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Suggested Citation:"Chapter One - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2007. Preserving and Using Institutional Memory Through Knowledge Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14035.
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Page 9
Suggested Citation:"Chapter One - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2007. Preserving and Using Institutional Memory Through Knowledge Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14035.
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Page 9
Page 10
Suggested Citation:"Chapter One - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2007. Preserving and Using Institutional Memory Through Knowledge Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14035.
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Page 10
Page 11
Suggested Citation:"Chapter One - Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2007. Preserving and Using Institutional Memory Through Knowledge Management Practices. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/14035.
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Page 11

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9BACKGROUND This synthesis report documents how state transportation agencies (STAs) use knowledge management (KM) prac- tices to preserve and enable use of institutional memory. STAs can use this report as a resource for assessing their own institutional memory management practices. There are a number of important reasons for STAs to preserve and manage institutional memory. These include: • Facilitating training and succession management in light of the unprecedented numbers of long-term depart- ment of transportation (DOT) employees who are retiring or otherwise departing; • Needing to build on past understandings and improving efficiency when providing the information and knowl- edge that allow managers, professionals, and technicians to deliver agency programs effectively, on time, and within budget; • Budget-wise, doing more with less; • Responding to requests from legal staff for information to support agency positions in litigation; • Integrating historical perspectives and lessons learned into current transportation agency activities and deci- sion making; and • Striving to respond efficiently and accurately to requests for information from elected officials, media, historians, researchers, and the general public. At a time of diminished agency resources, these needs are growing in magnitude and urgency. Therefore, this synthesis study is both timely and appropriate. STAs have adopted a wide range of approaches in res- ponse to these needs for the management and preservation of historically significant material. This study identifies the practices followed by STAs for the effective organization, management, and transmission of documents and other forms of knowledge to current employees and the next gen- eration of leadership at the program, policy, and project detail levels. SCOPE Specifically, this synthesis documents the extent and nature of STA practices and approaches to, or lack thereof, at a practical level, for preserving and enabling use of internally generated knowledge resources—that is, on those materials, knowledge, and resources in the unique possession of indi- vidual STAs at the program, policy, project, and project detail levels. Also included are an annotated literature sur- vey, interviews, and other resources detailing practices from transportation and other types of organizations. OVERALL FINDINGS Of the 38 STAs returning questionnaires, seven reported having a successful KM process robust enough to continue through staff and administration changes. Nineteen STAs reported having a KM-related program at some organizational level and in varying states of development. Thirty-three STAs reported making some efforts to retain the knowledge of retir- ing employees. METHODOLOGY AND ORGANIZATION OF REPORT A brief questionnaire was distributed by e-mail to each state’s TRB Research Advisory Committee member, solicit- ing the name of an individual knowledgeable about the agency’s KM practices, and able to respond to a more detailed questionnaire. Drawing on a review of the relevant literature, a questionnaire was prepared to gather information on current practices within each DOT. On January 21, 2006, the questionnaire was sent by e-mail to the designated indi- viduals in all 50 states and Canadian provinces. The ques- tionnaire is in Appendix A. Thirty-four U.S. state DOTs, three Canadian provinces, and one Canadian city returned completed questionnaires. Organizations that returned the questionnaires are listed in Appendix B. The first question on the questionnaire asked whether specific efforts were being made to capture the knowledge of experienced retiring or exiting employees. Questions 2, 3, and 4 probed whether the STA had knowledge- related programs or elements of such programs in place at some level within the agency. Those STAs that responded affirmatively to any of these three questions were asked to finish the questionnaire, which probed the nature of the STA’s knowledge-related activities, specific practices, staffing, etc. Those who responded negatively were asked to return the questionnaire without proceeding further. Chapter one introduces the report and puts the concept of institutional memory and its relationship to KM in perspective CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION

