hands of an interest group whose members are in different
organizations, and are separated by geography and time zones.
“Tight” or “loose” information model.
Many tools require that every aspect of the
captured knowledge be stored in a native format imposed by the tool. Others loosely “collect” a series of
documents or other objects and loosely associate them via path-name links or
other methods of access. infoSavant takes a middle path. There are core elements in infoSavant with a native storage method to
produce highly efficient collaboration. infoSavant also permits group members to
conveniently link external documents and objects. Further, a group can use infoSavant in either a very “tight” mode, a
very “loose” mode. They can shoot right
down the middle. Or, they can implement
aspects of their endeavor using “tight” approaches and other aspects using
“loose” methods.
Neutral towards knowledge ownership,
accessibility.
There is no “correct” (politically or
otherwise) philosophy of the ownership and accessibility of knowledge. infoSavant
does not impose an agenda on your group.
You implement the permissions, access views and procedures that are
compatible with your mission. infoSavant does not add unnecessary complexity
to your access strategies.
Knowledge endeavors are alive.
They are not static. They are not one-dimensional. They change form and shape.
How infoSavant Works
The following
information is a high-level overview of how infoSavant
works. For more details about its
features and operation, see infoSavant
Product Description. For a comparison of
features with other “knowledge products”, infoSavant Feature Comparison.
Detailed instructions about how to use the product are found in infoSavant User Guide. You can learn about
system requirements in infoSavant Technical Overview.
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capture knowledge while project is in progress |
Workers create knowledge while they work on the
project. Neither the creation,
discovery, organization, nor publishing of knowledge is separate from project
work. Certainly, like in most
information products, there are options for more sophisticated organization
and presentation. These may require a
modest amount of extra formatting. |
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store knowledge in workable chunks:
knowledge units |
Workers enter information in “knowledge units”. These are discrete, usually small, units of
information that infoSavant stores in its repository. This ensures that the knowledge remains
available to the team, and to anyone else to whom the team wants to make it
accessible. |
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but, organize units naturally, according
to group needs and preferences |
Rather than imposing an organization on your group, infoSavant
presents you with knowledge tools.
Your group establishes the organization of the project knowledge based
on group preferences. In keeping with
the highly flexible approach mentioned in the previous section, infoSavant
allows you to empower your group “administrator” to establish the project
organization. Or, you can let the
group discover the optimal organization while it is generating
knowledge. Or, you can experiment with
the organization and then later improve it. |
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allow the group to define its access views |
Similarly, you can let the group define its optimal
access views while the project is under way. |
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permit flexible attachment of affiliated documents |
Because of infoSavant’s
flexible approach to information models, you are free to use document and
object attachments in a variety of useful ways. |
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threaded discussions appear where needed |
The people have voted and they find discussion groups
to be highly useful and productive. infoSavant
makes discussion groups interoperate with other knowledge handling features. |
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format key infoSavant objects into specialized forms |
Does the success of your project depend on documents
with special formatting? Invoices,
requisitions, claim checks or others? infoSavant
allows you to define special documents with your custom formatting. |
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trace the history of an idea |
Find out how an idea developed into a working project
feature or how it was debated, improved and finally adopted by the
group. infoSavant can quickly and conveniently lead you through this
knowledge archeology. |
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flexibly create cross-references for convenient
review |
Need to keep track of which features will be
implemented in which product release?
Need to record and manage which special procedures go with which
customer? infoSavant makes it easy to
set up these kinds of cross-references.
Reduces confusion, eliminates costly project errors. Improves inter-worker communication. |
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integrate contents with discussions |
infoSavant makes it easy to integrate content items
with ongoing discussions. The “see
also” feature works much the same as the “attach document”. The smooth integration of knowledge
contents with rich discussion scales up easily, both in technical and in
human terms. |
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assemble publishable documents out of knowledge units |
Most of us develop published documents from other
in-house sources. Marketing materials
may be derived from design notes. A
letter to shareholders may consolidate the ideas in numerous memos, EMAILs,
financial reports and other documents.
