JKR$Enterprise$Content$and$ Knowledge$ManagementHigh ...epsmg.jkr.gov.my/images/9/97/JKR-ECKM_Final_Report.pdf · JAN.%2010! JKR$Enterprise$Content$and$ Knowledge$ManagementHigh$

JAN. 2010

JKR Enterprise Content and Knowledge Management High Level Framework

1 Final Report of JKR’s ECKM [2009]

Table of Contents

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... 1

List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... 4

List of Tables ........................................................................................................................... 5

FOREWARD ........................................................................................................................... 6

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...................................................................................................... 7

1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 9

1.1 JKR Strategic Framework 2007-2010 .................................................................... 11

1.2 JKR ICT Strategic Plan 2007-2011 ......................................................................... 13

1.3 JKR ECKM Handbook ........................................................................................... 14

1.4 JKR’s ECKM Project Objective .............................................................................. 16

1.5 The Establishment of JKR’s High Level ECKM Framework .............................. 18

2. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN JKR ................................................................... 20

2.1 Type of Knowledge ................................................................................................ 20

2.2 Knowledge Audit ................................................................................................... 22

2.3 Knowledge Management ...................................................................................... 24

2.4 Knowledge Management in JKR .......................................................................... 27

3. KM CASE STUDIES ...................................................................................................... 30

3.1 Successful KM Case Studies .................................................................................. 30

3.2 Conclusion on KM Case Studies ........................................................................... 34

4. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT OF JKR ECKM PROJECT ............................................... 39

4.1 People-Process-Technology .................................................................................. 39

4.1.1 People and Process ......................................................................................... 40

4.1.2 Technology ...................................................................................................... 41

4.1.3 The Challenge in KM ...................................................................................... 41

4.2 People-Process-Technology of JKR’s ECKM Framework................................... 42

4.2.1 People Matrix .................................................................................................. 42

4.2.2 Process Matrix ................................................................................................. 46


4.2.3 Technology Matrix .......................................................................................... 49

4.3 Pre-JKR’s Knowledge Audit ................................................................................. 51

4.4 Knowledge Management Assets and Processes .................................................. 52

4.5 Knowledge Creation Process ................................................................................ 53

4.5.1 Explicit and Tacit Knowledge ........................................................................ 54

4.5.2 Type Dimension of Knowledge ..................................................................... 57

4.5.3 Knowledge Conversions ................................................................................ 58

4.6 Nonaka & Takeuchi SECI MODEL....................................................................... 59

4.6.1 The Concept of “Ba” ....................................................................................... 63

4.7 Analysis of JKR’s SECI Model .............................................................................. 64

4.7.1 Assumptions and ‘leads’ on knowledge flow. ............................................. 65

4.7.2 The Process ...................................................................................................... 67

4.7.3 The People ....................................................................................................... 67

4.7.4 The Technology ............................................................................................... 67

4.8 Pre-JKR’s Knowledge Management Audit .......................................................... 68

4.9 Conclusion of Workshop Findings ....................................................................... 70

5. DEVELOPMENT OF JKR’s TAXONOMY .................................................................. 71

5.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 71

5.2 The Corporate Taxonomy ..................................................................................... 73

5.2.1 Building Blocks for Corporate/Enterprise Taxonomies .............................. 74

5.3 Knowledge Taxonomy .......................................................................................... 77

5.4 Knowledge Ontology............................................................................................. 79

5.5 Knowledge Taxonomy and Ontology .................................................................. 80

5.6 Knowledge Mapping ............................................................................................. 82

5.6.1 Building a Knowledge Map ........................................................................... 83

5.7 Faceted Classification ............................................................................................ 86

5.8 Proposed JKR’s Taxonomy.................................................................................... 87

5.8.1 NASA Taxonomy. ........................................................................................... 87

5.8.2 Singapore Government-wide Metadata Standard (SGMS). ........................ 88

5.8.3 JKR’s Taxonomy .............................................................................................. 89


6. ANALYSIS OF KM IN JKR ........................................................................................ 100

6.1 JKR’s Knowledge Management SWOT Analysis .............................................. 100

6.1.1 Conclusion of SWOT Analysis..................................................................... 102

6.2 Tools and Technology Evaluations .................................................................... 103

6.2.1 Criteria Selection Procedure ........................................................................ 107

6.2.2 Conclusion of the Technology and Tools Analysis .................................... 109

7. DEVELOPMENT OF JKR ECKM FRAMEWORK ................................................... 111

7.1 Development of the Proposed JKR’s ECKM Roadmap .................................... 111

7.1.1 Phase 1: Initiation. ......................................................................................... 113

7.1.2 Phase 2: Mobilization. ................................................................................... 113

7.1.3 Phase 3: Institutionalization. ........................................................................ 114

7.1.4 Phase 4: Innovation. ...................................................................................... 115

7.2 The Proposed JKR’s ECKM Policies ................................................................... 115

7.3 The Proposed JKR’s ECKM Guidelines ............................................................. 119

8. THE RECOMMENDATIONS for ECKM DEVELOPMENTS ................................. 120

9. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 123

10. APPENDICES .......................................................................................................... 125

11. REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 126


List of Figures

Figure 1: JKR’s Strategy Map .............................................................................................. 12

Figure 2: ECKM Expected Deliverables ............................................................................. 16

Figure 3: JKR’s Organization Chart .................................................................................... 18

Figure 4: JKR’s ECKM Current Development Phases ....................................................... 19

Figure 5: Basic characteristics of knowledge ..................................................................... 21

Figure 6: Types of Knowledge ............................................................................................ 21

Figure 7: Knowledge Audit [JKR, 2009] ............................................................................. 23

Figure 8: Basic Model of Knowledge Management .......................................................... 24

Figure 9: Three Fundamental Elements of KM.................................................................. 25

Figure 10: Key Challenges for Implementing KM in JKR ................................................. 27

Figure 11: Components of Knowledge Management ....................................................... 39

Figure 12: Part of People Matrix ......................................................................................... 43

Figure 13: Part of Process Matrix ........................................................................................ 47

Figure 14: Part of Technology Matrix ................................................................................. 49

Figure 15: The General Knowledge Model ........................................................................ 53

Figure 16: The “Iceberg” Metaphor between Explicit & Tacit Knowledge ..................... 55

Figure 17: Conception of Knowledge Types ...................................................................... 57

Figure 18: Knowledge conversions in the type dimension .............................................. 59

Figure 19: Nonaka & Takeuchi Knowledge Creation SECI Model .................................. 60

Figure 20: The Four Characteristics of Ba [Adapted: Nonaka and Konno, 1998] ........... 63

Figure 21: Applying SECI Model in JKR’s Context ........................................................... 64

Figure 22: The Combined Matrix of People-Process-Technology .................................... 65

Figure 23: Assumption on knowledge flow ....................................................................... 66

Figure 24: Defining Taxonomy and Classification ............................................................ 72

Figure 25: Presenting Knowledge Audits as Ontologies .................................................. 75

Figure 26: How data is transformed into information knowledge? ................................ 78

Figure 27: Building a Knowledge Map .............................................................................. 84

Figure 28: Extent of support provided by technology for KM activities ....................... 104

Figure 29: Possible criteria for evaluating software products (Sammer, et al., 2003) ... 108

Figure 30: Proposed JKR’s ECKM Roadmap ................................................................... 112


List of Tables

Table 1: JKR’s ECKM TOR Expected Deliverables ............................................................ 17

Table 2: Selected Successful KM Case Studies ................................................................... 33

Table 3: Measurements for KM Plan .................................................................................. 38

Table 4: Critical and Non-Critical Column for People Matrix ......................................... 44

Table 5: Sub-Group for People Matrix ............................................................................... 46

Table 6: Description of Process Matrix ............................................................................... 48

Table 7: Description of Technology Matrix ........................................................................ 50

Table 8: Key Foundation Areas (KFAs) - People, Process and Technology .................... 52

Table 9: Classification of Knowledge ................................................................................. 56

Table 10: Details Description of Nonaka & Takeuchi SECI Model .................................. 62

Table 11: People Attributes in JKR’s SECI Model ............................................................. 68

Table 12: The Findings of JKR’s SECI Workshop .............................................................. 69

Table 13: Perspectives of Taxonomic Elements ................................................................. 85

Table 14: Proposed JKR’s Taxonomy.................................................................................. 90

Table 15: 1st Level JKR’s Facet description ......................................................................... 99

Table 16: JKR’s KM SWOT Analysis................................................................................. 102

Table 17: Contribution made by technology components to KM activities .................. 107

Table 18: Overview of Tools & Technology Evolution ................................................... 109

Table 19: JKR’s Governance Policy for Knowledge Management Office (KMO) ......... 116

Table 20: JKR’s Governance Policy for Individual Staff ................................................. 117

Table 21: JKR’s Governance Policy for KMers and Head of Department ..................... 118

Table 22: JKR’s ECKM Proposed Guidelines ................................................................... 119

Table 23: JKR’s ECKM Future Recommendations .......................................................... 122

Table 24: List of Appendices ............................................................................................. 125


FOREWARD

This project was awarded by Jabatan Kerja Raya Malaysia, Cawangan Projek

Kompleks (JKR PROKOM) as part of Enterprise Content and Knowledge Management

(ECKM) initiative proposed by JKR through their Strategic Framework and ICT

Strategic Plan. The contract period of this project is 11 weeks starting from October

2009 till December 2009.

During the development of this project, several meetings, discussions and workshops

were conducted with JKR PROKOM Staffs and JKR staffs to represent and sharing the

ideas on how the ECKM initiatives can be implemented within JKR’s environment.

Such a comprehensive JKR’s ECKM framework need to be established by taking into

account the best possibilities of “Knowledge” availability within JKR environments.

JKR’s Knowledge Taxonomies were drafted and proposed in which is expected later

can hold as much as possible all the “information” and “knowledge” available within

JKR when it is fully implemented.

The ECKM roadmap, policies and guidelines were proposed and we hope JKR’s

ECKM committee will be able to evaluate and proposed further actions.

We are hoping to seek the opportunities to further continue this project within the

proposed roadmap in order to see the success of this JKR’s ECKM initiatives.

On behalf of EMOST Services Sdn Bhd, I would like to send this gratitude and

appreciations especially to Senior Director of JKR PROKOM, and his staffs for their

continuous comments and support, JKR staffs who directly and in-directly contributed

and involved during the workshop sessions and the Kementerian Kerja Raya for

financing this project, And last but not least, our committed staffs and consultants

whose working day and night in order to ensure the success of this project.

