Public-sector knowledge management: putting the pieces together.

• Author: Melbye, David

Most jurisdictions are facing at least one challenge that requires knowledge management--a group of systems and practices for identifying, capturing, storing, and disseminating information. Knowledge management programs are not just about manipulating data. Rather, they allow the organization to realize significant value from its intellectual capital. Put another way it is not enough to be able to move data and information from one part of the organization to another--there must be a purpose met and an outcome achieved by that movement.

Examples of these challenges include:

* Capturing the experience and institutional knowledge of the 10 to 40 percent of the staff who are eligible to retire in the next five to ten years

* Managing and making use of an explosion of data created by the implementation of new enterprise resource planning (ERP), geographic information system (GIS), or other software

* Complying with public records and "sunshine" laws as more and more business is transacted by e-mail and instant messaging instead of paper documents

* Recruiting and retaining new employees who expect to work in a "point and click" environment where they can acquire organizational information and learn their jobs quickly

* Attempting to create an increasingly paperless environment, as demanded by the "green" initiatives popular with both citizens and elected officials

* Providing transparency and improved customer service through e-government initiatives that focus on Web-based delivery of products and services

Each of these challenges includes a set of underlying concerns that often materialize well after a project has been established. For example, an organization that wants to realize more value from its investment in ERP and GIS systems may find that there is even more information stored in a thoroughly unorganized e-mail system. And organizations engaged in document management and enterprise content management (ECM) projects find that new technology must not only replace old, paper-driven information systems, but capture the knowledge that exists only in the minds of long-term employees.

Many governments will address one or more of these issues individually For example, the information technology (IT) department may implement new network storage hardware to handle a rapidly growing data load, while human resources implements succession planning, and the legal department heads up a new document-management initiative. Public relations might develop a new Web site, while the facilities department develops environmentally sound paper-reduction programs. Each of these is a laudable project, and each one has the potential to address one of the challenges listed above.

But some governments have taken a step back and are realizing that these and other programs are really addressing one aspect of the same problem: Namely, how can we capture, store, and disseminate the organization's information assets? How do we extract value from those information assets? How do we identify and prioritize these projects to reflect our resource constraints? And given those constraints, what is a realistic timeframe to achieve our objectives?

Some organizations are adopting broad, program-level knowledge-management initiatives to combine seemingly disparate projects and address them as related information-based projects. Knowledge-management programs have several benefits over individual efforts. They allow organizations to prioritize...