As the members of the Dream Team reconvened, our spirits were high. All of us, however, felt the need to pause and review what we had accomplished in relation to where we were going. The more we worked with continuity management, the more its principles, steps, and techniques became clear, and the easier it was to fit them into the larger framework that was developing. Now it was time to reassess that framework, to see the big picture into which these emerging elements fit. So we turned to Sarah, whose digital mind could create a conceptual photograph of any management model, theory, or process—from any desired perspective, angle, or distance. Wide-angle shot of the concept from beginning to end? No problem. Close-up of a single component? You bet. Telephoto shot of the end result? Any time you want. So we asked Sarah for the big picture of what we had done and where we were going.
"Here's the deal," she said. "There are four major knowledge processes in continuity management, and each process is implemented through an instrument designed specifically for it. If you understand these processes and how they are implemented, you understand continuity management."
The four instruments and their corresponding processes are:
Knowledge continuity assessment for assessing knowledge continuity in the organization
K-PAQ (knowledge profile analysis questions) for analyzing operational knowledge
K-Quest (knowledge questionnaire) for harvesting operational knowledge
Knowledge profile for transferring operational knowledge to successor employees
"Because we had to develop the continuity management process from scratch," Sarah said, "our major contribution has been to create model instruments for each process. Still, every organization that implements continuity management will have to develop its own version of these instruments. Their task will be much easier thanks to our planning, but what we have given them is a set of guidelines and a model for the instruments—nothing more. K-PAQ, for example, isn't definitive."
"I was hoping it might be . . . kind of . . . definitive," Roger said.
"Impossible. Each instrument is unique to its organization—created by the organization for the organization. We can create a universal model for K-PAQ, but not a universal K-PAQ."
"In other words," Andre said, "at this point, we are three-quarters through the development process. We have conducted the knowledge continuity assessment, designed our knowledge profile, and developed K-PAQ. Our next step is to design the knowledge questionnaire."
"Right," Sarah confirmed.
As the Dream Team conceived it, K-Quest was to be a highly individualized instrument for harvesting critical operational knowledge from incumbent employees. It was the means by which the questions contained in K-PAQ could be converted into the answers contained in the Knowledge Profile. Every K-Quest is customized to fit the special knowledge characteristics of the job classification and the unique knowledge needs of the unit, department, or organization in which it is administered. Each K-Quest is different, painted from the palette of questions contained in K-PAQ. K-Quests designed for relatively uncomplicated jobs, for example, might contain fewer questions than those designed for more complex knowledge-based positions. K-Quests for different industries will likely contain very different questions. A service company will not create the same knowledge profile as a manufacturer. A salesperson will not be given the same knowledge questionnaire as a project engineer. K-Quests can vary significantly in content and length from one job classification to another and from one organization to another. There is no standard K-Quest, just as there is no standard K-PAQ and no standard knowledge job in the Information Age. It would have been impossible for the Dream Team to create a knowledge questionnaire for all of WedgeMark, much less for any other organization. The content and format of each K-Quest is determined by the organization creating it.
Because the knowledge questionnaire for each job classification is unique, the Dream Team established six principles to guide K-Quest developers in their choice of K-PAQ questions and the design of K-Quest.
Principle 1. K-Quest should be tailored to each job classification and position.
K-PAQ contains a bank of questions that cover every job classification. Because K-Quest must be customized to fit the job classification in which it will be administered, some of these questions will have to be eliminated. Question selection involves two issues: how many questions to choose and which questions to choose. That choice is made on the basis of these criteria:
The job classification for which the K-Quest is being prepared.
Individual variations in the job among incumbents who share the same job classification.
The uniqueness or importance of the job to the organization as a factor in determining the type and number of questions selected for the K-Quest.
The depth of operational knowledge to be captured in the knowledge profile for the specific job classification.
The form of K-Quest administration (for example, interview or electronic questionnaire). In those cases where an incumbent's knowledge is unique and so critical to the company that its loss would be devastating, a semistructured interview may be more appropriate than a written questionnaire.