infoSavant makes this process so much easier and gives you the
confidence that you are using valid, approved information. |
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“fence off” important group knowledge, provide a
simple gate |
Ownership and accessibility are important issues to
most organizations. Who shall be given
authority to create information and who shall be given access? Often these issues are intertwined with the
storage methods and structures. We believe that the small group domain, the “project”
defined within infoSavant is a healthy “fence”. It is a useful boundary for knowledge. infoSavant
provides numerous other organizing principles for you to implement additional
“fences” and “gates” infoSavant
provides the tools you need to configure ownership and accessibility. |
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reduce information overload |
Instead of merely hiding data behind “folders”, or
making it searchable, infoSavant “tames” your project data by making it
accessible via convenient views . |
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reduce information “overlook” |
This is a new “symptom” of the explosion of
data. Because we are overloaded, we
“overlook” key information which may be “right under our nose.” infoSavant
helps reduce this effect through a combination of: natural organization, conventional search
capabilities and the ability to organize data the way your group thinks (not
the way the product vendor wants you to think.) |
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use infoSavant to improve compliance
performance |
Perhaps your industry has rigorous requirements for
compliance with standards, legally mandated procedures, etc. Use infoSavant to set up tools to support
the compliance needs within your subject matter domain. |
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managed archival via knowledge aging |
It isn’t a good
idea to throw away knowledge, but sometimes you want to filter it out. infoSavant
provides two convenient methods for this.
You can literally filter it out of views provided to the group
members. Or you can establish
intelligent archive parameters to archive knowledge units that have not been
accessed within a certain period of time. |
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helps manage projects w/ “life-cycles” – use existing
guide or build your own |
Project management is more than popular task
management tools. They are essential,
even indispensable, but they don’t provide enough. They don’t help you keep track of product features
assigned to different releases. They
don’t help you assemble the information about features to edit and publish
release documents. They don’t help you
keep track of quality documents. infoSavant is well suited to help
you manage your project which has phases in a “life-cycle”. infoSavant has a life-cycle subject matter
guide which applies defaults and structures to make it convenient for you to
manage a life-cycle project. Or,
follow the suggestions in the User Guide to build your own highly flexible
and capable tool to manage your projects.
Of course you can acquire a full-blown life-cycle
management package, but you will find that it exists outside of the
environment in which you actually do your work. infoSavant gives you the tools to capture
and build knowledge while you build your product . . . . and to manage its
deployment within phases . . . all at the same time. |
Because infoSavant presents such an open
and flexible toolset, small groups want to know how to become immediately
productive in ways that address their specific subject matter domain.
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Just start using infoSavant and let the best structure
suggest itself to your group, naturally, which you are working on your project.
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Consult one or more of the published infoSavant Subject Matter
Guides:
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ISO 9000 compliance
·
Software development projects
·
Project life-cycle management
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Read the material in the
infoSavant User Guide, which describes how to establish the knowledge
organization most compatible with your subject matter
We can be sure that the landscape of
knowledge collaboration will change. We
can predict that workers will want to be able to work with new and exciting
media for the expression of knowledge.
Large vendors will compete and will attempt to influence corporations in
directions supporting their commercial interests. We should expect that information will be
generated in an exponentially accelerated pace.
But, does this foster the creation of knowledge or present forces of
confusion and dissolution? Trends
suggest that both effects will be in play.
How will your organization be able to take
advantage of the emerging knowledge creation, yet be shielded from the
onslaught of information?
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Knowledge derives its value when it is shared.
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Hence, workers need convenient tools for creating and
sharing knowledge.
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The “sweet spot” of knowledge will be found in a harmony of
content and context.
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The most productive engine of knowledge is the small
group, regardless of its organizational purity or affiliation.
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There is no one-size-fits-all principle for structuring
knowledge data.
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Groups have differing leadership styles and needs and these
can change over the life of the endeavor.
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Productive groups need a balance between “tight” controls as
found in high-efficiency, native storage schemes and open or “loose”
arrangements where external documents and objects can be linked to the project.
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There is no single answer for rules regarding knowledge
ownership and accessibility. Let the
group decide.
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Knowledge endeavors are living things. Give them the proper environment to breathe
and grow.