May Allah swt. bless you all. Amin

Dr. Che Wan Fadhil

for EMOST Services Sdn Bhd


EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Malaysia has embarked on the transformation from an input-driven growth strategy

that had served her well in the past to one that is increasingly driven by knowledge in

order to achieve sustainable high growth and development. The Knowledge-based

Economy Master Plan marks yet another key initiative of the Government to further

accelerate the development of the nation into a knowledge-based economy as well as

in achieving the objectives of Vision 2020.

Initially JKR has introduced the “JKR Strategic Framework 2007-2010” which aims as

an important guide for implementing the JKR strategies towards achieving its Mission

and Vision. The strategies in the framework are selected in line with the five thrusts of

the JKR’s National Mission 2006-2020. One of the thrust is to raise capacity of

knowledge and innovation and nurturing “first class mentality”.

Knowledge Management (KM) has been identified as one of the strategic applications

in the recent JKR ICT Strategic Plan that is required to be implemented in JKR

organization; to properly manage its intellectual properties. Early this year, JKR

formally embarked on the a Enterprise Content and Knowledge Management (ECKM)

initiatives to implement the practical aspects of knowledge management and

continuously evaluate how various information technologies can be used to create a

“knowledge management system”; a set of technologies to enable knowledge

management processes. JKR ECKM handbook has been presented as an early effort to

give an overview of some effective ways of planning and implementing ECKM in JKR.

Following this direction, this ECKM project was introduced with the objective is to

develop and deliver a high level framework, roadmap, policies and guidelines for

ECKM and the Taxonomy to be later implemented in JKR.

Three phases have been outlined to fulfil the establishment of JKR’s ECKM High Level

Framework. The first phase focused more on the methodologies used in order to gain

the data/information needed for the subsequent phases. Two workshops have been

conducted to gain and verify all the findings for the establishment of JKR’s ECKM

High Level framework. Two methodologies was applied during these workshops. The

People, Process and Technology Methodology was initially applied, with three

matrices for each People, Process and Technology developed for data/information

gathering. Secondly, Nonaka and Takeuchi SECI Model was used to map all the initial

findings into four sets of Combined Matrices using the SECI four Quadrant Model.

The results of the findings will not be discussed during this first phase. All the findings


will be used for the development of the second and third phases whereby Phase-2 will

be focused more on the establishment of JKR’s Taxonomy Framework and the analyses

of the findings will be contributed to the Phase-3 deliverables, i.e. the JKR’s ECKM

Policies, Roadmap and Guidelines.

Based on all given inputs from the preliminary audit exercises in the workshop, SWOT

analysis was conducted on the inputs. It can be safely concluded that knowledge

culture is informally but significantly present and flowing within the JKR

organization. Thus, the ECKM strategies should be focused on formalizing, nurturing

and propagating the existing informal knowledge culture and knowledge sharing by

giving it a proper structure and clear cut goals.

Based on all given selection and criteria with information gathering of existing

system/applications and network infrastructure, the “Quick Wins” approach was

recommended to demonstrate the full potential of knowledge sharing. This approach

is crucial to maintain momentum of the KM implementation widely by using relatively

cheap and easy initiatives that can be quickly implemented in an attempt to secure

community support. Whilst the other KM initiatives such as study and detailed tacit

information gathering exercise are being implemented, the pilot projects of Online

Practical Site Management Guide (ePSMG) can be further extended to drives the KM

culture and giving the “Quick Wins” effect to the adopters.

The overall JKR ECKM framework would consist of three primary deliverables that

would form the framework’s pillars, namely JKR’s ECKM Roadmap, Policies and

Guidelines. The combination of the three would define JKR’s own KM strategies and

mission-critical goals based on its overall vision and mission as one of the country’s

leading public service agency. For the purpose of JKR’s ECKM high level framework

formulation, a four phases Roadmap is proposed after two preliminary audits were

conducted in assessing and determining critical indicators relating to the existence of

knowledge culture within various levels of JKR’s organization. JKR’s governance

policies also been proposed for Knowledge Management Office (KMO), Individual

Staffs, Knowledge Managers (KMers) and Head of department. In order to successful

implementing KM Initiative within JKR environments, several KM Guidelines also

been highlighted in the framework.

Several recommendations were proposed, in-line with the proposed ECKM framework

and JKR’s KM Initiatives in which will definitely give a big impact to the successful

implementation of JKR ECKM. Several action plans need to be further elaborated and

implemented within the time frame highlighted in the Roadmap.


1. INTRODUCTION

"Today, knowledge, as an asset, is beginning to supplant the traditional

factors of production - land, labour and capital - and has become an

instrumental corporate and competitive resource. Knowledge, more than

money, is today widely recognised as the key resource for development. But

where do people stand today in relation to their knowledge resources?....”

Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi

(in Leveraging ICT Towards Knowledge Economy, 2001)

Malaysia’s development vision, as outlined in Vision 2020, is to

become a fully developed nation with a values-based society, by

the Year 2020. The National IT Agenda (NITA) interpreted this

as the roles of information, knowledge, and technopreneurship

are important to leapfrog the developmental stage from the

Industrial economy to a Post-industrial or Advanced economy.

These factors of change are in stark contrast to the role of land,

labour, capital and material in the Industrial era.

Since the 1990s, our Malaysian government decided to push the country in the

direction of transforming itself from an industrial based into a K-economy economy

which is based on knowledge and information technology. The second leg of Malaysia

economic objective should be to secure the establishment of a competitive economy.

Such an economy must be able to sustain itself over the longer term, must be dynamic,

robust and resilient. It must mean, among other things such as an economy driven by

brain-power, skills and diligence in possession of a wealth of information, with the

knowledge of what to do and how to do it.

The growth plan envisaged in the K-based economy will be dependent to a significant

extent on raising the growth rates of Total Factor Productivity (TFP). TFP is vital

because it reflects the increasing importance of knowledge, human capital, innovation

and investments in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the K-based

economy. The growth path will be achievable with the comprehensive and sustained

application of knowledge content into all economic activities and the knowledge


industries as well as significant advances in human capital. The contribution of TFP to

growth is expected to be high. In order to sustain the growth, it is imperative that

capital deepening continues, especially for ICT, as well as the raising of the

productivity of capital.

The Knowledge-based Economy Master Plan1 marks yet another

key initiative of the Government to further accelerate the

development of the nation into a knowledge-based economy as

well as in achieving the objectives of Vision 2020. The Master Plan

provides a strategic framework outlining the changes to the

fundamentals of the economy. It articulates a vision and mission

besides prescribing seven critical areas with a total of 136

recommendations that need to be addressed in moving forward to the knowledge-

based economy. It is noted that several recommendations of the Master Plan have

already been and continue to be addressed and implemented by the Government.

One of the factor which is critical to the development of a K-based economy that has

been highlighted in the Master Plan is the Economy, including the knowledge

workers; knowledge-based industries; knowledge-based services; tacit and codified

knowledge; knowledge embodied in work processes and products; e-commerce; high-

technology exports; venture capital; openness to foreign knowledge workers;

entrepreneurship; and risk-taking culture.

The National Information Technology Agenda (NITA) and the inception of the

Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) were the next big steps. NITA aimed to foster the

development of IT as a strategic enabler of dynamic economic growth. The MSC was

designed to be an engine of economic growth for the 21st century, and to become a “K-

based economy within an economy”. Both projects aimed to bring Malaysia into the

knowledge-intensive high technology era through a number of important

demonstrator and flagship applications.

Seven strategic thrusts have been proposed in the K-based Economy Master Plan to

realise the vision, accomplish the central mission, and propel the transition to a K-

based economy. In the Strategic Thrust Three - Ensure the incentives, infrastructure and

infostructure necessary to prosper the optimal and ever-increasing application of knowledge in

all sectors of the economy and to the flourishing of knowledge-enabling, knowledge-empowering

and knowledge-intensive industries can be the initial points that need to be focus for

deriving the implementation of Knowledge Management in JKR.

1 Economic Planning Unit, EPU (2002) Knowledge-Based Economy Master Plan, Prime’s Minister Department, Malaysia.


1.1 JKR Strategic Framework 2007-2010

"Our internal customers, who are our people, remain the most important

assets of JKR. The quality of our people will be the key determinant of JKR

future success. We will assist them plan career development, obtain right

competency, get the right job match and measure performance for

continuous improvement.............”

Dato’ Sri Prof. Ir. Dr. Judin Abdul Karim

(Director General of Public Works)

JKR Strategic Framework 2007-2010 has been introduced

which act as an important guide for implementing JKR

strategies towards achieving their Mission and Vision sets

forth. The strategies in the framework are selected in line

with the five thrusts of the JKR’s National Mission 2006-2020.

The National Mission (2006-2020) identified five thrusts with

specific programs to deliver the outcomes needed for the

achievement of National Vision 2020. In supporting the

implementation of JKR National Mission and the

achievement of JKR Vision, JKR has developed a Strategy

Map (refer Figure 1) aligned to the five thrusts that will guide JKR through the

journey. This Strategy Map assists JKR in:-

Articulating how JKR creates value for its stakeholders and summaries the

critical values we want to provide for them. This gives us good strategic focus;

Displaying key priorities and relationships between outcomes (the “what”) and

performance enablers or drivers (the “how”);

Shows how outcome leads to another, depicting the cause-effect relationship

between the four major perspectives of JKR’s performance;

Providing a clear view of “how I fit in” for sectors, branches, units, teams and

individuals. The Internal Process and Learning and Growth perspectives of the

map are the “enablers” for the other two perspectives, i.e. stakeholders and

customers;


Cascading the scorecard throughout JKR and clearly mapping the various units

and functions back to the JKR-wide map which is critical to the leveraging and

ensuring alignment. As we cascade the scorecard down the organisation, the

balanced scorecards link all the components together.

Figure 1: JKR’s Strategy Map


1.2 JKR ICT Strategic Plan 2007-2011

Recent JKR ICT Strategic Plan has been conducted with the

aims to provide a strategic direction for information

systems and guide the use of information and

communication technology to support the achievement of

Jabatan Kerja Raya’s (JKR) corporate goals. The

Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

Strategic Plan will provide a roadmap for the

implementation of future Information Technology at JKR.

