Implementing Knowledge Management Strategy In A Private Company For Future Energy Challenges

What is knowledge audit

Knowledge audit is the process of finding and understanding the types of knowledge and knowledge processes that are within an organisation (Burnett, William, & Grinnal, 2013). Ragsdelle et al. (2014) also describe a knowledge audit as a structured report containing a high level elaboration of an organisation’s knowledge assets and their flow through the organisation. Pa et al. (2012) define knowledge as actionable information which allows forecasting and decision making and therefore adds value to the organisation. According to Burnett et al. (2013), in the previous decades organisations did not pay much attention to the knowledge auditing. They further state that there had been no previous research and therefore there was no empirical evidence when academics began to carry out research on it. In recent developments there has been a keen focus on the activities related to knowledge auditing rather than the end result (Ragsdelle et al., 2014). Following such a process-oriented approach has proven to be useful, given the dynamic nature of business processes and therefore, the knowledge management system (KM).

According to López-Nicolás and Meroño-Cerdán (2012) knowledge audits are seen as the initial crucial step to implementing KM practices in any organisation and allows them to know the KM strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats

The organisation in question is a private company that is working in line with the UK government’s to deal with future energy challenges. This requires the organisation to bring together the various knowledge, expertise and experience of its employees and partners. It is therefore knowledge intensive. With this in mind, they have seen the need to access and store expert knowledge and is determined to do so in a better, efficient and effective manner. They intend to do this by adopting a knowledge management strategy that will be implemented at the organisational and departmental level. This report elaborates the process.

The case study organisation is a private company that operates in the energy sector. The organisation has employed a vast number of highly qualified experts across its departments to handle its activities. Its mission is to work with the UK government in achieving long term energy efficiency targets. The organisation works with national and multinational partners including the UK government, multinational companies, small and medium enterprises, universities and research organisations. These stakeholders have bought into the vision of energy emission reduction and contribute their innovative knowledge and expertise and funds to it. and research institutes. The organisation has also invested in innovative projects and large scale engineering projects in the energy sector.

Importance of knowledge audit for implementing knowledge management strategy

The objectives to be achieved by the knowledge audit are outlined below:

• Identify and list tacit and explicit knowledge assets within the organisation by implementing knowledge maps
• Determine what knowledge assets are most important in supporting specific organisational activities.
• Identify any knowledge gaps and bottlenecks that may be preventing members of staff from performing their roles more effectively
• Gain insight into employees’ views on the current KM processes

Professional and ethical issues

The international Auditing Standards Committee (a conglomeration of a number of countries) stresses on a number of professional and ethical standards in auditing, which were readily adhered to in the knowledge auditing process. They are outlined below.

i.) Trust, confidence and credibility- The audited entities should show trust in the auditors, while the auditors should carry out the audit in a manner that encourages cooperation and that is trust worthy

ii.) Integrity – Auditors should be as honest and candid as possible in order to be beyond reproach and therefore sustain public confidence.

iii.) Independence, Objectivity and Impartiality- Auditors should have independence from audited entities and third parties. They should also be objective in dealing with issues at hand and not be impartial in any way

iv.) Political neutrality- Auditors must be free and independent from political influence in order to conduct the audit in an impartial manner.

v.) Professional secrecy-Auditors must not disclose any information to unintended or unauthorized parties

Data gathering

The time allocated to the audit was two months. The budget allocated was to accomodate a full-time research assistant and a small team of academics. An interpretivist paradigm was adopted for the knowledge audit. Semi-structured and open-ended interviews were chosen as the primary data collection tools for identifying KM needs and opportunities and gain insight into employees’ views on current KM processes respectively.

There were 23 questions in total and were divided into four sections as follows:-

• Knowledge which a participant requires to carry out a task
• The participant’s view of how his/her department handles knowledge
• Overall perceptions and attitudes towards the organisation
• Organisational  culture

Analysis of the data 

The data collected through the 12 transcripts were organized into four matrices, each of which represented the four departments. Key phrases were identified during analysis of the matrices. These were knowledge, systems, channels and stakeholders. These were modeled  to show the knowledge flows. The following table depicts the basic structure of the matrices and the questions they addressed:

Table 1: Knowledge flow matrix structure 

Department A

	Participant 1	Participant 2	Participant n
1. processes the participant is responsible for
2. knowledge needed to perform task
3. organisation and sharing of knowledge
4. adding of feedback existing knowledge