The degree of technological sophistication in K-Quest administration. More sophisticated technology generally speeds up administration of K-Quest and might allow additional questions.
The number of pre-answered questions. Pre-answered questions speed up administration of K-Quest.
The length of employment with the organization. Longer-term employees generally have more operational knowledge to impart and more knowledge that is important to preserve in the institutional memory.
In developing K-Quest, incumbents have two central tasks: Choose the most appropriate questions for the job classification, and determine additional questions that should be added to K-Quest and to K-PAQ.
Principle 2. Each organization should add its own questions to K-PAQ as necessary, to tailor K-PAQ to its special requirements.
It was our expectation that K-PAQ would be regularly reviewed to ensure its continued relevance and completeness and expanded as necessary to satisfy emerging knowledge requirements. We do not presume to have included every potentially valuable question. Even if we had, new questions would have to be added and old ones modified as the position's operational knowledge evolved.
Principle 3. K-PAQ questions that analyze knowledge requirements and usage should be included in K-Quest whenever possible.
Our objective was to make K-Quest valuable to incumbents as well as to their successors. Given the importance of knowledge in the Information Age, we realized that a well-designed analysis of knowledge requirements could contribute significantly to the incumbent's productivity as well as to the successor's. Therefore, we built a knowledge analysis into K-PAQ that would identify knowledge leverage points, establish knowledge priorities, and guide the day's activities toward the greatest possible level of knowledge-based productivity and effectiveness. This analysis is one of the reasons that organizational time devoted to completing K-Quest is time well spent for incumbents. This analytical process can reorder incumbent thinking about knowledge, about its relationship to job objectives and functions, and about its most effective utilization. For some incumbents, it may be the first time they have ever examined their operational knowledge base and considered how they could sharpen, focus, or expand that knowledge to achieve greater productivity.
Principle 4. Convert as many questions to pre-answered questions as possible.
Pre-answered (knowledge-core) questions shorten the administration time of K-Quest and stimulate additional thinking about knowledge. Knowledge-core questions harvest knowledge that is common to many or all incumbents with the same job classification. Knowledge-core questions that appear in the knowledge questionnaire have been pre-answered by a peer incumbent team and inserted into K-Quest prior to its administration. They require only verification by the incumbent or modification by deletion or addition; they do not have to be created from scratch. As a result, knowledge-core questions can be answered more quickly. For that reason, and because of the discussions among peer incumbents required to produce them, it is desirable to convert as many questions to the knowledge core as possible.
Principle 5. Specific instructions are necessary to guide peer incumbents in completing their knowledge questionnaires.
In those instances where sophisticated technology is employed in K-Quest and incumbents have the choice of recording their answers in different media, they should be provided with criteria for choosing among the alternatives: typed, audio, or video. Because the answers themselves will be shaped by governing principles determined by the medium, incumbents should be provided with the requisite guidelines. Typed answers, for example, should use bullets to encourage conciseness and clarity and to reduce the time spent on revisions by those seeking to produce a flawlessly crafted document. It is not as important to use complete sentences as it is to make statements that are short and clear, but comprehensive and complete.
Principle 6. Employ the most sophisticated technology possible for K-Quest.
All else being equal, the more sophisticated the technology employed in K-Quest administration, the faster, easier and more useful the resulting knowledge profile will be. It is not necessary to create highly sophisticated technology to administer K-Quest, but the more sophisticated the technology, the more effective K-Quest is in harvesting knowledge. Sophisticated software facilitates an orderly progression through K-Quest with helpful prompts and links, and it allows incumbents to respond in whatever medium they find most comfortable, including audio and video.
The knowledge questionnaire for each job classification should be developed by a peer design team drawn from peer incumbents in that classification. The responsibilities of the peer design team are:
Select the K-PAQ questions that will appear in K-Quest.
Work with HR to develop pre-answers for K-PAQ questions that relate to job specifications, policies and procedures, performance appraisal criteria, organizational history, and so forth.