Jabatan Kerja Raya (JKR) has a massive cache of data and

information that are usually generated during the project

implementation and maintenance of buildings and roads

nationwide. Some of the data and information are captured through the existing

systems and some are not. The data and information that are generated from day-to-

day activities throughout the years are the organization’s intellectual capital. It is very

important to properly manage this information correctly and efficiently so that it can

be shared among its employees for years to come. Knowledge Management (KM) has

been identified as one of the strategic applications that is required to be implemented

in JKR organization to properly manage its intellectual properties.

JKR’s ICT Strategic Plan has identified the requirements of KM to be implemented at

JKR which are:-

To facilitate capturing, maintaining and sharing of knowledge and experience

among JKR personnel and other parties;

Knowledge was often lost when people left the organisation (i.e. retirement,

reduction of personnel, transferred);

JKR involves in various projects with different level of complexities every year.

It is a major challenge of maintaining quality and standards across the business;

To inculcate a corporate culture of life-long learning. Knowledge in people is

vital and therefore ECKM will be able to nurture and harness brain power of

employees which is JKR precious assets;

The amount of time available to experience and acquire knowledge has

diminished;


To drive productivity and innovation;

To understand and serve customers better. The customer knowledge is the most

vital knowledge in most organisations;

JKR needs to manage intellectual capital as more and various projects become

increasingly complex. Knowledge in processes is important as JKR personnel

will be able to apply the best know-how while performing core tasks;

To catalyze the creation of cross-disciplinary and cross-functional knowledge

clusters across JKR teams and across organisations.

1.3 JKR ECKM Handbook

In order to gain and organise knowledge in ways that benefit

the entire organization, necessary to achieve the corporate

vision, JKR is embarking on the Enterprise Content and

Knowledge Management (ECKM) initiatives to implement

the practical aspects of knowledge management and

continuously evaluate how various information technologies

can be used to create a “knowledge management system,” a

set of technologies to enable knowledge management

processes.

The ECKM initiative will be in line with and supportive of

JKR vision to become a world class service provider and

centre of excellence in asset management, project management and engineering

services for the development of nation’s infrastructure through creative and innovative

human capital and state of the art technology. The mission of ECKM is to support JKR

overall vision and achieve the following:

Assure JKR as a competent and effective public service;

Build and leverage on intellectual capital to serve our external and internal

clients;

Develop capable JKR “knowledge workers” who contribute, generate and use

knowledge creatively and efficiently;


Develop communication infrastructure comprising knowledge repository

structures and network technology and KM-related IT capabilities;

Facilitate and promote effective policy development and monitoring in JKR;

Facilitate and promote a knowledge culture among our co-workers.

ECKM handbook has been presented as an early effort to give an overview of some

effective ways of planning and implementing ECKM in JKR. This handbook is

prepared to kick start the ECKM journey and serves to promote awareness and

understanding among JKR employees on:

The concepts of knowledge management;

JKR ECKM initiatives and its meaning;

What needs to be done to make this initiative a success for the benefit of

JKR and its stakeholders?

There are three fundamental work principles that have been proposed and needs to be

established in a knowledge-based organization. Such fundamentals can be

summarised as follow:-

1. There must be a champion - a leader - to push the idea of knowledge

management system as one of the requisite structures in the business

organization. The leader needs to ensure that the functions of the knowledge

management system are developed strategically to support the information

needs of the business.

2. A knowledge sharing culture must be institutionalized. Internal policies need to

be developed to encourage staff to contribute knowledge, access it, and further

develop the value of that knowledge using insights gained from our experience.

3. The ECKM initiative has to be synchronized within JKR’s strategic framework

outlined for 2007 - 2010 to achieve improvement and quality. In order to be

successful, ECKM must have system-wide perpetration. This would include

integration or sharing of data from various databases and department within

JKR, and even beyond; and collaboration and links to other significant external

and internal clients who play essential roles to JKR’s objectives. The ECKM

initiative also has to perform/work within the work processes of JKR and JKR

matrix system so that data can constantly be accessed, used, updated, and

“pushed” through the pipeline to other colleagues and partners.


The JKR’s ECKM Committee has outlined the expected deliverables as illustrated in

Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: ECKM Expected Deliverables

1.4 JKR’s ECKM Project Objective

The primary objective of this project is to develop and deliver a framework, roadmap,

policies and guidelines for Enterprise Content and Knowledge Management and

Taxonomy to be implemented in JKR.

In outlining the above objective and JKR’s ECKM Strategy and Roadmap, both cultural

and process issues will be addressed to help improve knowledge flows that can impact

JKR business process. The key is creating a valid linkage between knowledge needed

to perform a task and a specific performance measure. We will work closely with JKR

to define key metrics prior to the start of the project so that the outcomes are clear and

measurable. The steps in developing the ECKM strategy that will be covered as stated

in JKR’s ECKM Terms of Reference (TOR) is as follows:-

HIGH LEVEL JKR’s ECKM DEVELOPMENT PHASES


ECKM Business Objective Definition

Knowledge process needs across the organization are to be defined and

prioritized. The knowledge flows and lifecycles will be mapped to gain an

understanding of how JKR employees capture, organize and reapply

knowledge to solve business problems. A business case shall also be developed;

Tool and Technology Evaluation

Each class of collaboration, capture, access and reuse technology shall be

examined in light of the business objective and knowledge to be managed.

Using an iterative approach, KM processes and systems shall be designed to

support these specific objectives. Correct tools to be applied to each problem or

gap shall be identified. Workflow, document and content systems, real time

collaboration, virtual workspaces, discovery mechanisms, on-line learning

systems, portals and web applications shall be considered in the correct process

context;

Creation of the KM roadmap

The KM roadmap shall align business needs with new and existing technologies

along with techniques to encourage change management and organizational

adoption.

The expected deliverables from the above strategy are as follows:-

SCOPE DELIVERABLES

Development of JKR Strategic EC&KM Framework

i. ECKM Business Objective Definition; ii. Information Model;

iii. Tool and Technology Evaluation.

Design and Development of JKR Strategic Enterprise Taxonomy

i. Taxonomy roadmap and strategies; ii. JKR Taxonomy;

iii. Guidelines on use.

Development of JKR EC&KM Roadmap, Policies and Guidelines

i. Roadmap, Policies and Guidelines for JKR ECKM

ii. Training sessions, workshops and briefings.

Table 1: JKR’s ECKM TOR Expected Deliverables


1.5 The Establishment of JKR’s High Level ECKM Framework

The establishment of JKR’s ECKM High Level Framework was started in early October

2009 for an estimated 11 weeks duration. Due to the complexity of JKR itself as a

whole, the methodologies set earlier to fulfill the ECKM objective have been

reorganized and restructured in order to meet the timeframe and the deliverables set

forth.

Two workshops was held beforehand. The first workshop involved three days

duration which was organized for data/information gathering for three different

Sectors in JKR, i.e. Sektor Bisnes, Sektor Pengurusan and Sektor Pakar as shown in

Figure 3. The participants involved are from operational level of various Cawangan.

Other subsequent workshops have also been organized to gather the data/information

from other Cawangan which did not manage to attend.. The People-Process-

Technology Methodology was applied for this workshop and will be further

elaborated in detail in Chapter 4 of this report.

Figure 3: JKR’s Organization Chart


The second workshop was arranged to verify all the data/information which was

gathered during the first workshop. For this workshop, the participants are mostly

from the tactical medium level, i.e. J54 grade. During this workshop, the participants

are asked to verify in-directly all the data/information gathered for each respective

Sektor and are also asked to focus more or directly on the related/relevant

Cawangan/Unit in which they belonged. Nonako and Tekeuchi SECI Model

methodology was used for this verification and will be elaborated in detail in Chapter

4 of this report.

Figure 4: JKR’s ECKM Current Development Phases

Based on the workshops feedback, discussions and suggestions, we have outlined the

establishment of JKR’s ECKM High Level Framework into three Phases as shown in

Figure 4 above. Phase-1 will be focused more on the project methodology. Once all the

findings have been digested, JKR’s Taxonomy will be outlined whereby the Gap

Analysis together with Tools and Technology evaluation will be contributed to the

Phase-3 deliverables. At the end of this project, an Executive Briefing will be given to

the Strategic Management people within JKR to outline all the findings and the

proposed JKR ECKM Policies, Roadmap and Guidelines. A seminar/training will also

be proposed to a selected JKR staff (selected Knowledge Office, KO) to highlight all the

findings and the actions that need to be taken by their Cawangan/Units for the future

implementation of JKR Knowledge Management Portal.


2. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN JKR

"The only thing that gives an organization a competitive edge —

the only thing that is sustainable — is what it knows, how it uses

what it knows, and how fast it can know something new!”

Larry Prusak

In the early 1990’s Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT)

combined to provide a ‘fire hose’ effect of Data (D), a basic building block of

knowledge. Information Management (IM), as a concept, emerged to effectively cope

with the combination of IS, IT and D to give leverage to the emerging ‘learning

organisation’ model for schools, "where people continually expand their capacity to

create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are

nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually

learning how to learn together" (Senge, 1992).

However, IS + IT + D = IM does not automatically equal Knowledge Management

(KM), but it is a crucial forerunner and a primary enabler of KM practices. KM is more

than technology. The following sections will elaborate more on Knowledge and KM to

give more understanding on the subject before establishing the ECKM initiatives.

2.1 Type of Knowledge

In general, the following characteristics can be attributed to knowledge:

it is created dynamically (through changes to cognitive structures),

it is intrinsically linked to people, and

it is a prerequisite for human action.


Figure 5: Basic characteristics of knowledge

[Source: Wissensmanagement Forum, 2003]

One possible – and often useful – categorization of knowledge (Figure 6) is by:

knowledge psychology,

articulability, and

knowledge holder.

Figure 6: Types of Knowledge [Source: Wissensmanagement Forum, 2003]


Knowledge psychology differentiates between declarative and procedural knowledge.

Whilst declarative knowledge refers to facts (issues, processes, etc.) and objects

(persons, things, etc.), procedural knowledge concerns the way cognitive processes

and actions are performed. Declarative knowledge is also described as knowledge of

something (knowing), or "know what". Procedural knowledge is also described as

process knowledge, or "know-how".

Structuring knowledge according to articulability focuses on whether or not the

knowledge holder is consciously aware of the knowledge and can thus articulate it.

