Highlights: STAR series Dialogue January 17-28, 2005
What Makes KM Sustainable

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STAR Moderator Michael Behounek
Director of Knowledge Management, Halliburton
Houston, Texas, U.S.

Highlights by Jerry Ash
AOK found, consulting editor./writer
Inside Knowledge (formerly Knowledge Management) magazine

Our overall creditability is hurt by the failure to back up claims that are made. There needs to be recognition of what clearly works and what does not. That takes measurement, use of the scientific method, peer reviews, etc. in order for the long term survival of KM as a domain. - Michael Behounek

Sustained executive sponsorship, vital business need, demonstrated success, constant renewal and routine communication of the results of KM initiatives were the five most talked-about keys to KM sustainability during the two-week email/online discussion with Michael Behounek.

The five keys were drawn from a "Hypothesis on Sustainability" outlined by Michael in advance of the Dialogue. The Halliburton list of matters requiring consistent attention is longer and includes budget, dedicated facilitation, easy tools, integration into work, reciprocity, validation, trust, measurement, problem-solving, collaboration, attention to detail and tie-in to existing initiatives. All received some attention during the discussion. See the complete hypothesis.

Michael suggested that if any of the elements in his team's full hypothesis are not done consistently, then there is a large risk of failure down the road.

The issue of KM failure followed on a November, 2004 Dialogue with STAR moderator Edna Pasher, KM consultant in Israel, which turned to the sustainability of KM after the honeymoon. A disturbing picture of the state of the World Bank's KM program painted during the discussion led Jerry Ash, AOK's founder and regular special correspondent to Inside Knowledge magazine, to pursue a story on the midlife crisis of the Bank's bellwether program for the February, 2005 issue.

Some of the facts from that report were shared with the STAR Dialogue participants. In addition, the Inside Knowledge report will provide comparable sidebars on sustainability issues at Xerox, BP and Clarica/Sun Life. At Xerox, management lost focus but the original KM leader is refocusing the program to regain attention and assure its future. At BP, the program is all but dead but its last remaining advocate thinks management is beginning to realize its mistake. At Clarica, KM totally died at the hands of a corporate takeover by a larger Sun Life which had no KM program of its own.

Halliburton provides a much different picture -- younger but still an established four-year-old program with a sustainability strategy built in.

Interestingly, it follows a somewhat different path from some of the basic beliefs aired earlier in STAR Dialogues - including (1) the use of top-down knowledge management, (2) initiatives limited to a relatively small number of company-sponsored projects and (3) the use of a balanced scorecard approach for measurement.

The Halliburton effort is a formalized top-down structured community. "Our opinion, Michael says, is that a large number (100s) of grass roots communities are a waste of a company's resources and do not guarantee that they are aligned with the vision, mission, strategy of a company."

Michael's KM team aims for 100 percent success with a substantiated return on investment for every community - and gets it. Projects are chosen on the basis of what issues are keeping the executives up at night. In four years there have been only 17 communities engaged in KM. To achieve the perfect score, the KM team uses a balanced scorecard and auditable financial methods to monitor value-added. The method is based on Six Sigma and performance improvement methods.

If a project appears headed for failure, it is either discontinued or redirected:

"One project was stopped mid-stream and before deployment," Michael said. At a stage gate review between the team and the VP, it became clear that the VP did not accept the solution design the KM team felt they needed. After the second stage gate, the situation had not improved, so I pulled the plug before the project finished (about halfway through).

In one of our first pilots, we had a community around the performance of a major piece of equipment we had. After deployment, we had great results and activity. After one quarter, we started to notice activity falling off, along with fewer learnings, value, etc. We were called in and we found that after the initial explosion, the value had fallen off due to the fact that all the existing knowledge had been transferred. The problem needed a pure engineering solution. I advised we either kill the community or we use this same group in a related large business issue. The VP went for this and we widened the community to a whole class of similar equipment. It's still strong and growing today."

Michael is very clear on his no-nonsense approach to KM: "My litmus test - if you are truly adding financial value like the numbers I see quoted by many KM programs, then I should see evidence on the annual report. It is pretty hard to hide a $200 million impact for most companies. I therefore have a close relationship with our accountant.

Regardless of the potential points of contention, there was little pushback on the Halliburton hypothesis, some indirect views of seeming contradiction and considerable agreement. Chris Macrae, KnowledgeBoard editor, said: "Actually, I already thought 17 was quite a large number! --100 would cause me
to fall off my chair with laughter."

Mark Ranford, managing director, Stratagility, Bali, Indonesia wrote: "I think the approach you have shared makes so much sense and gives us useful pragmatic insights. You asked if there was a specific approach that helps; I think the focus on CoPs is one of those, and you seem to have great success in applying it, especially looking at the responses from the survey. In fact I believe that implies that you have been able to help the CoP members internalize the value and the understanding and the belief in the KM world view you brought to Halliburton.

"By KM World View, I suggest a belief that knowledge-ability is a key to success in today's world, and that practices that improve the knowledge-ability of an organization -- its ability to take effective action -- as a whole are critical."

John Morrison, director, knowledge and information management, Department of Defence, Ontario, Canada agreed with top-down leadership but saw the transient value of KM differently:

"We view Knowledge as a commander's strategic, operational and tactical resource that can be managed, leveraged and sustained within the context of an environment of a complex adaptive system comprising the components of people, processes and tools: People, due to the inter-personal and social interaction required between commanders (or members of a team, CoP perhaps) and the formulation and expression of ideas, thought, creativity and innovation; Process or structure in the context of standard operating procedures, policy, guidelines and directives, and Tools, communications and automated information systems to facilitate the process and establish an environment to enable the individual members to interact and collaborate with one another to solve problems or to meet the objectives of the mission or the task in the achievement of the aim."

In this respect we do not see knowledge as having any lifecycle at all. The knowledge bow wave is always present. Except perhaps, as you indicated in a previous post, when the company no longer exists, or in my case, the ship sinks!!!"

Michael pushed back gently:

"The issue of a knowledge cycle is going to depend on your perspective. I know from my business experience we are always dealing with cycles -- which does mean business objectives change and therefore, the organization adapts as would KM. On a smaller scale, I believe a piece of knowledge itself can have a life cycle -- some much longer than others. I think we all must keep the perspective that knowledge can always be challenged and should be. As we know from the past, many times knowledge has been known to be proven false at a later date."

In closing, Michael offered an overall important issue he feels the KM community needs to grasp. "Our overall creditability is hurt by the failure to back up claims that are made. Unfortunately, in the business world, it seems there is an endless parade of written material on the latest way to improve your business. Unless we want to become like TQM, re-invent your organization, 'you-name-it' business fad, we need to substantiate our claims of benefit. There needs to be recognition of what clearly works and what does not. That takes measurement, use of the scientific method, peer reviews, etc. in order for the long term survival as a domain.

Otherwise, KM will fade.

• Complete background and archive of the Conversation with Michael Behounek
• To follow and participate in future STAR Series Dialogues, join AOK

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