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1 Guide to Agency-Wide Knowledge Management for State DOTs Summary Why DOTs Need Knowledge Management What Is Knowledge Management? âKnowledge Managementâ (KM) is an umbrella term for a variety of techniques for building, leveraging and sustaining the know-how and experience of an organizationâs employees. The goal of KM is to make the organization act in an intelligent manner. KM emerged as a recognized discipline in the 1980s, and is now a well-established ï¬eld with documented successes in both the private and public sectors. Fundamental to KM is the recognition that the intellectual capital (or collective knowledge) of an organization is an essential asset that should be recognized and managed to ensure organizational eï¬ciency and eï¬ectiveness. KM has been embraced by a diverse group of organizations, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the World Bank, State Farm Insurance and Kraft Foods, to name a few. KM programs or initiatives are also in place at several USDOT administrations (Highways, Transit and Aviation) and state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) including Caltrans, Georgia DOT, Virginia DOT, and Wisconsin DOT. Private companies use KM to build competitive advantage over other companies; public-sector organizations use KM to manage risk, improve operational eï¬ectiveness, and make maximum use of employee talents. Knowledge: A Limiting Factor for DOTs Knowledge â the ability of staï¬ to take eï¬ective action and make good decisions â is becoming a key limiting factor in a DOTâs ability to make progress and adapt to changing requirements.
2 Guide to Agency-Wide Knowledge Management for State DOTs Why Should DOTs Be Interested in KM? State DOTs rely on the skills and experience of their workforces to plan, fund, design, construct and maintain multi-modal transportation systems. Knowledge about what to do, when and how to do it, AND what not to do is critical to success â and much of this knowledge resides only in the heads of employees, especially the most experienced employees. Maintaining a strong knowledge base agency-wide is not easy: âbaby boomersâ are retiring and taking knowledge with them; mid-career employees at the peak of their productivity are looking to leave for higher salaries, and the millennial generation has less interest in learning from and staying with one agency than did their parentsâ generation. Without a conscious strategy for replacing critical employees, building bench strength (possible successors for a given position), getting new staï¬ up to speed and growing expertise and experience in the right areas, DOTs face a steady decline in their resilience â and an increased risk of poor performance and public criticism. There is no such thing as a âcorporate brainâ in a DOT, but there is such a thing as a corporate brain trust. When a DOT faces an emergency situation, it is primarily the agencyâs people and their ability to act that make the diï¬erence between public appreciation for a job well done and an embarrassing disaster. Success depends less on the DOTâs physical assets than it does on employeesâ knowledge and how they are able to apply this knowledge in a given situation. The DOT landscape is changing â dollars for transportation are declining yet public expectations for service remain very high. Knowledge and performance are inextricably linked. And a strong knowledge base for DOTs is too precious a resource to leave to chance. KM oï¬ers an eï¬ective set of strategies not only to maintain the knowledge required to meet todayâs needs, but also to expand agency knowledge resources in order to meet tomorrowâs new challenges. What Is the Payoff from KM? In the current environment of declining revenues and shrinking workforces, where every agency is challenged to âdo more with less,â DOTs need new approaches for operating in a more streamlined manner. KM is an important piece of the puzzle for agency executives seeking to shore up their organizationâs capabilities DOT CEO Perspectives on KM âAs the CEO of a DOT you wake up one day and realize that every hand you shake is connected to a head full of knowledge. Knowledge management collects, shares and puts that knowledge to work over and over again across the entire agencyâ saving money, saving time, delivering quality projects, and reducing risk.â â former CEO of the Virginia Department of Transportation âWe are not just Departments of Transportation. We are knowledge organizations that specialize in transportation.â âDirector, Arizona Department of Transportation
