Build Versus Buy—3 Points to Ponder

Build Versus Buy—3 Points to Ponder

Posted by Ron Aspe, CEO on 12/16/2016

There are a few key things to consider when deciding between building your own library, KM or collections management system versus buying one: All it takes to develop your own solution is time, money, effort, and a willingness to accept risk.

Time
Developing a simple, well designed, properly documented, and fully tested system usually takes at least a person year of effort. Therefore, if you only have one developer, it will take a year to get the project done. More complex applications will take several person years of effort.

Reality check: Most companies in the business of developing software have a dedicated, full-time team of programmers. Is it realistic to think you can develop a good application in a reasonable time period?

Money
Software engineers, analysists, designers and project managers are not cheap. If a simple project requires a person year of effort, factor in salaries and benefits (or consulting fees) and you will invest about $100,000. You should expect to spend five times that—or even more—for a complex solution. Even if you do get ”people for free” because they already work within your organization, you still need to determine whether they are qualified, committed and, most importantly, can build a system that’s easy to maintain after it’s built.

Reality Check: True story—I know a library manager who hired a single programmer to develop a very basic system for her organization. The organization was forced to cut staff. They kept the programmer because nobody else could maintain the system. The role of the library manager, however, was eliminated.

Effort
Designing a system from scratch can be fun. The work is very creative and absorbing. It also requires a lot of strategizing and planning. Are you (or your teammates) able to perform your regular work assignments as well as make the effort it will take, working with developers, to envision, document and test a brand new piece of software?

Even if you choose open source (which is free up front), there’s a lot of work to be done to get the software to work the way you want it to. If you don’t have the resources on staff, you’ll need a consultant. And as with any application, it will need to be updated periodically by a qualified developer.

Reality check: There are many companies in the business of supporting open source software—and they all have lots of developers, technicians, and consultants on staff. If the software is already built, what are they doing? Implementations, maintenance and customizations. All of which will require your involvement and continued effort.

Risk
While some IT projects do complete on time and on budget—most don’t. And of those which do, most require the end users to accept some major compromises. What impact will not having the system done on time and budget have on your organization and your team?

Reality check: It is important to understand that there are six stages in most custom software development and implementation projects: enthusiasm; disillusionment; panic; search for the guilty; punishment of the innocent, and praise for the uninvolved.

Still want to do it yourself?
Your first step should be to take a long hard look at all off-the-shelf solutions that could do the job you want done. Then, get your development team or consultant to provide you with a feature-by-feature time estimate for replicating your favorites. This will save a lot of design cycles, and more importantly, allow you to understand how much effort building each of the functions will require. Lastly, once you are equipped with estimates, you can prioritize. Which capabilities are must-haves and which are nice-to-have?

And who knows? Along the way, you might find an existing solution that fits your budget and matches your needs. Happy hunting.

Building the next generation of Knowledge Management by Jose Carlos Tenorio Favero

This is a blog which appeared in October 2013

The time they spend online is greater than years before. For example, watching online video is a daily routine. In a recent investigation published by YuMe, 49% of respondents said that they watch online video daily, with 7 hours being the mean time spent per week. Short-form content is far more attractive and eligible for attention grasp. 70% of respondents said that they watch program clips that are shorter than 5 minutes in length.  This means that we have to start thinking in terms of “knowledge nuggets” rather that packing large scale content in documents, pdf files, presentations and other type of materials. Gen Y is a natural information seeker and multi-task. They won´t spend too much time from one content to other so we have to provide them with information that is synthesized so they can spend more time looking for alternative options. Just think how this could affect lessons learned and other form of knowledge capture and dissemination.

Even the new gadgets like smartphones and tablets are creating new instances for knowledge generation, acquisition and transfer.  The proliferation of the app market has allowed diverse publishers to design and produce apps that not only fulfill entertainment purposes. There are apps such as Notegraphy that facilitates text writing in order to share thoughts in a different and efficient manner. Each member has a personalized page called “room” where they can display and share their text with other members. There are even apps such as Lumosity that help stimulate overall brain performance so that we can grasp new information in a better way. Also we can find other apps that facilitate learning a new language, technique or even improving reading skills.

