Case Studies in Knowledge Management

Governance of Strategies to Manage Organizational Knowledge 99

Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written

been an obstacle. This was particularly pertinent in the context of conformity to an
enterprise-wide architecture, where the STDO must comply with the architecture of the
Department of “Operations” of which it is a part. Building document and record
management system would be an automated means of explicit KM at significant points
in the business process.
Of these initiatives to manage explicit knowledge, the last development was the
STDO news online being posted on the intranet. It was the most direct way of apprising
the organization as a whole of the research being conducted in all RAs and RACs. The
outcome has been to keep individuals informed of all research activity. This permits
cross-fertilization and leveraging of knowledge through the development of cross-
disciplinary research.

OUTCOMES TO DATE

Respondents reported 15 benefits of implementing the governance of the KM
strategy. They can be divided into risk management benefits, strategic benefits, and
financial benefits.

Risk Management Through Governance

1. Management roles and responsibilities have been allocated.


2. Enterprise information architecture strategy has been instigated to standardize the
   approach to KM and to conform with the Department of “Operations.”


3. A number of new electronic repositories have been established. These include
   internal publications, material published externally, and material created for the
   cooperative international research program. All were created with an extensive,
   controlled thesaurus of metadata.


4. There has been an overall increase in usage of all electronic repositories by the
   staff; metrics were taken of usage before the implementation of the strategy in 2001
   and have been compared with usage patterns in October 2003.


5. The intranet has been redesigned to improve use and access to it. There is now a
   uniform design of the intranet across all STDO locations.


6. STDO news is now online.


7. A five-year induction program for new staff has been created to foster the
   organizational culture and transfer of the way “we do things around here.”


8. Resource planning for the KM strategy has been enabled.


9. An organizational learning project in the form of a continuing education initiative
   has been put into effect.


10. Specifications for a document and records management system have been devel-
    oped.


11. Further enhancement of hubs that are now responsible to the IMKM Board for their
    proactive functioning. In return, they are now funded by the IMKM Board and
    facilitated in their activity.


12. Specifications for an organizational yellow pages have been developed.