Develop answers to all knowledge-core questions that will be pre-answered in K-Quest.
Determine the format for K-Quest.
The knowledge analyses that the design team conducted and the pre-answers it developed expanded its members' knowledge networks and deepened their support for continuity management.
With the K-Quest design principles established, it was time for Roger's take-aways. Herewith, half a dozen of what one of the irreverent members of the team refers to as Roger's out-takes:
We chose three different job classifications for our K-Quest pilot to see how the knowledge questionnaires would vary among them and to gain additional experience with the design and administration processes. We developed a nine-step process for conducting the pilot.
Step 1. Our technowizard created a simple program to house K-Quest temporarily so that a prototype could be administered in the three job classifications chosen for the pilot.
Step 2. We submitted the K-Quest prototype to HR for its evaluation and input.
Step 3. Following the HR review and the modifications it brought, we took the prototype to the three employees we considered to be the most effective in each job classification, and we asked them to complete it. What would they add, what would they eliminate, and what did they think about K-Quest? On the basis of their feedback, we made further modifications to the questionnaire.
Step 4. We decided to ask five managers who were buddies of ours to take a Saturday and work with us on K-Quest, promising some form of reward, if nothing more than praise and a night on the town. They agreed. We explained K-Quest, administered it to them, and then conducted what was essentially a focus group on its format, content, and administration procedures.
Step 5. For each job classification, we assembled a small group of incumbents who shared the classification and who were highly regarded. We asked these peer incumbents to complete only those questions in the K-Quest prototype that had been designated knowledge-core questions (the questions that would be preanswered in the final version). These peers then met in a facilitated focus group to discuss their answers to each question and to reach consensus on official pre-answers for the questionnaire.
Step 6. On the basis of input from all these activities, we prepared an official knowledge questionnaire for each of the three job classifications participating in the pilot. K-Quest was now ready for administration to all employees in these job classifications in our unit at WedgeMark.
Step 7. Once K-Quest had been designed, administration procedures had to be developed. The procedures we developed for administering K-Quest are described in detail later in this chapter.
Step 8. We administered K-Quest to all employees in the three job classifications that comprised the pilot.
Step 9. We synthesized everything we had learned from the pilot and finalized K-PAQ and its administration procedures. Out of this pilot came many small modifications and some large ones, including the addition of new questions to K-Quest and to K-PAQ. All that remained was to expand the pilot program to the whole of our unit at WedgeMark.
But first:
Because WedgeMark is a large company, and because senior management wanted to evaluate continuity management for a possible roll-out to the entire company, our pilot was detailed and comprehensive. It was made more so because continuity management had never been implemented before, requiring us to feel our way along. For business units or smaller organizations, the pilot will resemble the full process through which K-Quest is developed and administered.
With completion of the pilot, we were ready to expand the process of developing K-Quest to all job classifications in our unit at WedgeMark that had been designated to participate in continuity management. The lessons we had learned from the pilot were enlightening and resulted in tangible outcomes:
An expanded K-PAQ (more questions and some better ones from which to draw in creating K-Quests for each job classification).
Solid procedures for administering K-Quest.
A thorough understanding of the process that took us from the universality of K-PAQ to the specificity of K-Quest. We could now design a knowledge questionnaire for any job classification.
Confidence in the validity of including preanswers for knowledge-core questions.
In order to administer K-Quest more broadly, we had to develop a process for creating knowledge questionnaires for every participating job classification. We accomplished this objective through these steps:
Step 1. Appointment of an overall coordinator with responsibility for K-Quest development and administration throughout the unit.
Step 2. Selection of a peer design team for every job classification for which a knowledge questionnaire would be prepared. This small group of peer incumbents within each job classification would develop the pre-answers to the knowledge-core questions for their job classifications, which would be inserted into K-Quest prior to its administration.
Step 3. Selection of appropriate K-Quest and knowledge profile technology to harvest the critical operational knowledge from incumbents and reformat it into the knowledge profile. This process is discussed in detail later in the chapter.