and provides definitions. Chapter two is a summary of the literature survey. Chapter three analyzes the results of the STA questionnaire and the literature survey regarding leave-taking. Chapters four through eight analyze the results of the questionnaire regarding overall KM practices in STAs. Chapters nine and ten present transportation-related and non- transportation-related case studies. Chapter eleven presents the conclusions. The appendices (A–L) contain the questionnaire itself, job titles and STA affiliations of the respondents, detailed ques- tionnaire results, and an annotated literature survey. DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY For this synthesis study, the term institutional memory is defined as “The body of knowledge, formal as well as informal, that is essential to the continuous and effective functioning of the agency at all levels.” This heretofore unpublished definition is attributed to Dr. Howard Rosen, University of Wisconsin, Madison, as part of his participation as a panelist for this synthesis topic. This definition was chosen from among many in the liter- ature because it succinctly states key concepts: • Both formal and informal knowledge are present and necessary. • To be worthy of memory (formal remembering in this case), the content in the body of knowledge must be essen- tial, implying thoughtful winnowing and synthesizing. • The body of knowledge is not preserved for its own sake, but because the agency needs it for continuous functioning; implying long-term, systematic attention over time. Without the body of knowledge functions may become ineffective, broken, or disjointed. • The body of knowledge is necessary at all levels, imply- ing that all employees have responsibilities regarding the creation and preservation of the body of knowledge, and also can expect to be able to use it as necessary to be effective in their own work. To further refine our understanding, there is a need to be more precise about what is meant by knowledge. The litera- ture survey revealed that KM as a business process is being applied much more robustly in Europe, including Great Britain, and in Australia than in the United States. These enti- ties have advanced to the stage of standards writing, which implies a certain consensus on the value of the KM business process. Thus, for a specific workable definition of knowledge, the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) was used: The combination of data and information, to which is added expert opinion, skills, and experience, to result in a valuable asset, which can be used to aid decision making. Knowledge may be explicit and/or tacit, individual and/or collective (European Guide to Good Practice in Knowledge Management, Part 1, 2004, p. 6). 10 This definition lays out the following key concepts: • Knowledge is a combination not only of data and doc- uments, but of information, expert opinion and judg- ment, skills, and human experience. • Knowledge is an asset, implying value and necessity for management attention and control. • Knowledge has value, not for itself, but because it is used to aid decision making. • Knowledge may be explicit, captured in a document, DVD, e-mail, chart, book, content database, or similar medium. • Knowledge may be tacit, held only in the minds of people. • Knowledge may be held by a single individual or may be generally understood by many (collectively). • KM is a business management process. To clarify further, knowledge differs from information (G.T. Shin, personal communication, May 15, 2006). To sum- marize this communication, information is organized data and is captured in inorganic systems, perhaps on tape, on digital media, in books, handwritten documents, graphs, charts, tables, etc. Knowledge, on the other hand, is created by an individual internalizing and digesting information. It changes over time in various ways as it evolves and matures with accumulated experience, and it is active—it drives and informs action. Increasingly, the practices for managing an organization’s institutional memory are gathered collectively under the trans- disciplinary business management process known as KM. In organizations, accumulated knowledge can be considered the fourth major asset to be managed as part of typical business processes, comparable to physical assets (buildings and equip- ment), financial assets, and human resources (HR). Geiger et al. (2005) referred to knowledge as an asset in their report on asset management practices. When discussing the Alberta Infrastructure and Transportation agency, they describe the agency’s asset management information system, citing the system’s benefits: • Enables gaining best life-long returns on investments; • Documents the rationale for investment decisions; • Provides the tools to achieve excellence in all phases of asset creation and maintenance; • Enables preservation and optimum use of knowledge assets, such as data, information, and human capital; and • Provides an effective and efficient learning tool (p. 33). However, there is a need to define KM more specifically. Some definitions for KM emphasize it as a tool for business competitiveness; others are so vague as to yield little guid- ance for practical implementation. For this synthesis, the best definition, in our opinion, is formulated in Australian Stan- dard AS 5037-2005: Knowledge management—A trans-disciplinary approach to improving organizational outcomes and learning, through max-

