Case Studies in Knowledge Management

10 Cooper, Nash, Phan, and Bailey

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

accepting multiple winners. The best choice for these options would depend on whether
prizes were given at the weekly level. One consequence of our scoring scheme, which
was chosen to increase differentiation, is that it would be possible to actually obtain a
negative score. To reduce this possibility, we decided to include at least five easy
questions per quiz.
The multiweek format also led to multiple options for determining the grand winners,
as shown in Figure 5. These options, based on cumulative results, imply that winners
participate each week, which in turn raises issues of fairness (because people may be on
travel or vacation), and could result in a drop in participation due to people feeling that
they were out of the running.
Inherent in the determination of winners is the ability to identify the participants
and associate them with their results. The multiweek format meant that we also needed
to correlate participation by the same individuals across weeks. Therefore, our system
had to

• have a method to handle ties;


• ensure a fair opportunity for participation;


• provide a fair and culturally acceptable method for determining winners;

Determining

the Winner(s)

Create categories

Constraints:

• Fairness
  Assumptions:


• Harder for newer vs. more experienced employees


• Employees from different areas would do well on
  different types of questions

Results:

• Recommend categories
  based on tenure and
  possibly organization


• Need process for
  handling ties


• Possible big public event


• Recommend sponsor
  make final decision
  
  
  • Based on tenure:
    Under 5 years, 5-20,
    and over 20 years
  
  
  • Based on organization
  
  
  • Based on job
    classification
  
  
  
  

Determine Grand Winner

Multiple options, e.g.,

• Top cumulative winners in
  run off


• Top [n] from each week in
  run of


• Calculate based on best 3
  of 4 scores


• Public event for run off

Issue: Ties

• Run offs/head to head
  competition


• Random drawing

Figure 5. Winner determination decision map