Managing customer expectations is a very challenging job that requires constant attention. However, just as important is keeping track of all the customer complaints that are raised and what was done to address them. Over time this is a great way of understanding what went right / wrong with the project.

While there are a number of companies out there that have a defined process in place to capture and address customer complaints there are instances where information falls through the cracks. So it becomes the onus of the project manager to ensure that a record is kept of all such interactions ( both good and bad ).

To Automate or Not?

Another question you need to ask yourself is whether it would make sense to automate a process that captures and keeps track of customer complaints.  The idea is to track, step by step, the escalation route a customer complaint takes when entered into the system.

I do understand this is a question that should be directed to the team handling process automation within the organization instead of project managers, however being the end users of such a system it would be interesting to understand what you think of it.

Now lets presume you agree, and that you have a system up and running, how do you think this information should be handled?

Being confidential in nature you might want to consider closing off access to only allow certain people within your team from interacting with this system.  Senior Managers and group heads can then pull out reports that could give them an idea of how well / or badly a customer’s perception of the project is and can be invaluable in providing early warnings of when a projects starts to fail.

What are the Benefits of putting such a system / tool in place?

• Greater control over the format of complaints coming in
• Ability to track how complaints are being handled and the escalation routes being taken
• Provide early warning signals to senior managers
• Ability to understand what went wrong / right with the project.
• Transparent communication / Improving client relations

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As with most of my thoughts this one started after a conversation i had with a colleague.

A number of us are so caught up in meeting deadlines, creating drivers that ensure our existing KM initiatives don’t fall flat. We don’t stop to think “Why KM?”, atleast thats what i’ve found after talking to a number of people. Sure there were indicators that lead to the decision of implementing KM, however no clear cut goals were established right at the beginning.

I see this trend continuing with companies that have started to adopt KM within their ranks. They often seem uncertain of benefits that KM can bring to the table, while they may know the answer to the “What” they don’t know the “How”.

In today’s world, with attrition levels being where they are there are often instances where initiatives lose direction and focus after key personnel leave the organization. For the true success of any KM initiative the agenda and focus should be independent of any single person. The vision should be at an organization level for it to have any chance of long term success.

So while i had a quiet moment i asked myself the question once again. Why do we need KM? We seem to be working just fine without it. Sure we aren’t as efficient as we’d like to be, but still. What has caused this sudden rush for the implementation of KM? I will leave this open ended to allow you the reader to help me answer this question.

For those of your reading this, do leave a comment as to why you think KM is important?

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Content - a Taxonomy Perspective

“The basic idea behind creating and implementing a taxonomy structure is to get people to the content they want in the least possible time using the least possible effort. You use this simple idea as your bedrock principle and build other complexities around it.

In order to this a significant portion of your time must be dedicated towards identifying and mapping the content in your organization. This exercise ensures that you have the information required to create a successful Taxonomy framework.

If you have been part of the creation of a Taxonomy framework you know the amount of hard work that needs to be put in to establish a comprehensive, concrete structure. The biggest uncertainty of the framework however is its use. Long term studies on Taxonomy structures have shown that unless you have a process in place to ensure documents and files get tagged or stored properly even the most robust system will come apart at the seams.”

What prompts the need to capture Best Practices?

“There are a number of reasons that spur an organization to institutionalize a best practices capturing mechanism. Here we discuss five of the most prevalent reasons.

Demonstrated Success : There have been many instances where one particular unit of a corporation has started doing much better than the rest. A causal analysis of its processes generally finds certain modifications and improvements that lead to this dramatic rise in performance. In an effort to replicate this process improvement across all other units considerable effort is put into identifying these process changes and trying to replicate them, this is one of the main causes for companies to implement a best practices capturing methodology.

Decentralizing : In order to maintain a light support overhead most companies have started downsizing their corporate support teams that were initially responsible for inventing, discovering and transferring best practices. Now most of the individual business units are expected to handle this load. However with an increasing need is being felt to re-establish these teams that can help with identifying and transferring these best practices across business units, as the cost savings associated with these best practices far outweight the costs of maintaining a corporate support team.”