This results in a differentiation between explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit

knowledge is knowledge that is consciously understood and can be articulated. In

other words, it is knowledge the "knower" is aware of and can talk about. Tacit

knowledge, on the other hand, is knowledge the “knower” is not aware of. It can only

– if at all – be elicited, and thus articulated, with great effort and the use of special

observation or interview techniques.

A categorisation according to knowledge holder differentiates between individual and

collective knowledge. Individual knowledge is knowledge held by one person. It is not

dependent on a specific context and is controlled by the individual concerned.

Collective knowledge is knowledge that is relevant in a specific environment (e.g.

company, club). It can include individual knowledge that only reaches its full potential

when combined with that of others (e.g. an orchestral musician who plays better in a

group than as an individual). It can also include knowledge shared by everyone, i.e.

knowledge common to all members of a collective (e.g. everyone in the company

knows who to contact if they have a problem with their PC).

2.2 Knowledge Audit

So what is it that we want to know? The traditional dimensions of any news story are

"what?", "how?", "where?", "who?", "when", and "why?" John Zachman has pointed out

that these translate into the following:

Things of the business (What) – What are the things of significance to the

organization about which it wants to know something? What resources

(physical and intellectual) exist?

Processes (How) – What does the company do? What should it be doing? How

does it work?


Distribution and geography (where) – Where does the company do business?

How do people, materials, money, and information travel from place to place?

The organization (who) – What is the company’s organization? This whole

change in orientation towards knowledge management is having profound

effects on the organization. What does this mean?

Events, agents, responses (when) – What role does time play in the company’s

operations? What events cause things to happen? Who responds and in what

ways?

Motivation and Business rules (why) – What are the company’s objectives, and

how are they translated into business rules?

Figure 7: Knowledge Audit [JKR, 2009]

The company’s body of knowledge is composed of all of these, mixed together in

various ways. Some modeling techniques are available to address some of them, but

no model has yet completely captured them all. Clark (Clark, 2001) notes that

knowledge-based economies are heavily reliant on the production, distribution and

use of knowledge and information, all at a rapid rate. He distinguishes between

different types of knowledge, namely:

Know-what (referring to the accumulation of facts); this type of knowledge is

close to information.

Know-why (refers to scientific knowledge of the principles and laws of nature).

Know-how (skills and capability to do something; internal knowledge in

organization.

Know-who (who knows what, who knows who to do what); implies special

relationship.

The same author suggests that, while knowledge might be expensive to generate, there

is little cost to diffuse such knowledge. In addition, knowledge provides increasing


returns as it is used; the more it is used, the more valuable it becomes. Clark also

identifies key drivers of this new economy, including globalization, information

technology, distributed organizational structures including network-type

arrangements, and the growing knowledge intensity of goods and services.

Figure 8: Basic Model of Knowledge Management

[Source: Wissensmanagement Forum, 2003]

2.3 Knowledge Management

What is KM? Knowledge Management is the targeted coordination of "knowledge" as

a factor of production and the management of the organisational environment to

support individual knowledge transfer and the subsequent creation of collective

knowledge, two essential factors in the value creation process. Knowledge

management is therefore not the management of "knowledge" itself, but rather the

management of the organisation with a particular focus on "knowledge".

Here are some definitions that may help to shed some light on how KM is viewed by

industry as cited by Craig S. Mullins (1999):

"Knowledge management encompasses management strategies, methods,

and technology for leveraging intellectual capital and know-how to achieve

gains in human performance and competitiveness."


"Knowledge management is a discipline that promotes an integrated

approach to identifying, managing and sharing all of an enterprise’s

information assets. These information assets may includes databases,

documents, policies and procedures as well as previously unarticulated

expertise and experience resident in individual workers. Knowledge

management issues include developing, implementing and maintaining the

appropriate technical and organizational infrastructures to enable

knowledge sharing, and selecting specific contributing technologies and

vendors."

"Knowledge management can be defined as the harnessing of a company’s

collective expertise to the right people at the right time. It’s not a product

but a process – the process of gathering, managing, and sharing employee’s

knowledge capital."

"Knowledge management (KM) is a process that helps organizations find,

select, organize, disseminate, and transfer important information and

expertise necessary for activities such as problem solving, dynamic

learning, strategic planning and decision making."

Although each and every company’s

implementation will be unique, three

fundamental elements must be addressed

in any knowledge management program.

People and culture are the foundation of

every knowledge management initiative,

no matter how big or how small. A

culture focused on creating and sharing

knowledge, one that rewards

contributors and provides them with

incentives, is a prerequisite to effective

knowledge management. Knowledge

management initiatives must pay at least as much attention to deployment –

promoting, training, encouraging and supporting– as they do to the actual

development of the initiative itself.

In summary, KM is about cognition, the dynamics of communication and human

relations, behavioural science, organisational strategy, and the process of capturing the

collective knowledge of the organisation, analysing it and transforming it into a form

that is easily recognised and useable. It is about bringing people together to create an

Figure 9: Three Fundamental Elements of KM


environment, both culturally and technologically, which will enable knowledge

sharing. KM enterprises should emphasise People involvement rather than

Information Management involvement.

Knowledge management (KM) refers to a range of practices used by organizations to

identify, create, capture, and distribute knowledge for reuse, awareness, and learning

across the organization. KM programs are usually linked to organizational objectives

and are intended to lead to the achievement of specific outcomes, such as shared

intelligence, improved performance, competitive advantage, or higher levels of

innovation. The objective of KM is to make the best use of the knowledge assets

available to an organization, turning them into a powerful driver for competitiveness.

The rise of KM coincides with the emergence of the so-called knowledge-based

economy. In the new economic era, traditional production factors such as land and

capital are being replaced by the intangible asset of knowledge as the critical input for

corporate competitiveness.

Knowledge is regarded as the most important strategic resource, and the ability to

create and apply knowledge is a key skill for the establishment of a relatively

sustainable competitive advantage (Pentrose,1980). An expanding environment for

creating and managing knowledge recasts a wide range of policy issues, including

public investment priorities, program design, dissemination of research results,

technology transfer, and the form and scope of private controls on information and

knowledge. Tension arises from the fact that governments, universities, and private

companies operate in different ways and under different rules, yet there are

compelling reasons to encourage rapid movement of knowledge across sector and

institutional borders.

According to IDC (International Data Cooperation, Research Group) estimates,

approximately 3.2% of corporate knowledge is incorrect or becomes obsolete every

year. An estimated 4.5% of knowledge is lost or hidden due to employee turnover,

information mismanagement, and knowledge hoarding. While some of these are

cultural problems, others can be resolved by properly aligning content management

systems, information policies, and knowledge work.

"Corporations are beginning to realise that better knowledge management is a core

competency for survival in the information age," says IDC analyst Gerry Murray. "It's a

requirement for customer responsiveness, innovation and more efficient knowledge

workers". "Use of knowledge management should be a part of everyday life, through

online systems that will highlight to staff when information is available elsewhere.

Knowledge management should not be a separate activity but part of business life.


Colin Ives, director of integration at UK-based management consultancy CNS, believes

a phased deployment of knowledge management is a better approach.2

2.4 Knowledge Management in JKR

Initial Knowledge Audit has been conducted during the establishment of KM

Handbook. Some key challenges facing JKR as an organisation to achieve the general

goals of ECKM have been identified. These challenges are illustrated in Figure 10

below and the details are elaborated further.

Figure 10: Key Challenges for Implementing KM in JKR [Source: JKR, 2009]

Knowledge silos

JKR currently create and maintain knowledge in isolated systems or

“knowledge silos” that provide adequate functionality for a specific workgroup

or business process, but are often invisible to or unreachable by others in JKR.

Information contained in the knowledge silo is hidden or inaccessible to others

or units and even the corporate headquarters that may require precisely that

kind of knowledge.

2 Financial Times Survey, Knowledge Management/Corporate Culture, DEPLOYMENT: 'Big bang' approach is fraught with hidden problems, http://specials.ft.com/ln/ftsurveys/industry/sc70d2.htm (accessed on 12-Nov-2009)


Inconsistent Best Practices and Processes

While there is a desire to share knowledge, the underlying systems and policies

did not provide adequately for the sharing of best practices and the building of

consistent processes. Different JKR teams in different units often develop what

are termed “best practices” - processes and standards that are to be the target

for the work of their teams.

Brain drain

When a JKR employee leaves the organization, they take the majority of their

knowledge and all of their experience with them. Attrition is a major cause of

“brain drain” within corporations and is especially damaging for an

organization like JKR with its multiple departments and responsibilities. If a

JKR employee is expected to record what they know in a reusable format, there

is much less risk associated with that person’s departure.

Lack of Knowledge Sharing

Another truth is that valuable employees can become dissatisfied with their job

when they are not provided with the knowledge that they need to be successful.

This potentially demoralizes employees and places them into a position to

consider alternatives. Employers that provide employees with knowledge

sharing environments have an advantage over companies that don’t when it

comes to employee satisfaction and the evaluation of growth potential when

making their career plans.

No Access to Expertise

JKR has individuals that are invaluable because of their knowledge and the

experience from which they draw. These employees often work many extra

hours because their knowledge is so critical and they need to put in the extra

hours to get all of "their" work done. These employees are always expected to be

there when needed. Recording knowledge and making that knowledge

available through the ECKM portal 24/7 takes care of that problem.


Poor Knowledge Asset Management

Knowledge in someone’s head is not an asset until it is recorded. At the

moment, JKR while having some of these assets does not have a corporate

policy that ensures that these assets are captured, categorized and shared.

The following Chapter 3 will highlight the selected Successful Stories of KM

development which will guide the methodologies used in this study. Chapter 4 will

detail more on the Methodologies used in this project while Chapter 5 will explain the

development of the proposed JKR’s KM Taxonomy. Chapter 6 will explain on the gap

analysis of the workshop findings in order to determine the JKR’s KM patents before

the JKR’s ECKM framework can be proposed. All the related issues, factors and

challenges effecting the establishment of JKR’s ECKM will be considered as the Key

Success Factors (KSFs) towards the success of the establishment of JKR ECKM

Framework.

Chapter 7 will discuss and elaborated on the proposed JKR’s ECKM framework

including the proposed Roadmap, Policies and the Standard Guidelines. Chapter 8

will outline the proposed recommendations that need to be considered which are

based on the proposed Roadmap highlighted in Chapter 7. Finally, Chapter 9 will

conclude all the outcomes and lessons learned from this short study towards achieving

the success of JKR’s ECKM Framework and its implementation.