3 Guide to Agency-Wide Knowledge Management for State DOTs to deliver projects and services more eï¬ectively and eï¬ciently, on time and within budget. KM practices can: Provide opportunities for experienced employees to get newer employees up to speed, increasing productivity and reducing the need to âreinvent the wheel.â Minimize impacts of workforce transitions - if not carefully managed, these transitions can result in loss of important institutional knowledge, which increases risks of ill-informed decisions and repeated mistakes. Ensure that DOTs can retain and build essential expertise âin- houseâ as they make increased use of outsourcing and public- private partnerships for delivery of projects and services. Increasingly, DOTs operate in a ï¬shbowl. Ineï¬ciency or poor decisions on the part of inexperienced staï¬ leave the agency open to a loss of public conï¬dence. In this environment, the importance of the knowledge possessed by each and every employee is magniï¬ed. Proactive steps to strengthen and leverage available employee expertise are more important than ever. KM in Practice What Does It Mean to Implement KM? KM includes a range of simple and relatively low cost actions that DOT executives can consider to reduce risks, leverage available opportunities for innovation, and ensure that what employees have learned in the course of their careers is shared with newer employees and contemporaries in other organizational units. Techniques include: Workforce planning to identify and close gaps between needed skills and existing capabilities; Communities of practice that enable less experienced employees to learn from their peers; Expertise directories that employees can use to identify who to contact if they have a question; Capture of specialized knowledge from employees before they leave the organization; Project management methodologies that ensure project teams learn from prior experience and document lessons learned for future eï¬orts; and Using KM to Reduce Risk As DOTs cut costs and downsize workforces, this often leads to a loss of expertise and experience in key functions. The erosion of staï¬ capabilities can take its toll on organizational effectiveness and the track record of the chief executive.
4 Guide to Agency-Wide Knowledge Management for State DOTs Use of information management methods to ensure that employees can quickly ï¬nd the information they need to be eï¬ective. Arenât We Already Doing KM? It can be argued that many organizations â including DOTs â are already managing knowledge to some extent: through employee training, mentoring, team meetings, business process documentation, updates to manuals, etc. Nevertheless, such activities are often carried out by individual organizational units with a narrowly deï¬ned perspective. The eï¬ectiveness of these activities can be greatly enhanced through a more strategic, agency-wide and organized approach to KM â drawing upon the rich base of KM experience from both public- and private-sector organizations. How Do We Get Started? There are many practical steps that can be taken to ensure that existing employee know-how is well-utilized and to grow the agencyâs knowledge base to meet anticipated future needs. Key activities include: (1) Assessing the organizationâs strengths, weaknesses and vulnerabilities with respect to knowledge for critical business functions; (2) developing a strategy that involves people, process and information management/technology elements for leveraging existing expertise and mitigating anticipated knowledge losses; (3) implementing a set of KM techniques; and (4) tracking results and adjusting techniques as needed, while allowing room for ï¬exibility and experimentation. Aligning KM activities with the agencyâs established objectives and strategic initiatives provides DOT leaders with an opportunity to ramp up support for what they are trying to achieve within their limited tenures. KM techniques can be focused in priority areas (e.g. safety, asset management, or innovative ï¬nance) to get some easy short term wins, while creating a sustainable longer-term foundation. Agencies can start small with a pilot eï¬ort, track costs and results and expand as appropriate based on the payoï¬ they are seeing. Key KM Activities
5 Guide to Agency-Wide Knowledge Management for State DOTs Purpose of the Guide This Guide was developed because KM oï¬ers promising solutions to DOT challenges, yet relatively few DOTs have implemented agency- wide approaches to KM. The Guide is intended to help DOT leaders examine the business case for undertaking or strengthening KM in their agencies. It introduces a variety of KM tools and techniques that a DOT could apply and provides a roadmap for DOTs wishing to experiment or get started with implementing an agency-wide approach to KM. Finally, it provides links to resources that agencies can use to develop and strengthen their KM activities over time. Throughout the Guide, key points and quick tips are highlighted with this light bulb symbol. Using this Guide The Guide can be used to get an overview of: ⢠The fundamentals of KM, ⢠How KM can be applied at a DOT, and ⢠How to track KM results.
6 Guide to Agency-Wide Knowledge Management for State DOTs