Rebuilding Core Competencies When a Company Splits 61Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without writtenIn addition to training, an expertise database was built as part of this project and
contains relevant Web addresses (URLs) for basic as well as advanced information for
many of the level 4 and 5 topics. The corporate intranet is a vast source of information,
but even with the Portico/Sherlock search engine, finding relevant and timely information
is difficult. As part of the needs assessment, experts in each knowledge or skill area have
been identified, and relevant URLs are added to the database as the topics are explored
and updated by the experts. This is a documentation knowledge transfer component and
is an evolving component that can sustain knowledge transfer over time. The general
design of the database is included as Appendix A and the needs assessment is the
primary source for populating the database tables. In addition, as training needs were
validated and developed, additional experts were identified and added to the database.
Further uses of the data are discussed in more detail in the succeeding section of this
chapter.
When the training was offered, two to three times as many people signed up for the
training than expected. This high show-up rate tends to validate that the core competen-
cies identified at this level are, in fact, key skills needed to rebuild the organizations. By
the time the training was completed in June 2000, over 120 people had received the core
competency training.
Level 5: Core Competency Team-Specific Topics
Level 5 topics are those that are department or work-group specific that generally
do not cross departmental lines. Generally, the knowledge transfer for these skills are
accomplished through a job-specific class attended by only one to two people, individual
mentoring, or job shadowing. No topics in this category are identified here but each
manager is encouraged to work with their employees to identify the employee’s unique
needs. The expertise database acts as a list of resources for knowledge transfer in the
case of mentoring or documentation. In addition, the experts can give relevant sources
for more information including good training courses. For the most part, the needs
assessment data are used to develop the information needed by managers. The skills
identified at this level matched those identified in the needs assessment data but were
ranked as critical by fewer than five people in the survey.
In this way the survey data became the foundation for an expertise database to
which focus group and survey participants wanted to have access. In addition, the skill
areas were used to identify gaps in expertise needed in each company and, therefore,
became the basis for an extensive knowledge transfer project. The identified experts were
used as a resource list to help develop core competency training. In addition, experts who
could be called on to help with the knowledge transfer were associated with each skill
area. These areas were in turn used to associate URLs in the vast intranet used by HP/
Agilent to synthesize information and expertise by topic area. Experts were assigned Web
pages to update and maintain that contained tips and tricks, answered the most
frequently asked questions, and had current information needed by colleagues in the
organization. This model meets the criteria of a distributed cognition model described by
Boland, Tenkasi, and Te’eni (1994), and the individual autonomous criteria described by
Kogut and Zander (1988).