Ted Schadler stated in a recent Forrester report that 29% of the global workforce is characterized as “anytime, anywhere, information workers-those who use three or more devices, work from multiple locations, and use many apps”. Schadler also states that gadgets such as tablets will continue to invade our work and home space and by 2017 the number of tablets available will triple to 905 million.

Sometimes we tend to misjudge technology and tend to criticize it for slaving us to certain routines. For example, kids watching youtube, uploading pictures to instagram and facebook chatting during dinner is just one of them.
However,  workspace collaboration is also being redefined by most of these elements.

Indeed social is embedded in almost everything we do. However, turning to social media might result in a dangerous grapevine unless we can turn conversations and tools into vital learning spaces. In order to be feasible the design must demonstrate the required business performance, and we must measure it in terms of function and behavior. First, we must consider if the tool matches actual learning styles and is not complicated to use. We must take a hard look at the functional and physical attributes of the tool. By physical I mean the layout, features etc. This is important as Gen Y is heavily influenced by many factors including design and colors.  If it´s not attractive to them, then they probably won´t feel attached to it. For example, take a look at the following infography “psychology of color” which demonstrates how color may influence certain aspects of our lives.

From the functional side, we need to define performance metrics. It´s pointless to design a social platform unless we understand  what needs to be achieved. For example, if we are looking to uncover best practices and lessons learned derived from product development, we need to work on a design that suits those requirements and steer collaboration towards reaching those goals. Previously you need to sit down with the product development department and identify trends, key knowledge that is applied in their process and other issues that may arise during the product life cycle. Once this is done, you can prepare the social platform to address diverse issues related to the critical knowledge previously identified.

A good example of social at work are the “jam sessions” organized by Ernst and Young. For them, Crowdsourcing has become a crucial way to develop new ideas and foster innovation. In 2012, Earnst and Young Transaction Services initiated the use of the IdeaJam platform in order to get workers to collaborate together and develop new design ideas. Basically any worker can suggest an idea and through crowsourcing they are enriched by the feedback and know how of other members.

In order to make it sustainable and promote collaboration they apply the following strategies:

1. Daily monitoring and contributions by core innovation team (e.g posting new ideas, commenting on ideas)
2. Select and announce cycle award recipients
3. Mid-cycle communication (reminders)
4. Communicate start of cycle; post new guiding questions.
5. Select and announce full year award recipients (special recognitions for outstanding contributions)
6. Not only can social media empower knowledge but it can help organizations to: Identify critical knowledge and capture across diverse business units; Develop new design ideas through crowdsourcing; Facilitate Lessons Learned capture; Identify Subject Matter

However, the question still remains: are managers willing to go digital? As I stated in anearlier post, the challenge is that senior leaders refuse to go digital. Social isn’t frightening but the concept is still not embedded in their daily routines and they still feel that anything derived from social media is time wasting and a hazardous grapevine which will drive attention away from the business goals. However, I’m happy to read Forrester analyst Reiss-Davis statement on this: “8% of business decision-makers are Spectators (they read blogs, watch videos, or listen to podcasts), 79% are Joiners (they maintain a profile on social networking sites), and 75% are Critics (they comment on blogs and post ratings and reviews), all in the context of their business activities.” This means that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and turning digital might not be too hard.

The important thing is to concentrate on delivering value and in terms of KM, this means that we have to adapt to the new tendencies and learning behaviors imposed by Gen Y in order to strengthen organizational learning. Social will play a crucial role in this.

©Jose Carlos Tenorio Favero

http://kminaction.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/building-the-next-generation-of-knowledge-management/?goback=%2Egde_1539_member_5801822238084714500#%21

The (KM) Elephant in the Room, by Ron Aspe

KM encompasses such a broad range of meanings that everyone has a different definition. It’s rather like an elephant - one person holding onto the trunk says knowledge management is about enhanced document retrieval software; another holding the tail claims it’s a searchable repository for technical support calls. And there’s a lot to cover in between!

Too broad a definition of knowledge management can mean too many choices when it comes to selecting a KM system. You have to describe the elephant.

If you are trying to acquire KM technology, it is absolutely critical that you precisely define what your organization means by “KM.” Wikipedia’s definition is a good starting point as you try to develop the questions that need to be asked:
“KM is the process of capturing, developing, sharing and effectively using organizational knowledge.”