Step 4. Development and finalization of the content and format of K-Quest for each job classification participating in continuity management.
With completion of the fourth step, we had a knowledge questionnaire for each job classification. Now, we had only to administer it to the participating incumbents.
For reasons that are described later, we decided that a full day should be devoted to K-Quest administration. We flirted briefly with the idea of a Western theme (as in Knowledge Roundup), a sports theme (as in Knowledge Plays), and a space theme (as in Knowledge Launch), but all three ideas lost out to the simpler and more direct Continuity Management Orientation Day. While one of our members objected to "a whole day away from work," it was hardly that.
The orientation day served several purposes, the most important of which was to signal a change in the way in which WedgeMark would approach knowledge continuity in the future. A second, but no less important, function was to make K-Quest administration a collaborative endeavor. We were well aware that it was much easier to harvest knowledge that was volunteered than knowledge that was demanded, so we wanted to make the process of harvesting that knowledge a group effort, with constructive and supportive competition and collaboration among incumbents.
We were also intent on ensuring that incumbents were aware of the K-Quest benefits that would accrue to them as well as to their successors. Incumbents had to perceive that the K-Quest process that created value for WedgeMark and future successors would also create value for them if we were to get the full cooperation we wanted. With that in mind, we emphasized the insights generated by the knowledge analyses in K-Quest and the ongoing reference capabilities of the profile.
Finally, we wanted a full day to ensure that all incumbents had time to reflect on what they knew or needed to learn. Ironically, reflection time is increasingly scarce in the rush of the Information Age, despite the fact that it has never been more necessary. Reflection organizes existing knowledge and creates new knowledge; it grows the knowledge asset. A full day of orientation makes reflection time available and allows managers to explore their knowledge bases and knowledge needs in a structured way.
The underlying themes of Continuity Management Orientation Day were the value of knowledge and the value of WedgeMark employees who create that knowledge. Knowledge workers completing K-Quest were continually reminded of their knowledge contributions and encouraged to build those contributions by taking full advantage of the questionnaire. During the administration process, peer incumbents were grouped together in twos and threes and were supported in working together to complete their knowledge questionnaires.
Continuity Management Orientation Day included the following elements:
An explanation of the acute and chronic threats to WedgeMark profits and productivity posed by knowledge loss through job turnover and impending baby-boomer retirements.
An introduction to continuity management and why it effectively counters these threats, including an explanation of its principles, concepts, and methodologies.
An explanation of the competitive advantages that accrue to the organization and its members as a result of implementing continuity management.
A discussion of the benefits to incumbents of participating in continuity management.
A description of the revised promotion, performance appraisal, and reward systems being introduced to support continuity management.
An introduction to the knowledge profile, including its purpose, content, and use, so that incumbents would better understand K-Quest and its role in the development of the knowledge profile and the continuity management process.
Instruction and training in how to complete K-Quest and how to update the knowledge profile, including an explanation of associated technologies.
Questions from participants.
Administration of K-Quest to each participating employee.
Continuity Management Orientation Day was surprisingly successful. Discussions about knowledge loss and knowledge discontinuities struck home with participants. Incumbents were excited by the prospect of stemming the knowledge loss at WedgeMark, increasing their productivity, and building a competitive advantage.
K-Quest turned out to be much more than a questionnaire. It was an analytical tool composed of a set of questions that we could deploy in whatever format we chose in order to identify, analyze, and harvest an incumbent's critical operational knowledge. The selection of K-Quest technology proved to be crucial because it was this technology that would:
Take the incumbent's critical operational knowledge harvested through the knowledge questionnaire and convert it into the operational knowledge for the successor contained in the knowledge profile. In other words, this technology would bridge the differ-ing perspectives of the supplier of knowledge and the consumer of knowledge.
Allow incumbents to continually update their knowledge profiles and to integrate this process with other job activities.
Make the knowledge profile an integral part of the knowledge management system.