3. KM CASE STUDIES

“The cases fill the gap left by theory by amplifying the actions

necessary to make knowledge management a reality”

Pervaiz, Lim and Loh

This chapter presents case studies explaining actual applications of KM in different

organizational and global settings. Different subjects and issues associated with the

construction of KM system in different kinds of organizations are explored within each

section. Organizational learning (OL), knowledge, culture and productivity are some

of the issues tackled.

3.1 Successful KM Case Studies

Table 2 below listed selected KM Case Studies from various disciplines in which will

be used as our initial guideline to KM initiatives and Plan.

Companies Key Landmarks Outcome

British Airways

Fund a database of company contacts and expertise, e.g. a company ‘Yellow Pages’ project is widely agreed to be the most beneficial knowledge management starting point. Maintain a watchful eye for any other knowledge management developments outside the company and examine these for possible relevance to the company, e.g. the increasing trend toward intellectual capital measurement.

While the term ‘knowledge management’ is used to cover a wide range of approaches, behaviours and tools to support and encourage the use of knowledge, BA believes firmly that managing for knowledge will help it to achieve significant improvements in innovation, creativity, flexibility, speed to market, meeting customer needs and working effectively in a global business.



Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart systematically and rigorously deployed its technologies with clear focus on its core value proposition of lowest prices for mass consumers. With that singular focus, it went about setting up its supply chains and inventory management systems to accelerate business performance. Wal-Mart was perfecting its logistic prowess based on the hub-and-spoke model of truck routes and warehouses underlying its inventory management systems.

The technology that went into what Wal-Mart did was not brand new and not especially at the technological frontiers, but when it was combined with the firm’s managerial and organizational innovations, the impact was huge

Dell Computers

It perfected its business model over several years before accelerating its business performance with the aid of carefully selected technologies. It has cultivated outstanding relationships with its virtual supply chain partners including outsourcing providers (such as Solectron) and technology vendors (such as HP, Sony, and EMC).

Dell is able to leverage their research on product innovation while itself concentrating on perfecting the linkages with customers as well as suppliers. Dell’s early innovations in passionate pursuit for being the low cost ‘‘build on demand’’ leader for consumer computing products has yielded it the advantage of real time business performance. More recently, it has been able to accelerate the performance of its business model with the aid of carefully chosen technologies.

GE

GE’s CIO Gary Reiner tracks once every 15 minutes what he considers to be the few most critical variables including sales, daily order rates, inventory levels, and savings from automation across the company’s 13 worldwide businesses. He acknowledges that it is neither feasible nor desirable to track all kinds of information in real time even with the aid of digital dashboards. Most operational information is tracked on daily or weekly basis while other kinds of information is tracked on an exception-reporting basis.

The business model defined for maintaining quality standards has been extended to control costs by minimizing response time to problems affecting products purchased by its customers. The company claims operational savings of 35-60 percent in costs involved in customer response, customer service, and sales. Most of these savings are attributable more to management control rather than to technologies that are used to enforce pre-negotiated contracts on its buyers who deal with its various suppliers.



Cisco

The company prided itself about the RTE technologies that offered apparently seamless integration of real time data within and across its supply chain and customer ordering systems. The company had legendary faith in its technologies for predictive modelling and decision-making. Real-time access to data could not be of much help when, buoyed by its unparalleled growth over several quarters, Cisco made some fundamentally incorrect assumptions about the future.

As a result of misplaced faith in the power of the forecasting systems, Cisco ended up writing off $2.2 billion in inventories and sacking 8,500 employees. Cisco ignored a key lesson of KM that is often ignored by many others: the past may not be an accurate predictor of the future.

Enron

Enron’s Online primary business of exchanging and trading financial data, the real-time response model seemed like a match made in heaven. Enron planned to leverage its online exchange for facilitating direct real time instantaneous transactions in the online trading of energy market commodities. The company, sought out new technology wherever possible, and planned to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on technology infrastructure.

Unfounded and overly optimistic belief in technology as the means for generating profits despite an inadequate business model led to Enron’s downfall resulting in one of the largest corporate bankruptcies in US history. The management control and oversight vagaries of Enron’s management as well its insider- and self-dealings with fictitious entities are well documented in the records of the US Senate hearings as well as the public records of print and broadcast media.

World Bank

Building communities of practice in all their areas of expertise (with electronic support). This included people inside and outside the organization and enabled a much faster response to many of the requests they received. Making the resulting knowledge databases available as a resource to their clients – effectively giving them expertise on tap.

The World Bank has transformed itself from a lending organization for Third World development projects to a worldwide knowledge-rich business.



British Petroleum

Use of video to connect people with problems on oil rigs to the experts back at base, e.g. a machine which appears to be about to fail is video-taped. These can then be used as part of a video conference held with a expert. This not only regularly saves on lost time in drilling while waiting for an expert to be flown in, but also the knowledge is automatically collected.

British Petroleum is a leader in knowledge management and has some very simple messages such as ‘learn before, learn during, learn afterwards’.

Ford

Knowledge management in design and manufacture at Ford took a step forward with the Ford C3P programme which began in 1996. C3P is an acronym, the three Cs are computer-aided design, computer-aided manufacturing and computer-aided engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE). The P stands for product information management (PIM).

It is predicted that the entire worldwide Ford Corporation (including Ford’s suppliers) will be networked with C3P technology. What this means is that the Ford worldwide system will be connected through the system. There is a single repository of engineering and design information (located in Dearborn, USA) that is accessed via the Ford intranet.

Honda

Embodied in Honda’s operating principles are the goals ‘learn, think, analyse, evaluate and improve’ and ‘listen, ask and speak up’.

This leads to constant questioning of ideas, decisions and management, which is encouraged and even demanded of each employee. Design and development teams are deliberately staffed with engineers from peripheral disciplines who are unfamiliar with the core technology under development.

This is designed to ensure that problems will be approached from different and innovative perspectives, and that conventional wisdom will be challenged and tested.

Honda has built a dynamic technical culture on the idea that the company needs many technologists with deep technical expertise in a given area and who must also have direct knowledge of the fundamentals of Honda as a whole. Honda’s goal is to create a ‘T -shaped engineer’, where the vertical bar of the T represents an individual’s depth, and the horizontal bar represents his or her cross-functional as well as market-based knowledge.

Table 2: Selected Successful KM Case Studies


3.2 Conclusion on KM Case Studies

Based on the case studies regarding the success or failure of the Knowledge

Management initiative undertaken by front-running companies, we have found out a

set of measures that would assist JKR in ensuring that its own Knowledge

Management plan will bear fruition. Such measurements are outlined in Table 3

below.

Realistic Goals

Don’t inflate expectations. Many companies build up too much hype on the promise of Knowledge Management and the associated disappointment tend to reinforce skepticism and result in rejection. Setting realistic goals is a prerequisite for success and a good starting point for measuring progress.

Resource Planning

The technology and knowledge-management euphoria of the late 90s, produced many costly projects that were abandoned shortly after their launch. Many examples of failed knowledge-sharing efforts can be attributed to underestimating the need for ongoing content and technical management.

Recent experiences clearly demonstrate that outdated content and technical mishaps are major obstacles to user acceptance. Misleading information can also have an adverse impact on an organization’s ability to make informed decisions. Any intranet-planning effort, therefore, must carefully map out long-term resource needs for continued maintenance.

Promise of Technology

A significant number of companies failed in their Knowledge Management effort because too much emphasis is placed on what technology can achieve rather than on what users actually need. A more successful approach is to avoid guiding projects by promises of what technology alone can deliver. At every stage of the process, decision makers need to consider whether a new technology feature supports overall objectives, or is merely an option that could complicate the tool, distract users or result in serious technical-support issues.


Content and Functionality

Given the diversity of corporate environments and needs, there is no one-size-fits-all prescription for “the right” content and tools. One general rule, however, does apply: The more directly a knowledge-sharing tool is tied to user needs, the more likely it is to be widely used. A KM system purpose is to enhance existing processes, not to create a separate activity.

Knowledge-sharing initiatives should, therefore, start with a candid assessment of the tools employees may be lacking to improve their job performance, as opposed to preconceived notions of what would be nice to have. Guiding questions should be: Which information and tools are critical to JKR’s operating performance? What resources will help JKR staff perform their jobs more efficiently?

More is Not Always Better

Users are interested in finding — not searching for — the right information without delay. A good KM is therefore built on the premise of avoiding the frustrations of information overload whenever possible through a logical site structure, functional search engine and a content-management approach that values quality over quantity. More sophisticated sites feature virtual communities and collaborative tools, as well as business and financial tools that integrate the intranet into day-to-day work processes.

Keep It Simple

There are no solutions that work for everyone; however, there are solutions that work well for the vast majority of users in an organization. Case studies showed that KM tools implemented to satisfy small groups of users with highly specialized needs often fail. The added complexity can result in dissatisfaction among the user majority.

Systematic simplification and standardization — even “under-engineering” — of knowledge-sharing tools can be winning approaches. According to case studies findings, organizations whose KM tools have been strategically redesigned to deliver content in a simplified format have seen increases in usage of almost 100 percent.


Management Involvement

Knowledge-sharing initiatives require some level of senior management support. Existing good will from the top has to be nurtured, which can be accomplished by communicating progress and successes. Continuous management commitment and visible involvement is typically a prerequisite for driving a knowledge culture. Long-term success also requires middle-management support.

Findings showed that those who are in contact with and supervise employees on a daily basis ultimately have a much larger impact on work habits than the CEO or other senior leaders. A strong knowledge culture depends on informative communications, site improvements, and meaningful incentives that encourage employee involvement.

A People-Based Infrastructure

A reliable content-management system requires a people-based infrastructure with clearly assigned responsibilities. The exact design should be tailored to an organization’s structure, resources, and needs.

Many global companies have achieved excellent results with dedicated knowledge networks that serve as the foundation for their knowledge-management strategy. Participants can be selected from different levels and departments and across markets and regions. Although they typically do not have to provide full-time support, their role should be clearly defined within their overall job description. They further the development and sharing of knowledge and its application to client services and company initiatives. Their responsibilities include:

Providing local information, research, and knowledge from around the world.

Beta testing new tools and features.

Delivering hands-on assistance and training to employees in local languages.

Offering feedback on intranet content, other knowledge management initiatives, and cultural differences that enhance the tool’s effectiveness.


