Knowledge Capitilisation
A study on introducing a Knowledge Management System (KMS) at a Major Technology and Mobility Organisation.
This project sought to discuss creating a set of best practice guidelines in developing a knowledge management system (KMS). While developing a set of recommendations and conclusions, a high-fidelity (hi-fi) prototype of the platform was developed in order to aid visualising the ideations.
SEPTEMBER 2023
DESIGN RESEARCH
-
Designing a Knowledge Management System for an automotive client in London, England.
Project duration: January 2023 - September 2023
-
This consultancy project came about from preliminary observations and subsequent discussions with members of the client's employee base.
Including permanent employees and contractors from the following departments: legal, finance, human resources, engineering and design.
-
As Product Designer and UX Researcher:
Explore the challenges by conducting mixed methods research with relevant stakeholders.
Create and test a high-fidelity prototype, produce best practice guidelines highlighting: consideration and adoption at the client organisation.
Compile research, present to the client and begin in-house discovery work.
Knowledge Management Systems
THE BASICS
A KMS supports:
👉 Knowledge creation
👉 Sourcing
👉 Application
KMSs are defined as information systems (IS) supporting knowledge creation, sourcing and application (Alavi et al., 2001). It is deduced that the product development process is reliant on knowledge sourcing and reuse (Filieri & Alguezaui, 2015).
According to Filieri et al. (2016), companies are adopting KMSs to improve innovation and processing of knowledge management (KM). KM is defined as the 'facilitation of knowledge/information search, organisation, storage and sourcing" (Wu & Wang, 2006) within an organisation.
Research questions
What components of a KMS can provide practical support to (initially) design teams and, later, the broader organisation?
OVERARCHING
1.To gain insights into operational challenges and opportunities a complex, global design team faces.
2.To identify team members’ perceptions on how a KMS could be used effectively within the organisation.
3.To co-create with the team, develop and test a hi-fi prototype of a KMS.
4.To disseminate findings and recommendations as best practice guidelines for the client organisation.
SPECIFIC
The Issues
-
💥 The lack of a central source of truth and ownership of knowledge management.
-
💥 Ineffective onboarding of new team members.
-
💥 The inability to find relevant documentation for product prototyping and development.
Context and key literature which drove research
We provide a clear understanding of the term ‘knowledge’, the types of knowledge and ‘knowledge management systems’ before defining ‘knowledge management’ and an account of its context in organisations.
The relevance of knowledge management systems in external organisations is also considered with the context of knowledge within the client organisation.
CONTEXTUAL THEORY
Grounding design in deep qualitative insights to drive user-centered solutions.
SPIRAL OF KNOWLEDGE CREATION
The nature and utilisation of knowledge are of significant importance in organisations, globally. Knowledge encompasses the complex relationship between ‘information and data’ and their interconnection (Nonaka, et al., 1995, Botha, et al., 2008), and the dialogue between socialisation, externalisation, internalisation and combination (see Figure 1).
RELEVANCE
The relevance of knowledge management systems in modern organisations is explored in discussions pertaining to today’s ‘knowledge economy’, communities of practice and effects on strategic capabilities (Lee et al., 2019). Fostering dynamic and ‘knowledge-friendly’ cultures can help managers motivate their employees (Lee, et al. 2019); however, unanswered questions remain around practical guidelines for managers.
Wide-ranging but narrow surveys by (Choi, et al. 2019) have analysed management performance against knowledge management activities. The studies explored communities of practice at large and mid-sized organisations in South Korea. They resulted in empirical data showing the positive impact knowledge management activities and knowledge practice communities had on innovation and performance.
DIVERSE KNOWLEDGE FORMS
Fundamental to knowledge management is the understanding of diverse knowledge forms and how they relate to one another. Here we define the concepts of explicit and tacit knowledge, visually depicted in Figure 2 (Hajric, 2018). The terms, explicit and tacit knowledge serve as depicters of a wide range of knowledge types and forms and represent a challenge when considering knowledge management tools.
IMPLEMENTATION & COMMUNITY
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast”, Peter Drucker (1962).
Defining implementation methodology has been explored by studies with varying degrees of success. While the focus has been on the discovery, gathering, management and application of knowledge within KMS (Orenga-Rogla, et al. 2019), it has also been suggested that the feasibility of implementation requires further synthesis using big data and Web 2.0 as instruments. In this context, big data refers to the ever-growing rate of large, diverse sets of information, and Web 2.0 describes the state of the internet in its current form (Investopedia, 2022).
Adriani, et al. (2019) work to present a strategy model for knowledge management, targeting organisational growth in fashion companies in Indonesia. Direct observation and in-depth interviews underpinned the data for the entrepreneurial stage, growth stage and organisation level. The relationship between tacit and explicit knowledge differed depending on the development stage of the organisation, and the study was narrowly focused on the fashion industry.