Capturing
In your organization, does capturing mean simply storing knowledge or does it require gathering it as well? Storage is pretty simple – similar to putting carrots into a fridge - and finding software for that is like shopping for a fridge. You’ll know what you want when you see it.

Gathering knowledge, however, is a complex process more akin to growing carrots. Seasoned KM practitioners will tell you that creating a “culture of contribution” in your garden of organizational knowledge is an extremely challenging mix of engineering, values, culture and reward systems. Great technology alone will not carry the day. You’ll need a partner who will help you build a knowledge sharing ecosystem.
Developing

Knowledge in most organizations is a by-product of work. People generally learn by doing. If there is a significant research aspect to your organization’s activities, it should be pretty straightforward to tap into it. It’s critical that people are motivated to contribute (and rewarded for doing so) if they must do it proactively. Alternatively, hook your KM application into the tools used daily by your co-workers, and it becomes possible to surface a lot of interesting knowledge and expertise. This latter approach is technically more difficult, but side-steps some of the challenges of getting people to contribute to the knowledge base.

Sharing
Technology makes it relatively easy to share information. Organizing your content by subject area, source, author and audience can make the experience of looking for it faster and more intuitive.

If you do run into a problem with sharing, it is probably not the technology, but is likely related to organizational culture, and a lack of incentives for individuals to contribute their knowledge. People will throw up millions of false objections, such as “it takes too long,” “the application doesn’t work,” “I can’t remember my log-in credentials,” etc. Nine times out of ten, though, it comes down to values.

Effective Use
If your KM system’s user interface is inviting and it is chock full of valuable content, your most important task will be to promote its existence. Too often, your intended audience simply doesn’t know what is available. So promote shamelessly. The more people use it, the more usage will increase.

If we don’t first describe and understand the elephant, it is easy to see how challenging it can be to feed it, make friends with it, choose the right tools to take care of it, and get people comfortable with the fact that it’s in the room. The benefit? It will never forget your most important institutional knowledge!

Source
http://blog.lucidea.com/the-km-elephant-in-the-room?utm_campaign=Blog%20posts&utm_content=Blog&utm_source=email&utm_source=Lucidea+News+and+Information&utm_campaign=7639883781-Blog_Post&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_37c4aa398c-7639883781-349329929 

Knowledge Management Team

KM is unlike a typical business restructuring or technology introduction project. These projects are temporary and depend on temporary teams, whereas a KM project needs at least a small portion of the group to be permanent. A KM project is not over once a KM system is implemented - it must go on and continually improve and change with changing external and internal environments. The core team is constituted by a permanent, essential group. The team member can work for the project either full time or part time. The size of the core team must be kept to the smallest size possible - the smallest member count that can actually do the work.

The core team should consist of:
1. Knowledge Champion or a Senior Manager
2, IT Staff
3. User delegates representing the core business area that is going to depend on the KM system. For e.g. a KM System to support technical staff should have engineering staff as members; if it is for supporting sales force, then it should be some one from marketing.

Role of Knowledge Management Project Leader:
The leader of the team:
1. Must be credible
2. Must have a sufficient level of authority and resource capability
3. Should not change, must be stable
4. Must know how to facilitate, consult, and resolve conflicts
5. Must take charge of the conventional project management, scheduling, and coordination duties
6. Must manage the life cycle of the team, as well as selection of the core team members
7. Must encourage structured decision making
8. Must be experienced in both complex projects and in various roles within the company

Knowledge management project team members must be drawn from different functional areas and departments of the company. As expected, they will have different areas of specialisation and backgrounds.

The members of the team:
1. Must have specialised expertise
2. Must have had sufficient experience within the company or working with the company as an external consultant
3. Must have the required competencies that truly represent the concerns of the department or functional area that the team member represents
4. May work full time or part time on the project
5. May be a member of the core team or the temporary startup team
6. Must demonstrate laterality
7. Must believe in the project and must have a clear vision for what improved knowledge flows can and should do for the company or the department.

The remaining participants, in most cases, should be involved in the startup phases of the project and can be called in later for further input as and when needed.