Collaboration and Communities

To achieve maximum impact in today’s business environment, a KM system need to go beyond being depositories of static information. It needs to enhance teamwork and knowledge sharing by enabling the creation of team suites, location-independent shared spaces, and real-time collaborative tools.

There is a strong need to provide dynamic platforms where employees can share thoughts and insights, and collaborate in “communities of practice” — loosely organized groups of professionals within an organization who are dedicated to a specific interest or expertise.

Communities of practice can significantly improve employees’ ability to solve problems quickly, transfer best practices, and discover fast solutions and strategies that lead to business opportunities.

Employee Communications

Knowledge management needs to be actively marketed within an organization by clearly articulating its goals, key features, and value. However, ongoing post-launch communications are at least as important as the communications for the initial rollout. Regular updates that highlight new content and features are necessary to keep the site top-of mind. Systematically prompting employee feedback — through surveys and built-in response mechanisms — assists in refining the site and gauging employee support.

One strategy to position a KM system is at the heart of the organization to use it as the platform of choice for internal communications on topics such as business development, key messages from senior management, and updates on company initiatives.

In many organizations, targeting communications about new knowledge-management solutions to specific internal audiences has been an effective strategy. Every organization has informal knowledge brokers, thought leaders and teams that are highly motivated to test and champion new approaches. These groups have to be convinced of the offering’s importance and value in order to become internal marketers.

Considering the growing evidence for unsuccessful organizational knowledge-management efforts, it is important to emphasize once again that knowledge-management communications must be realistic and candid. Overstated claims create a disconnect between wishful thinking and organizational realities, and can result in a lack of trust and usage erosion.


Coping with Change

Knowledge-management tools are evolving resources that should easily adapt to an organization’s changing business environment. For example, KM can be an especially invaluable asset during a crisis situation by providing employees with up-to-the minute information and leadership messages.

When a large U.S. company filed for bankruptcy protection, it developed an employee Web site that enabled the company to quickly and effectively convey key messages and increase its dialogue with internal audiences. The company emerged from the crisis stronger than ever, with employees demonstrating new levels of confidence and trust.

An effective knowledge-sharing system improves productivity, supports a culture of teamwork, facilitates learning through the sharing of best practices and provides easy access to information. This may be straightforward in theory, but making it work is the challenge. Perhaps surprisingly, the main stumbling blocks on the road to success are often not technology-related, but can be found in the areas of communications and change management.

Table 3: Measurements for KM Plan

The success of any KM initiative in any given corporation lies in its own workforce

functioning as a collective working group and firm establishment of its management

policy covering the corporation’s vision, mission, and growth objectives, all embedded

as part of its corporate culture. These fundamental traits are further enhanced with

sound implementation of a KM system but only when the system is designed and

customized to suit the corporation needs and behavior. Thus, the ideal KM effort

reflects total understanding of characteristics and the dynamics that goes into a

corporation and it must strike a right balance between People, Process and

Technology.


4. INITIAL DEVELOPMENT OF JKR ECKM PROJECT

“This knowledge initiative is not a culture change project. It’s just

that our culture is in the way of what we want to do, so we’ve got

to change the culture”

David DeLong

4.1 People-Process-Technology

Based on actual experiences of the leading global KM case studies, the components for

KM can be broadly categorized into three classes - People, Processes, and Technology

as shown in Figure 11. While all three are critical to build a learning organisation and

get business results from KM, a majority of organisations worldwide implementing

KM have found it relatively easier to put technology and processes in place, whereas

the "people" component has posed greater challenges.

Figure 11: Components of Knowledge Management

The soft and hard elements of People, Process and Technology reflect the most

important factors involved in capturing, disseminating and sharing knowledge. All


three elements need to be balanced to ensure that the full benefits of knowledge

sharing are exploited. To consider only people and process and neglect technology will

fail to capitalise on IT which enhances the sharing of explicit knowledge and makes it

more widely available. To focus only on process and technology without people could

lead to a resistance to make any change. Finally, to focus only on people and

technology without process runs the risk that the past will become automated.

4.1.1 People and Process

The soft aspect of knowledge is People and Processes. The role of people in knowledge

management is one of the most important and complex elements to work with. The

behaviour of people is often influenced by their beliefs, different values and attitudes,

as well as the organisation culture of the environment in which they work. Influencing

what people believe should lead to changes in values, attitudes and ultimately the way

in which knowledge is shared - behaviour. Trying to get people to do things

differently is not so straight forward because people can easily fall back on defensive

routines (Argyris, 1990). In a recent study Hwang (2003) believes that unlearning is

often as difficult as learning, if not more. To get people to change the way that they do

things will also require a level of willingness from the individual. People need to feel

valued, that they belong in a community and that their involvement is challenging and

rewarding (Goffee and Jones, 2001).

People are the most critical factor in knowledge management. People create

knowledge, share knowledge, learn, and use knowledge to complete the tasks of the

Enterprise. KM systems should be an enabler to the people, missions, and processes

within the Enterprise, rather than an initiative that levies more requirements and work

upon the projects.

The process for managing knowledge resources is really a combination of the way in

which people work and the lifecycle of information (remember that people +

information = action). Business processes are the activities and tasks that we do each

day at work. The way people perform processes will have an impact on customer

satisfaction and the difference an individual can make to their organisation. In essence

they can affect the way information and knowledge is shared around the organisation.

Knowledge sharing can yield direct customer value (Probst et al, 2001). In Engineering,

standard processes such as, Winning, Design, Build and Review are used by the

industry. The challenge is how to embed knowledge sharing practices within these

stages. Projects teams are often temporary and disband at the end of a project before


there is time to reflect and capture new information and knowledge. Thereby, new

project team members need to undergo the learning cycle again (Sommerville and

Dalziel, 1998).

4.1.2 Technology

The hard aspect of knowledge is the Technology. Technologies capture, store and

distribute structured knowledge for use by people. According to Ruggles (1997)

knowledge management systems are broadly defined technologies which enhance and

enable knowledge generation, codification and transfer.

Technology is a great enabler of knowledge sharing, however, it is the value added by

people in organisation in terms of experience and interpretation that transforms

information into knowledge. Technology drives change and raises awareness about

knowledge sharing. KM tools such as: email; document systems; groupware; the

internet; intranet and video conferencing are all knowledge collaboration tools which

have been used by organisation for many years.

4.1.3 The Challenge in KM

The biggest challenge in KM is to ensure participation by the people or employees in

the knowledge sharing, collaboration and re-use to achieve business results. In many

organisations, this requires changing traditional mindsets and organisational culture

from "knowledge-hoarding" (to keep hidden or private) to "knowledge-sharing" (share

among team members) and creating an atmosphere of trust. This is achieved through a

combination of motivation / recognition and rewards, re-alignment of performance

appraisal systems, and other measurement systems. A key to success in Knowledge

Management is to provide people visibility, recognition and credit as "experts" in their

respective areas of specialization - while leveraging their expertise for business

success.

Traditional IT systems and applications have tended to be “vertical” delivering

information to specific sub groups within an organisation. This has created problems

for project centric organisations in that basic information has to be replicated many

times across the company by different systems in different business areas. The result is

duplication of effort and loss of data integrity. Enterprise portals operate ‘horizontally’


across the whole organisation, offering all-encompassing technology (networks,

applications and databases) which is designed to leverage organisations existing

investment in IT infrastructure.

4.2 People-Process-Technology of JKR’s ECKM Framework

One of the lessons learned from Arup Consulting Company which having an

appropriate balance of People, Process and Technology aligned with organisational

strategy is the key to success in Knowledge Management. With 71 offices in 32

countries and a staff of more than 6,500, Arup is recognised as a benchmark company

for Knowledge Management (KM) within the construction industry. The company’s

KM strategy, linked with the people-oriented philosophy of the firm’s founder, Ove

Arup, is to capture knowledge, promote knowledge-exchange networks and

encourage life-long learning (Constructing Excellence, 2004).

The lessons learned above are the examples of successful implementation of KM by

putting People-Process-Technology Methodology in a balance. In-line with the JKR’s

inspiration to embark on a formal ECKM and to become a world-class service provider

and centre of excellence, a similar methodology has been applied in this project by

putting People, Process and Technology at the first place of data/information

gathering.

People, Process and Technology matrix have been developed and used during the first

workshop. The following sections will elaborate further on the matrix used.

4.2.1 People Matrix

The ‘People’ component represents the single biggest variable among all other

components in the selected ‘People-Process-Technology’ methodology for the purpose

of this ECKM preliminary data gathering exercise. With ‘Process’ and ‘Technology’

being more of a ‘container’ by nature, ‘People’ on the other hand possesses much more

dynamic characteristics in playing the catalytic role of consuming, digesting and

producing knowledge from different sources of raw data, assembled information and

even existing knowledge in both tacit and explicit forms. Only when the ‘People’

component exists in an equation, that knowledge would be able to be produced and

renewed in a continuous cycle.


As one of the primary objectives of the preliminary data gathering exercise is to

generally identify the existence, sources, types, conditions and flow of knowledge in

regard to the three said components, hence it is critical to firstly understand the

characteristics and parameters that govern each components, especially one that is as

dynamic as the ‘People’ component.

People matrix in Figure 12 below has been used for “People” data/information

gathering. Details of each People matrix are shown in a separate volume of the report.

Figure 12: Part of People Matrix

In achieving the above, the ‘People’ matrix can be segregated into 2-types of columns,

namely (as shown in Table 4);


Parameter Descriptions

Critical Column

a. Domain knowledge

b. Knowledge sharing

c. Knowledge update

a. Describes a set of primary knowledge/specialization/expertise that defines the role of respective entities

b. Identification of source and practice of Knowledge Sharing that might exist in the

respective entities

c. How knowledge is being manipulated based on what is gained via sharing and personal experience

Non-Critical Column

a. User

b. Description

c. Work scope

d. Competency/training

e. Client base

f. Peer base

g. System

h. Non-system based tools/methodologies

i. Offline data records

a. Lists the various relevant entities (branches, divisions, units, etc.) to enable the proper identification of domain knowledge holders in the knowledge map

b. A brief overview on the roles and responsibilities of the respective entities

c. Describes day to day functions and activities that are being carried out by the respective entities

d. Specific supplemental development activities that directly enhances the skill sets of individuals within the respective entities

e. Types of clientele that interact with the respective entities

f. List of peer groups that interact with the respective entities

g. Name of existing systems (developed within JKR) that contribute towards achieving goals for the respective entities

h. Describes alternative inputs/gathering/ acquisition of information

i. List of alternative format of data storage

Table 4: Critical and Non-Critical Column for People Matrix

Critical column; contributes active indicators in identifying multiple parameters (i.e.

knowledge source, knowledge form, knowledge practice) for understanding ‘the big

picture’.