ETHNOGRAPHY & CULTURE
In the ‘three levels of culture model’ below, Schein (author of The Corporate Culture Survival Guide) offers an orientation around the idea of corporate culture as we seek to avoid a mismatch of a software or tool that does not provide an adequate solution for employees or one that creates undue error. For this project's scope, a KMS would seek to consider that ‘artefacts, value and assumptions’, make up corporate culture and will play a part in the success of introducing a new system or process.
UX/UI DESIGN
Leah Buley (2013) attempts to define what user experience design means and describes the process of reducing friction between what a user needs to do and the means or platform they use to get the task done. UX designers practice a ‘set of methods and techniques to research what users want and need’ (Buley, 2013). As illustrated in Figure 4 below, UX can be mapped from the machine age to the introduction of the web and mobile platforms.
The return on investment for UX within the client organisation is well defined as the design teams' engagements consistently produce quality work that is used in the wider global corporation. As the UX maturity within the organisation continues to grow, the work continues in making customers spokespeople by providing valuable services and experiences.
According to Norman (1986), there are 6 UX Design principles: visibility, feedback, constraints, mapping, consistency and affordances. Three are mentioned in this project and were used in developing the hi-fi prototype.
Research & Design Strategy
In this project, I conducted thorough qualitative research to uncover user needs and behaviors. My approach was grounded in a combination of research methods, service design frameworks and design principles to create a seamless, user-centric experience.
Research Methods. I employed various qualitative techniques, including User Interviews to gather in-depth insights into user motivations and pain points. Contextual Inquiries in observing users in their natural environment to understand real-world interactions. Affinity Mapping in synthesising data to identify key themes and patterns.
UX Development. Building on the research, I developed user personas and journey maps to visualize the user experience. This process informed the design decisions, ensuring the solution was aligned with actual user needs.
Techniques and Procedures. Wireframes were created to explore potential layouts and interactions. High-fidelity prototypes were built to test design hypotheses and gather user feedback. Iterative Usability testing allowed for continuous refinement, ensuring an intuitive and accessible design.
Research Methods
-
Identify operational challenges and opportunities faced by the complex global design team.
Semi structured interviews:
One to one
One to many
Group
-
Sense-check team members perceptions on how a KMS could be used effectively within the organisation.
Semi-structured interviews:
One to one
One to many
Group
-
Develop and co-create, with the team, a high fidelity of a KMS solution.
Generative and evaluative techniques.
-
Synthesise and compile recommendations as best practice guidelines for the client organisation.
Moderated usability testing.
Generative vs Evaluative research
-
Generates new ideas using qualitative methods like ethnographic research and ideation sessions.
Hanington (2007) specifies the purposes of generative techniques as projective and constructive. Projective techniques, which are generally used at the early stages of the generative process, focus on exercises enabling participants to express thoughts, feelings and desires which are difficult to communicate through more conventional verbal techniques. This process includes collage, drawing, diagramming, image and text-based exercises. Constructive techniques, which are used in the later stages of the generative process, focus on exercises enabling participants to create and develop flexible and creative concepts on considerations defined by projective techniques (e.g., Velcro modelling).
-
Evaluative research evaluates existing products through quantitative methods like surveys and usability testing (Kaluza, 2023).
Surveys & Testing
-
During the research, the idea of creating and releasing a survey to a wider audience was considered and adopted due to the limitations of only relying on qualitative data.
The survey included 13 questions ranging from multiple choice, rating scale and open- ended questions. A total of 25 participants were involved in submitting their responses, with a completion rate of 83.33%.
The survey was created and shared on the platform Typeform, a tool that the user research team actively uses to collect quantitative data from real customers through surveys.
This work proved valuable in gathering data to validate early assumptions and hypotheses.
-
Moderated usability testing, according to Gov.uk (2023), is the observation of participants completing a set of tasks using your platform or service. Encouraging the participants to ‘think out loud’ aids in empathy toward the user.
This testing type helps generate ideas for alternative solutions not previously explored and identify usability issues. The downside is that designing the usability test was challenging enough for the participants to uncover usability issues. As with the semi- structured interviews, the testing took place at the client organisation with 3 team members from different departments: legal counsel (see appendix 4), design management and a solutions architect from engineering.
Usability testing was undertaken informally through direct observations of participants, and these sessions were not recorded. The results can be found in this research paper's analysis and findings section and proved useful for presenting work within the recommendations
USER PERSONAS
AND STATEMENTS
Empathising with the client organisation's users and fellow team members has helped define the problem.
During the empathise phase of the double diamond process, three activities were undertaken to develop ideas: problem statements, if/ then statements and a goal statement. The first of which is the problem statement. Two user personas were created. User personas are, ‘an imaginary customer created to represent a larger customer group/segment (Arsenault, 2019).