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If you’ve taken part in any audit ( a relatively large one ) you know the pros and cons of having a Face to Face audit as well as an audit based on a questionnaire.

The questions you need to ask yourself before you start out with an audit are as follows :

1. What is the purpose of my audit?
2. Who is my target audience?
3. How large is this group?
4. Is it very diverse?
5. How much time do i have?
6. How complex do i want this to be?

I’m sure you might put together a whole host of other questions as well, but these 6 should cover the basics when deciding upon a method.

While there is no doubt that a Face to Face audit would generate a huge amount of information it also raises the question of how much time you have to spend. Setting up meetings with a large number of people, expecting them to adhere to the schedule and then filtering out the noise in a face to face meeting all take time. In most instances this is something an auditor doesn’t have the luxury of.

A Questionnaire would be a likely alternative to someone who does not have the time to spend with face to face audits.

So how do you decide between the two? Simply put, factor in what you want to achieve, and how much time you have, not to mention the size of your target group. If its simple information you want then a questionnaire is definitely the way to go, a face to face audit wouldn’t actually be very much more effective in a case like this.

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This I’m sure, is something a lot of you have experienced in your professional lives, and most of you continue to do so.

The larger an organization gets, the more silo’d the information thereby preventing the exchange knowledge. Which is one of the prime reasons why Knowledge Management initiatives have taken off. We all know that “Managing” knowledge is a rather difficult task since a large percentage of that Knowledge is in the minds of your employees. So, the next best thing is to create robust communication channels to enable that information to flow. Nowhere is this more true than with Peer-to-Peer groups, as these are the groups that have most in common with each other. They tend to benefit much more when the information is shared between them. Creating cross peer group communication channels are important as well, but its benefits are felt in a different manner.

In most cases, smaller groups do not face the same issues as larger ones. However there haver been instances where people are in the dark about a large number of things happening around them. This tend to create an atmosphere where a lot of information falls through the cracks.

Now, the question of whether to create hierarchical or functional groups depends entirely on the way your organization is setup. Though for best results it might be a good idea to do a little bit of both.

I have seen first hand the benefits of having such communication channels open to people. The immediate benefits of a channel like this is realization followed by understanding. Even if you do not have a direct vested interest in what the other person does, it gives you knowledge that you can use at a later point.

So how do you go about promoting this sharing sessions? Well, the best way to tackle this is to create an informal forum. This could either be an online community of practice, or a discussion over coffee once a week. The objective of setting up such a forum is to be allow people to share information informally, and, if you are particular about deriving effort you can have someone sit in could take notes.

A wiki tool is something that can be used rather effectively in sessions like these. At the end of the chat people can go back to their work stations and compile their notes online. The more people that do that the more refined the information gets.

Do not be dis-heartened if some of these initiatives fail. Getting Knowledge Management to work is more of an art than a science, once you have a finger on the pulse of your employees you’ll quickly learn the best ways to promote your initiatives.

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The basic idea behind creating and implementing a taxonomy structure is to get people to the content they want in the least possible time using the least possible effort. You use this simple idea as your bedrock principle and build other complexities around it.

In order to this a significant portion of your time must be dedicated towards identifying and mapping the content in your organization. This exercise ensures that you have the information required to create a successful Taxonomy framework.

If you have been part of the creation of a Taxonomy framework you know the amount of hard work that needs to be put in to establish a comprehensive, concrete structure. The biggest uncertainty of the framework however is its use. Long term studies on Taxonomy structures have shown that unless you have a process in place to ensure documents and files get tagged or stored properly even the most robust system will come apart at the seams.

So the question is, what do we need to look for when coming up with a framework?

Firstly, identify the ownership of the content. Is it being tagged with metadata? if so , who will know how to tag it and where to place it. You also need to identify subject matter experts ( SME’s ) who are competent enough to classify the content.