Current business processes 

During analysis of the data, the knowledge matrix revealed business processes,along with the knowledge required for execution, their method of capture, organisation, storage, sharing and feedback integration into existing knowledge. For department A, these are illustrated in the tables below:

Table 1: Participant 1 knowledge matrix data

Business Processes	Knowledge required	Acquisition	Organisation/sharing/ Feedback integration
Check technical consistency across projects	-External environment -Nature of the end system -Future requirements	-Emails -Advisory groups -Intranet -Member portal	-Advisory group paper -Technical committee papers -Personal information storage -Member portal -Shared drive -Presentation
Oversee project
Learn from projects
Relay feedback to projects
Engaging with members

Table 2: Participant 2 knowledge matrix data

Processes	Knowledge required	Acquisition	organisation/sharing Feedback incorporation
Get information to members	-Member requirements -Organise presentations and seminars	-Face to face conversations -Board/technical committee -Email and talk to people -Two way dialogue	-Shared drive -Emails -Member portal -Team meeting -Documents -Member engagement plans
Keep people informed
Organize presentations and seminars
Understand member requirements
Communicate information to members
Write headline insight documents
Understanding member requirements

The figure below illustrates the map of department A that captured its knowledge, inputs, outputs and communication mediums:

Figure 1: Department A Knowledge and communication channel

Strengths of the current system

The strengths of the current KM system included:-

• Feedback from the participants describe the current system as being ‘open minded’
• There are initiatives to ensure that there is good information communication
• Information collected from groups and/or committees are accessible on a web-based ‘portal’ system.
• Information belonging to individuals is stored on the shared drive making it available to other members
• There are good communication channels between the organisation’s employees and its members through membership engagement plans
• There is continuity of tasks by use of guidance notes
• There is a distinction between formal and informal knowledge amongst members
• There is accurate external communication through the organisation’s communications team

Weaknesses of the current system

The following weaknesses were intrinsic to the system:-

• Poor communication of technical knowledge
  • Decentralization of some documents by use of personal areas restricts availability.
  • Some of the team members are unreliable in delivering project data in a timely fashion
  • Unstructured data and lack of cataloguing in search tools causes problems or delays.
  • Anonymity of knowledge owners
  • There is no central visibility of communication and collaboration at the department level
  • Communication with external entities can at times be duplicated and inconsistent
  • The silence culture in the departments restricts knowledge sharing through informal conversations.

The following are the ways in which the organisation can improve its knowledge management practices:-

• The encouragement and nurturing of knowledge management culture in the organisation, including informal exchanges
• The use of simple and understandable language when communicating with non-technical people
• Formulation and implementation of a policy of structuring and cataloguing of the most commonly used systems, such as the shared drive  
• Improvisation of transparency in individual knowledge bases
• Provision of regular updates in executive meetings to help each department understand its work and be more collaborative with one another

The users of the case study organisation may use the following method of evaluation.

Benchmarking is the process of evaluation of current products/services/processes with best practices and standards in a particular field or industry. These can also be compared to other products/services/processes. The necessary improvisations are then incorporated to the status quo to achieve the desired standards.

The case study organisation can perform benchmarking by assessing both internal and external processes and comparing them to best practices to find room for improvement.

Conclusion

In summary, the most influential drivers for a knowledge strategy are qualitatively deduced.  Despite the fact that there were quantitative measures, top management found the audit quite satisfactory and could be implemented. From the report findings it can also be seen that the organisation has an intrinsic appreciation of the knowledge they apply and therefore would endeavour to keep improving the KM system by continuous and periodic audits.

References

Burnett, S., Williams, D. and Grinnall, A., 2013. The strategic role of knowledge auditing and mapping: An organisational case study. Knowledge and Process Management, 20(3), pp.161-176.

Dalkir, K., 2013. Knowledge management in theory and practice. Routledge.

López-Nicolás, C. and Meroño-Cerdán, Á.L., 2012. A model for knowledge management and intellectual capital audits. In Organisational Learning and Knowledge: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications (pp. 819-835). IGI Global.

Pa, N.C., Taheri, L. and Abdullah, R., 2012. A survey on approaches in knowledge audit in organisations. Asian Transaction on Computers, 2(5), pp.1-8.

Power, M.K. and Gendron, Y., 2015. Qualitative research in auditing: A methodological roadmap. Auditing: A Journal of Practice & Theory, 34(2), pp.147-165