Case Studies in Knowledge Management

Learning from Simple Systems: The Case of JPL 101 7

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

1. Timekeeping constraints: How much time could people in the individual catego-
   ries commit to participating before we needed to provide them with an account
   code? This was resolved through the Ethics Office and resulted in a requirement
   that each individual quiz takes 15 minutes or less. Also, our Ethics Office confirmed
   that JPL personnel could participate, but that the Human Resources department
   would have to determine whether contractors could participate.


2. Contractor constraints: Could contractors participate, and if so, were there any
   timekeeping constraints, and were they eligible for prizes? These issues remained
   open during the feasibility analysis.


3. Retiree participation: Would we actively work to enable retiree participation, and
   if so, were they eligible for prizes? It was decided that our system should not
   preclude participation from retirees as long as they had intranet access (we would
   not provide external access) and they had a JPL badge. However, they would not
   be eligible for prizes.

As shown in Figure 3, these decisions led to the following:

• System must be capable of supporting an upper bound of 8,000 participants.


• The individual quizzes must be sized to keep participation under 15 minutes.


• Participants must have a current JPL badge and intranet access.


• Only current JPL employees are eligible for prizes.

What Should the Quiz Look Like?

Beta testing determined how to construct good individual questions. The next set
of decisions addressed how to construct the quizzes. Figure 4 shows the decision map
for the quiz design. In addition to requirements to keep participation under 15 minutes

How to

deliver

the quiz?

Paper?

Negatives

• Hand scoring


• No time tag capability


• Doesn’t support intranet goal

Web/Intranet?

Positives

• Small implementation costs

Negatives

• Larger Implementation costs
  Positives


• Electronic, instant scoring


• Time tag capability


• Supports intranet goal


• Continued availability after
  contest is over

Figure 2. Delivery mechanism decision map