Organizing principles, allow you to identify which information structure works best. A flat structure as opposed to a hierarchy might be required in some instances. The big concern here is creating a format that can be reused throughout the framework. This allows for consistency.

Map your information sources, unless you know what base content you are dealing with creating a framework is a foolhardy task. Some ways to go about doing this is to review file stores, existing documents and content management systems, the corporate intranet and so on.

The end goal as stated before is to create a simple structure that allows users to populate documents in an area and tag them appropriately so other users looking for the information get to it in the least possible time. The content approach here will give you an understanding of the information flow as a user see’s it, and thereby enabling you to create a more robust system.

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There are a number of reasons that spur an organization to institutionalize a best practices capturing mechanism. Here we discuss five of the most prevalent reasons.

Demonstrated Success : There have been many instances where one particular unit of a corporation has started doing much better than the rest. A causal analysis of its processes generally finds certain modifications and improvements that lead to this dramatic rise in performance. In an effort to replicate this process improvement across all other units considerable effort is put into identifying these process changes and trying to replicate them, this is one of the main causes for companies to implement a best practices capturing methodology.

Decentralizing : In order to maintain a light support overhead most companies have started downsizing their corporate support teams that were initially responsible for inventing, discovering and transferring best practices. Now most of the individual business units are expected to handle this load. However with an increasing need is being felt to re-establish these teams that can help with identifying and transferring these best practices across business units, as the cost savings associated with these best practices far outweigh the costs of maintaining a corporate support team.

External Forced factors : In a number of instances, clients threaten to move to another vendor if certain improvements aren’t made to existing processes and systems. This is another instance where corporates are spurred into action and where hidden best practices are unearthed in an effort to meet their clients expectations. Usually with massive cost benefits as a secondary gain.

External Benchmarking indicators : The very idea that other companies are doing things better than we are automatically prompts corporates to take a serious look at their existing processes and best practices. An external benchmarking agent can show companies where they stand in the corporate world, encouraging them to improve their existing system, by implementing a best practices system.

Potential gain : Internal benchmarking allows companies to identify hidden potential, it gives them an idea of what is possible if the necessary efforts are made. Adding a dollar amount to the benchmarking figures also enables them to clearly envision the massive savings, or gains they can make by implementing certain best practices.

These are just some of the reasons why corporates decide to create a Best Practices capture system.

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The term “Knowledge Management” can be misleading at times. When i first got into this field a couple of years ago i was a little wary of what i was supposed to accomplish. The very idea of Managing Knowledge was something i just couldn’t wrap my head around.

Today, after having practiced KM in the real world and studied it, i’ve come to understand that true KM is more environment management than actual managing of knowledge.

So what is environment management? Well, simply put, it’s creating an environment that fosters knowledge sharing. Attempting to actually manage knowledge is a hopeless task. This is because the very nature of KM frowns upon the use of strict guidelines and processes that most other functions require.

I’ve seen and heard the way KM is practiced in a large number of organizations, from both the private and public sectors, small, medium and large companies and the one principle that has ensured the success of KM is the fact that its been driven by a change in the cultural and perception of its employees.

Another common mistake that a surprisingly large number of corporates make is “re-defining” their existing information management processes by calling them Knowledge Management processes. While content management and information management do constitute part of the KM initiative they do not define it. This only serves to further confuse end users to the meaning of knowledge management.

The situation has gotten so bad in some instances that employees associate KM with the process of uploading a couple of documents every year to fulfill their “KM” contribution quota. It is practices like these that give Knowledge Management a bad name.

In a previous post i’ve tried to address the issue of why knowledge sharing is so different in the corporate world. However, there have been many instances where these hurdles have been overcome. This is only when there is solid support from the management and when the initiative is viewed as a means to improve the way employees work and not just a way of increasing margins.

Tying all of this together is a framework that includes a rewards and recognition program, branding and a very robust communication strategy. Communication is a large part of knowledge management and i have a few thoughts on this subject that i shall put down in my next post.

So, for the rest of you out there…… Does the term Knowledge Management acurately convey what you actually accomplish?

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