11 imizing the use of knowledge. It involves the design, implemen- tation, and review of social and technological activities and processes to improve the creating, sharing, and applying or using of knowledge (p. 2). Note that KM practices, as understood in this report, are directed not only to preserving historical information and institutional memory, but also to facilitating the sharing of current knowledge and practices and enabling application of prior knowledge to current work. PROFESSIONAL RESPONSIBILITIES In this synthesis report, the term knowledge management or its abbreviation, KM, refers to business management prac- tices that collectively maximize use of knowledge. Just as the management of other asset types requires specifically skilled professionals such as, in the case of finan- cial assets, accountants, budget experts, forecasters, bankers, financial analysts, and so on, so too do certain professions playing lead roles in the management of knowledge assets. In our definition, KM is described as “trans-disciplinary.” This is an important concept; it implies that certain facets or functions of previously separate professional disciplines have been intermingled to create something new, and indeed, KM is a relatively new field. According to Chang-Albitres and Krugler (2005), KM emerged in the mid-1970s, beginning with the implementation of database management software, moving into data handling in the mid-1980s, and in the 1990s developing enterprise-wide database systems and document management systems. It emerged as a business process in the late 1990s. The authors list the disciplines having the most profound effect on the development of KM concepts as orga- nizational science and HR management, computer science and management information systems, management science, psychology, and sociology (pp. 3–4). The Australian standard AS 5037-2005 includes others that should be added to Chang-Albitres and Krugler’s list. AS 5037 includes the related disciplines of competitive intelli- gence, customer relationship management, human computer interaction, information management, intellectual property management, market research, project management, quality management, records management, and risk management (Australian Standard . . . 2005, pp. 66–70). Over the years, the field of library science and information management is perhaps the discipline most closely associated with KM in its generic sense. Practitioners in this field histor- ically and currently contribute important techniques, stan- dards, practices, and habits of mind for content and document management, especially for organizing, preserving, indexing, and codifying, and for researching and retrieving large quan- tities of information and documents. Even a cursory review of current trade publications aimed at librarians in specialized business or government environments reveals articles on KM. Additionally, it is certain that the skills of archivists, technical writers and editors, web content designers, historians, instruc- tors, and similar professionals regardless of job title, should also find a home under the general umbrella of KM, depend- ing on the needs of the organization. NASA at one time used the services of a cultural anthropologist. KM acts as an umbrella under which the skills of these his- torically separate disciplines are integrated in what may be hitherto unknown ways to create a single, increasingly coher- ent business management process. These disciplines have long histories with disparate philosophies, professional cultures, habits of mind, and skill sets. In some organizations they may be in direct competition. The challenge of managers is to mesh the various necessary skill sets into a single integrated business process without destroying what is valuable and necessary from each. It is easy for professionals to be dismissive or even ignorant about the capabilities of professionals from other dis- ciplines. For example, the librarian may underestimate the skill needed by computer scientists for ensuring robust, reli- able, secure handling of large databases with business-critical content. Similarly, the HR manager may have a simplistic understanding of the complex practices developed over decades by librarians worldwide to properly procure, orga- nize, codify, maintain, and provide access to collections of literally millions of intellectual resources, including books, periodicals (in hardcopy or electronic format or both), CDs, videotapes, websites, virtual collections, content databases, etc. In turn, the information technologist may be unaware or unappreciative of the HR professional’s skill in forming high-performance work teams, managing succession strate- gies, and establishing cultures conducive to knowledge shar- ing. Moreover, to make matters even more complicated, each discipline’s long-established practices must evolve as they are pressed into service in new challenges and relationships. That said, although the professionals described earlier lead and drive the KM business process, all staff must be involved. Just as every employee shares responsibility for taking stew- ardship of the physical resources of an organization—using facilities wisely, minimizing waste of space or utilities, con- serving on electricity, storing hazardous materials properly, maintaining equipment under their care, etc.—so too must all employees engage in stewardship over knowledge assets as is appropriate given their individual business responsibilities. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AS BUSINESS MANAGEMENT PROCESS History of Knowledge Management as Business Process KM has a relatively short history as a recognized business management process. Conceptually, it has been discussed and written about, especially in the business literature, since the early 1970s. The Library of Congress (http://www.loc.gov) apparently did not use the term “knowledge management” as

an authorized subject heading in its catalog until about 1997. As of this writing, the Library has applied the term to only 95 titles published before 2000. It has applied the term to 519 post-2000 works, including, as of January 2006, 38 with 2006 publication dates. Two 2006 publications are encyclopedias, which may signal a certain maturation of the field: Ency- clopedia of Communities of Practice in Information and Knowledge Management and Encyclopedia of Knowledge Management. Categories of Knowledge Management Activities This report focuses on specific practices for preserving and using institutional memory—that is, an organization’s body of knowledge. Typically, these specific practices fall into the following broad categories of activity: 12 • Creating or developing knowledge; • Transferring knowledge from one human mind to another in “non-tangible” form (often termed “tacit”) through, for example, communities of practice, face-to-face discus- sions, interviews, or roundtable sessions; • Capturing knowledge in explicit form, as in written documents or in media such as videos, training films, pho- tographs, graphics, presentations, and oral history inter- views by trained transportation historians; • Storing knowledge in some fashion for future use, as in databases or physical repositories; • Providing finding and identification tools such as indexes, codification systems, or search software; • Using by applying prior knowledge to current work; and • Reevaluating, validating, modifying, or destroying knowledge when it becomes obsolete or is found to be erroneous.

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TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 365: Preserving and Using Institutional Memory through Knowledge Management Practices explores practices regarding the preservation and use of institutional memory through the knowledge management practices of United States and Canadian transportation agencies. The report examines practices for the effective organization, management, and transmission of materials, knowledge, and resources that are in the unique possession of individual offices and employees.

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