DISCUSSION
OF FINDINGS💡
-
Sought to illustrate the analysis and findings of not only the concept of knowledge management but also present the ideas around future work on updating the system. The data was gathered through direct engagement with the team at the client organisation. This chapter consists of a discussion on the UX development and usability testing that was conducted for the hi-fi prototype. The results from the survey with 25 participants are discussed along with the statistics from those results and the qualitative comments.
The testing revealed two initial considerations in the functionality and the design of the KMS.
👉 There was a concern around the filing structure,
👉 What the difference was between user created content and the content that the platform was prescribing.
Emphasising the importance of clearly defining these three elements was identified as these issues are potential sources of confusion. Google DocsTM was suggested as a platform to investigate how effectively these three challenges are addressed.
-
➕ The location of the + Create button highlighted as ‘prime real estate’ in the user interface.
🔘 A participant suggested that while content creation is essential, there may be a consideration made to minimise and reposition the button to allow more space for critical content.
✍️ Regarding creation, a question was raised about the choice of external programs and the integration within the KMS.
📄 The decision around which programs to use or develop and how they integrate is crucial, especially considering whether document creation is believed to be native to the KMS in future.
-
📊
The outcomes of the survey are quantitative in that metrics are used to inform decision making during this project. The survey results are also qualitative in that open ended questions were used in the survey to invite team members to actively contribute towards identifying elements of a KMS.
🗣️ Participants were encouraged to share their thoughts and a highlight included the need for a KMS to be the central base for documenting note taking during meetings that are missed as a way of preserving a decision log around key decisions and outstanding tasks.
Some of the insights include:
🌍 Where would the positioning of this knowledge management platform exist within the internal ecosystem?
When we mention the internal ecosystem, the researcher means the internal ways of working and the tools already in place to aid cross-cultural collaboration and drive productivity.
💿 An obvious first answer to that question would be control and data privacy. In the researcher's design operations role, there is continual work to manage teams' tools and resources to empower designers to do their best work.
🛠️ For the teams to use the best tools, there is a stringent process in place to validate the need for resources but, more importantly, how that resource processes data, where that processing takes place and whether it is secure when handled by that third party. Storing potentially private or confidential information and the latest innovations from work done in mobility and technology would be one of the value propositions proposed.
📒 Finally, there was a suggestion that notes from ‘scrum ceremonies, new team member onboarding documentation’ and ‘ leavers handovers should be considerations for the content in a KMS
-
A thourough competitive audit was completed to determine the unique value proposition of an internally built tool.
External third-party apps that were audited include:
Document 360
Confluence (Atlassian)
Zendesk
Sharepoint
Through a combination of user testing, surveys, and competitive audits, I identified key areas where the Knowledge Management System (KMS) could significantly improve user experiences. The research highlighted three main focus areas where the system has the greatest impact: efficiency, collaboration, and innovation.
Efficiency
A Knowledge Management System (KMS) enhances efficiency by providing quick access to relevant information, reducing time spent searching for data.
Collaboration
KMS fosters collaboration by enabling teams to share and access knowledge, promoting a culture of collective learning and problem-solving.
Innovation
KMS supports innovation by facilitating the discovery of insights, best practices, and lessons learned, empowering teams to build upon existing knowledge for continuous improvement.
OUTCOMES
BEST PRACTICE GUIDELINES 🎯
-
Identify key stakeholders
Buy-in
Communicate benefits
-
Save time
Safeguard IP
Increase transparency
Collaboration
Autonomy
Reduce duplication
Single source of truth
Improve decision-making
-
No existing KM practices
-
Third party consideration
User friendly interface
Risk: outdated articles
-
Create clear, compelling training material:
Clear context & information
Maintain
Share
Use a KMS
3 levels of culture (Schein, 1999)
-
How would a KMS plug into existing systems? Globally?
Licenses
Monolithic platform
Appetite
Budget
Conclusions.
At the culmination of the project, work began on close collaboration with a product owner at the organisation, ensuring alignment with business objectives and user needs.
The business partnership helped inform the development of a high-fidelity prototype, demonstrating the potential benefits of a Knowledge Management System (KMS). In addition, a set of best practice guidelines was compiled to aid in future implementation.
By employing appropriate research and UX methods, I was able to tackle the real-world challenge while acknowledging the study's limitations.
✅ Developed a hi-fi prototype of a KMS to demonstrate the benefits.
✅ Compiled a set of best practice guidelines to use when reviewing possible implementation.
✅ Used appropriate research methods and UX methods to investigate and resolve the real-world challenge.
✅ Disseminated limitations.
Recommendations.
Further research is recommended, focusing on larger sample sizes and prioritising knowledge management practices as a strategic objective.
Roa et al. (2007) propose that KMSs not only enhance organisational competitiveness but also support effective decision-making processes, underscoring the value proposition of the KMS within the client organisation.
👉 Extend research to larger samples.
👉 Prioritisation of KM practices and implementation of a KMS as a strategic objective.
Thanks for stopping by
-
London, England
-
rorypatrickmorrison@gmail.com