So while we were approaching the selection of technology from the perspective of K-Quest, we were also approaching it from the perspective of the knowledge profile. It was this dual perspective on technology that we had to accommodate as we developed the guidelines for selecting K-Quest technology.
"But technology isn't everything," Sarah reminded us, as we began our exploration of available options.
"No," Rob agreed, "it isn't. But since it is an integral part of both K-Quest and the knowledge profile, and since the knowledge profile is everything, technology is one very high priority."
It was certainly that. Through meetings with the IT department and interviews of key people, we examined a broad spectrum of technological options for K-Quest and the resulting knowledge profile. These options ranged from simple technology to highly interactive technology at the cutting edge. Data entry, for example, could proceed along a spectrum from handwritten notes to word processing to e-mails to voice-activated dictation to audio and video to portals that encompassed all these methods. We examined the full spectrum of technological sophistication, beginning with a paper-based system, progressing to stand-alone PCs (with or without video and audio capabilities), then to data-based systems, and finally to Web-based systems (without or without video capabilities). Every point on this spectrum had advantages and disadvantages: cost capabilities, user preferences, and so forth. Those of us who were not technologically oriented encountered a mind-numbing array of technological terms: groupware, data mining, mind mapping, crawling search engines, push technology, portals, and acronyms and cleverly phrased terms of all kinds. It seemed to make sense to the technology people, however, and we left it up to them to develop specific proposals with pros and cons. There were, however, some general guidelines that we gave them to guide their work and their decision making as they took on the task of developing alternatives.
The goals we had in mind for the K-Quest and knowledge profile technology were based on ideals that we might not be able to fully realize because of cost constraints and other limitations, but that were, nonetheless, worthy targets. Our fundamental objective was to choose technology that would enable us to realize as completely as possible the full potential of the profile and its operational knowledge. The more sophisticated the technology we could employ, the more likely we were to achieve that objective, but the more expensive that technology would be. As we explored the options, we realized that continuity management could work through less sophisticated technology that utilized the single PC as well as through more sophisticated Web-based technology that utilized a corporate portal.
The basic trade-off, therefore, was cost versus functionality. The right technology would have to satisfy the competing and, to some degree, mutually exclusive factors of cost and system capabilities. The costs that we were most concerned about were those associated with developing, implementing, updating, and maintaining the technology; training people in the technology; and the opportunity costs of using the technology (technology that is easier to use has lower usage opportunity costs, but often higher setup costs). We wanted a knowledge profile that was as easy to use, update, and access (and a K-Quest that was as easy to administer) as funding would allow. Ideally, we wanted technology that would allow employees to access the operational knowledge they needed at the time they needed it, providing the immediate access to knowledge that emerging problems and opportunities often demand.
At the high end of technological sophistication, rather amazing things can happen with continuity management. For example, as employees are completing their K-Quests, technology can automatically cross-fill and cross-link knowledge data that appears under more than one knowledge category and link the profile to all relevant data and information resources. The profile itself can be a permanent link on the corporate portal, providing instant access to all 20 knowledge subcategories and instantaneous updating when necessary. Created in this way, the profile becomes a virtual partner in the planning and execution of decisions and activities that contribute mightily to knowledge continuity and to increased productivity. What we discovered in guiding the selection of the technology, however, was that we did not require high-end technology to achieve knowledge continuity at WedgeMark. It could be accomplished through a savvy modification of existing knowledge management software.
As the Dream Team closed out its work on K-Quest, we looked back with a sense of accomplishment and a hint of nostalgia. Not that we were at the end of our project yet, but we were beginning to see it. We were in the last quarter of the continuity management implementation process, and we had arrived at the knowledge profile. What remained was to take the knowledge captured in K-Quest, convert it to the knowledge in the profile, and then develop the procedures that would transfer that knowledge to the successors of our departing incumbents. So, in the words of Mr. Spock's niece, we were about to "boldly go where no one has gone before." We moved on to creating the knowledge profile.