Non-critical column; contributes passive indicators towards understanding the ‘big

picture’.

Detailed descriptions of each parameter used are elaborated in Table 4 above.

Both the critical and non-critical columns are designed specifically for the purpose of

capturing and identifying ‘leads’ or ‘indicators’ that would point towards the

existence, sources, types, conditions and flow of knowledge in the context of ‘People’,

which in this case is being interpreted at the ‘Cawangan’ level of JKR.

Both the critical and non-critical columns are being sub-grouped further for the

purpose of simplifying pattern analysis which will be carried out after the end of the

preliminary data gathering exercise. The result of the analysis will be treated as the

basic set of indicators that would determine all other output from here onwards.

The sub-groupings together with their justifications are as follows in Table 5:

Sub-group Header Columns Justification

Identity & functionality ‘User’, ‘Description’, ‘Domain

knowledge’, ‘Workscope’

To establish the primary role

and functions of a specific

branch. Input from this

grouping will help identify

the position and weightage of

the said Cawangan in the

whole JKR ecosystem

Knowledge ‘follow-through’

rate

‘Competency/Training’,

‘Knowledge sharing’,

‘Knowledge update’

To establish the presence,

frequency and settings of

knowledge flow. Input from

this grouping will provide

general understanding of

knowledge interactive

dynamics within each

Cawangan of JKR.

Supporting entities (I) ‘Client base’, ‘Peer base’

To identify the surrounding

interactions with other

entities (human). Input from

this grouping will help chart

the interactivity between

humanistic entities.


Sub-group Header Columns Justification

Supporting entities (II)

‘System’, ‘Non-system based

tools/methodologies’,

‘Offline data records’

To identify the surrounding

interactions with other

entities (non-human). Input

from this grouping will help

chart the interactivity

between systemic entities.

Table 5: Sub-Group for People Matrix

4.2.2 Process Matrix

Processes generally include Inputs, Throughputs, and Output. Process mapping

analyses the resources required and work content (Input), the activities performed on

the work (Throughputs), and the outcome (Output). Processes can involve complex

parallel activities interconnected and dependant on tasks being completed

satisfactorily. Processes evolve as organizations grow or it’s operating environment

changes. To address growth or environmental changes many organisations use quick-

fix solutions to maintain desired Throughput or levels of Output, such as increase

labour resources (Input). Process mapping can assist in improving or modifying the

processes to achieve the desired results.

Process Mapping and Process Flow Charting incorporate techniques that provide a

visual representation of procedures and assist in providing a better understanding of

how processes are organized and performed. Process Mapping has many benefits such

as:-

It can identify and eliminate inefficiencies in the way a process is organized and

performed;

It can highlight departments and specialists needed to complete key tasks and

activities, such as decision marking, preparing forms, filing, and retrieving

information;

It can clarify responsibility ownership for a process or work performed during

the process;

It is a holistic approach that helps explore the inter-relationships of processes;


It helps employees understand how their work adds value and instills

additional pride in their work;

It focuses on the end customer, and how the customers view the organization.

Every task at hand undergone by JKR staff is initiated by a process and is consequently

followed by another until each respective task is completed and/or decommissioned.

Sometimes the process can be repeated for a different set of tasks. And most often than

not the process can be preceded or succeeded by another depending on the

circumstances. For instance, in the scope of operational process, after the handover, the

process can be pushed back to the construction level if the end-product is determined

as not completed 100% or has defects. Ultimately, it can be safe to say, that permitting

no policy overhaul or significant changes, the process will stay the same. So by this

characteristic, process can be defined as the common denominator for all 3 key

foundation areas, (People, Process and Technology). It determines the specific task and

work-steps for each respective entity to co-relate.

Figure 13: Part of Process Matrix

Based on the Process Matrix, there are six columns as shown in Figure 13 above with

their respective functions as listed Table 6 below.


Column Descriptions

Process

Details out all processes and procedures that are involved from both operational and management perspectives. The key procedures will have sub-processes that further define the sequence from initiation to completion of said procedures

Input To single out what are the key elements for a process to materialize. It can be specific guidelines or forms and could also be an output from a preceding process

Controller Identify key authority figures that give consent for each respective process to be administered. It can also be indicative of a common Chain of Command

Mechanism Shows every tools, forms and applications that are used to facilitate the process

Output Shows the end-product of a process, whether in the form of a physical element (buildings, roads etc.) or a standard/policy

Relationship with other Process

Show the respective links between each and every processes and the lack there of

Table 6: Description of Process Matrix

The Process matrix is derived from processes detailed out in the JKR Sistem

Pengurusan Kualiti (SPK). There are six key procedures in the Operational Process

Matrix which are:

1. Prosedur Perancangan Pelaksanaan Projek

2. Prosedur Perolehan Kerja

3. Prosedur Pentadbiran Kontrak

4. Prosedur Rekabentuk

5. Prosedur Pembinaan dan Penyeliaan Tapak Kerja

6. Prosedur Penyerahan dan Pos Penyerahan Projek

All the processes stated above are used throughout the Process Matrix for all Sectors

involved within JKR.


4.2.3 Technology Matrix

The technology and infrastructure matrix has been developed and used whereby it

acts as the enablers that help people harness the maximum out of the KM initiative

through technologies.

Figure 14: Part of Technology Matrix

The technology in JKR has been grouped into 4 main areas based on JKR’s ICT

Framework Volume III as Enterprise, CADD & Analysis, E-Government and Branch


Centric. Figure 14 above shows part of Technology Matrix used. Details of each

Technology matrix are shown in a separate volume of the report.

Table 7 below explain details of each column used for data/information gathering in

Technology Matrix.

Application System

Function Information/

Data Users

Knowledge (Share)

Contact Person

Name of the

system

Detailed description about the system

Information

captured in

the system.

This

information is

crucial

because this is

the lowest

subset that

designed to

share with

other people.

System's user

that interact

with the

system

Information

that have been

used,

transformed

or transfered

to other party

within the

organisation

Cawangan/Unit

expert contact

for that specific

knowledge of

the system used

Table 7: Description of Technology Matrix

There are about 48 applications which have been listed in the matrix that are extracted

from JKR’s ICT Strategic Plan, Vol. III. However, the user are requested to fill-in other

new applications used by their Cawangan/Unit that are not listed in the matrix.

It is expected that by capturing the occurances of the application in each process and

other Cawangan/Unit, a pattern will indicate the importance of the system used. It is

also expected that it will lead to the classification of information captured in the

system.


4.3 Pre-JKR’s Knowledge Audit

The pre-knowledge audit exercise was carried out with the objective to identify the

presence of knowledge related precursors that would be critical in establishing a firm

direction for any Knowledge Management initiative. It is a systematic examination and

evaluation of organizational knowledge health, which examines JKR’s existing

knowledge assets/resources, knowledge types and conditions, and elements of

knowledge flow. The precursors are captured based on the three key foundation areas

(KFAs) namely ‘People’, ‘Process’ and ‘Technology’ as shown in Table 8 below.

Key Foundation Areas (KFAs)

Findings

People

As described in the earlier part of this report, the parameters that made up the ‘People’ matrix were divided into ‘Identity & Functionality’, ‘Knowledge follow-through’ and ‘Supporting entities’. The input given by the participants clearly shows that they are clear and conscious about their role, responsibilities and their position within the whole of JKR in the context of their domain functionalities and expertise. There were also plenty of evidence that indicate continuous and significant flow of information and knowledge via various shared space of engagement taking place at all levels within JKR. In fact, apart from the various meeting sessions, special initiated sessions such as ‘Brown Bag sessions’ and ‘Morning Sessions’ were quite commonly mentioned by the participants, thus proving that the foundation needed for Knowledge Management in the form of knowledge sharing sessions has already been taking shape. The participants also provided several instances of ‘output’ that they had created and implemented as a direct result of the knowledge sharing sessions. In their input they gave an ample list of peers, clients and tools that they interacted with throughout their daily work cycle, covering a wide network of people and systems from within JKR and also external parties.

Process

The inputs that were recorded from the participants on the given parameters for the six quality management-centric processes qualifies as knowledge related precursors and were all in-line with standard operational guideline. It is safe to say that each process played a significant function in providing a platform and becoming active conduits that connects, hosts and promote knowledge transfers among the various forms of knowledge sources and its relevant components.


Key Foundation Areas (KFAs)

Findings

Technology

The various types of computer applications developed for use at different level of the organization also provided a conduit-like function in connecting, hosting and promoting knowledge transfer within the different branches within JKR all the way up to enterprise-wide utilization. Thus, the input derived from the data gathering exercise highly support the fact that knowledge related precursors exist as a result from JKR’s own technology implementations.

Table 8: Key Foundation Areas (KFAs) - People, Process and Technology

4.4 Knowledge Management Assets and Processes

Typically, there are six knowledge assets in an organisation (Marr, 2003), namely:

1. Stakeholder relationships: includes licensing agreements; partnering

agreements, contracts and distribution agreements;

2. Human resources: skills, competence, commitment, motivation and loyalty of

employees;

3. Physical infrastructure: office layout and information and communication

technology such as databases, e-mail and intranets;

4. Culture: organisational values, employee networking and management

philosophy;

5. Practices and routines: formal or informal process manuals with rules and

procedures and tacit rules, often refers to “the way things are done around

here”;

6. Intellectual Property: patents, copyrights, trademarks, brands, registered design

and trade secrets.

Knowledge management processes maximize the value of knowledge assets through

collaboration, discussions, and knowledge sharing. It also gives value to people’s

contribution through awards and recognitions. Process includes generation,

codification (making tacit knowledge explicit in the form of databases, rules and


procedures), application, storing, mapping, sharing and transfer. Together these

processes can be used to manage and grow an organisation’s intellectual capital.

Knowledge processes are those intended to (a) produce knowledge, (b) acquire

knowledge, and (c) transmit knowledge. Knowledge processes support other business

processes by providing knowledge needed by agents to perform acts. Knowledge

management attempts to bring together technology-based repositories of codified

information (the "supply-side" view) and knowledge-enabling environments, or

learning organizations (the "demand-side" view) (McElroy, 1998).

4.5 Knowledge Creation Process

“Knowledge creation is at the heart of innovation and developing a

competitive advantage, and it is a key concern for managers in the

business world”

Bettina Bűchell

Knowledge flows comprise the set of processes, events and activities through which

data, information, knowledge and meta-knowledge are transformed from one state to

another. To simplify the analysis of knowledge flows, the framework described here is

based primarily on the General Knowledge Model. The model organizes knowledge

flows into four primary activity areas: knowledge creation, retention, transfer and

utilization (Figure 11) (Conrad and Newman, 2000)

Figure 15: The General Knowledge Model


Knowledge Creation. This comprises activities associated with the entry of new

knowledge into the system, and includes knowledge development, discovery and

capture.

Knowledge Retention. This includes all activities that preserve knowledge and allow it

to remain in the system once introduced. It also includes those activities that maintain

the viability of knowledge within the system.

Knowledge Transfer. This refers to activities associated with the flow of knowledge

from one party to another. This includes communication, translation, conversion,

filtering and rendering.

Knowledge Utilization. This includes the activities and events connected with the

application of knowledge to business processes.

The General Knowledge Model sequences the activity areas in a deterministic fashion.

The model is valuable precisely because it relates the individual, highly dynamic

behaviours and processes to general activity areas and, by association, to each other.

Various theories of learning, problem solving and cognition may imply specific

activity patterns, but they are usually not required to organize the key relationships

and dependencies among the activity areas. The model allows analysts to trace

individual knowledge flows by helping them to examine and understand how

knowledge enables specific actions and decisions.

4.5.1 Explicit and Tacit Knowledge

Data are facts, and information is interpreted data. Knowledge is created and

organized by flows of information, shaped by their holder. It is explicit or tacit. Polanyi

(Polanyi, 1966) makes the distinction between explicit (codified) knowledge and tacit

(personal) knowledge. Polanyi understood tacit knowledge to mean “committed

belief”, embedded in context and difficult to express, sometimes inexpressible.


Figure 16: The “Iceberg” Metaphor between Explicit & Tacit Knowledge

The distinction between explicit and tacit knowledge provides a basis for

understanding the different roles that computer-systems and human-systems will play

in support of the Knowledge Management process.

Concepts of "explicit" and "tacit" knowledge are meant to get at the fact that

knowledge is a deeply rooted human process that lives within the private world of the

individual and cannot simply be reduced to information processing and software

automation. At the same time, the human process lives in the public domain of

communication and language, culture and representation that generates knowledge

artifacts. These artifacts can be powerfully enhanced through software automation.

Explicit knowledge can be recorded digitally in documents, records, patents and other

intellectual property artifacts. Explicit knowledge is representational and can live and

be manipulated within the digital domain. Converting data-to-information and

information-to-knowledge describes a value continuum of explicit knowledge. The

tools and business processes of KM are intended to enhance this continuum of value.

Tacit knowledge is made up of best practices, experience, wisdom and unrecordable

intellectual property that live within individuals and teams. Since tacit knowledge

exists within minds, it cannot be reduced to the digital domain as a material asset, or

be manipulated directly. However, it expresses in the social realm as the response

ability of individuals (productivity, innovation and initiative), and teamwork

(communication, coordination and collaboration).


Explicit Knowledge

Knowledge that is codified and conveyed to others through dialog, demonstration, or media such as books, drawings, and documents.

Tacit Knowledge

Deeply personal experience, aptitudes, perceptions, insights, and know-how that are implied or indicated but not actually expressed — it resides in individuals & teams.

Knowledge Artifacts

An artifact is something created for a practical purpose. In a work environment, a knowledge artifact might be a document, a process, audio-video, a body of source code for software program, an engineering schematic, or a template for a proposal, among other things. Document mgt. systems, content mgt. systems and knowledge-bases are typical structures for managing knowledge artifacts.

Intellectual Capital

Intangibles such as information, knowledge, and skills that can be leveraged by an organization to produce an asset of equal or greater importance than land, labor and capital.

Table 9: Classification of Knowledge

Both explicit and tacit knowledge are extremely valuable to any enterprise. Therefore,

KM focuses on business processes related to both. Since explicit knowledge can be

rendered into digital artifacts that can be communicated, stored and retrieved, a

superficial view is that KM is only concerned about software automation which

facilitates explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge can, however, be addressed by

software in the following ways:

Pointing to the people who hold knowledge

Supporting and catalyzing collaborative processes of exchanging knowledge

Helping convert a portion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge represents an immense asset of value within an enterprise. There are

times that the loss of only a few key people "walking out the door" with their essential

knowledge and skills can put at risk the net worth of an entire organization. In the

early stage development of an enterprise, key individuals' tacit knowledge embodies

the vision and mission, as well as the core competencies. Their loss can put at risk the

viability or survivability of the corporation. One of the thrusts of KM is to protect and


enhance these valuable assets by creating infrastructure and a culture of knowledge

sharing.

4.5.2 Type Dimension of Knowledge

The type dimension is the most important for knowledge management in a company.

It categorizes knowledge according to its presence and availability. Is it only available

or the owning human being, or can it be communicated, applied or transferred to the

outside, or is it externally available in the company’s organisational memory, detached

from the individual human being?

The conception for the type dimension of knowledge follows a distinction between the

internal and external knowledge types, seen from the perspective of the human being.

As third and intermediary type, explicit knowledge is seen as an interface for human

interaction and for the purpose of knowledge externalisation, the latter one ending up

in external knowledge. Internal (or implicit) knowledge is bound to the human being.

It is all that, what a person has “in its brain” due to experience, history, activities and

learning. Explicit knowledge is “made explicit” to the outside world e.g. through

spoken language, but is still bound to the human being. External knowledge finally is

detached from the human being and may be kept in appropriate storage media as part

of the organisational memory. Figure 17 depicts the different knowledge types.

Figure 17: Conception of Knowledge Types


Internal knowledge can be further divided into tacit, latent and conscious knowledge,

where those subtypes do partly overlap with each other. Conscious knowledge is

conscious and intentional, is cognitively available and may be made explicit easily.

Latent knowledge has been typically learning as a by-product and is not available

consciously. It may be made explicit, for example in situations, which are similar to the

original learning situation, however. Tacit knowledge is built up through experiences

and (cultural) socialisation situations, is specific in its context and based on intuition

and perception.

4.5.3 Knowledge Conversions

Five basic knowledge conversions (in the type dimension) are distinguished here:

Socialisation, explicitation, externalisation, internalisation and combination. Basic

conversion means, that exactly one source knowledge asset is converted into exactly

one destination knowledge asset. More complex conversions may be easily gained by

building on this set as described later in this section.

Socialisation converts tacit knowledge of a person into tacit knowledge of another

person. For example, this succeeds by exchange of experience or in a learning-by-

doing situation under supervision of an experienced person. Explicitation is the

internal process of a person, to make internal knowledge of the latent or conscious

type explicit, e.g. by articulation and formulation (in the conscious knowledge type

case) or by using metaphors, analogies and models (in the latent type case).

Externalisation is a conversion from explicit knowledge to external knowledge or

information and leads to detached knowledge as seen from the perspective of the

human being, which can be kept in organisational memory systems. Internalisation

converts either external or explicit knowledge into internal knowledge of the conscious

or latent types. It leads to an integration of experiences and competences in your own

mental model. Finally, combination combines existing explicit or external knowledge

in new forms. These five basic knowledge conversions are shown in Figure 18 below.


Figure 18: Knowledge conversions in the type dimension

4.6 Nonaka & Takeuchi SECI MODEL

“Companies should be knowledge-creating, trying to generate new

knowledge well ahead of competitors. After new knowledge has been

created within a company, this knowledge has to be shared among

organizational members across regions, businesses, and functions”

Nonaka and Takeuchi

While the western emphasized on explicit knowledge, the Japanese believe that the

whole idea about knowledge management is whether we can convert tacit knowledge

to explicit knowledge. To increase the competitive advantage of companies, it is

important to encourage innovation among staff. In 1995, Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka

Takeuchi, in their book The Knowledge Creating Company: How Japanese Companies

Create the Dynamics of Innovation presented the following model of how tacit and

explicit knowledge interact in the knowledge creation process.


Figure 19: Nonaka & Takeuchi Knowledge Creation SECI Model

Referring to the seminal work by Polanyi, Nonaka expanded on explicit and tacit

knowledge in great detail – according to him explicit knowledge is documented and is

made public, structured and can be structured and shared through information

technology and other means; while tacit knowledge resides in people’s minds,

behaviour and perception and evolves from social interactions (Nonaka, 1991). In

constructing his model, Nonaka identified four patterns for knowledge conversion in

the business, namely:-

1. From tacit to tacit – through social interactions and shared experiences, e.g.

apprenticeship and mentoring;

2. From explicit to explicit – through the combination of various explicit

knowledge forms, e.g. merging, categorizing and synthesizing;

3. From tacit to explicit – through externalization, e.g. articulation of best

practices;

4. From explicit to tacit – creation of new knowledge from explicit knowledge

through internationalization, e.g. learning.


An organization creates knowledge through the interactions between explicit

knowledge and tacit knowledge. This interaction between the two types of knowledge

is called "knowledge conversion", through which both tacit and explicit knowledge

expands in both quality and quantity. The four modes of knowledge conversion are:

(1) socialization (from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge); (2) externalization (from

tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge); (3) combination (from explicit knowledge to

explicit knowledge); and (4) internalization (from explicit knowledge to tacit

knowledge). Prof. Nonaka states that Socialization is the process of converting new

tacit knowledge through shared experiences, e.g. through spending time together,

through apprenticeship, in informal social meetings outside the workplace, or beyond

organizational boundaries, as often firms often acquire and take advantage of the tacit

knowledge embedded in customers or suppliers by interacting with them.

Externalization is the process of articulating tacit knowledge as explicit knowledge,

thus allowing it to be shared by others, and it becomes the basis of new knowledge.

Combination is the process of converting explicit knowledge into more complex and

systematic set of explicit knowledge so as to create new knowledge. Through

Internalization, explicit knowledge created is shared throughout an organization and

converted into tacit knowledge by individuals. Internalization is closely related to

"learning by doing." Knowledge creation is a continuous process of dynamic

interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge. Organizational knowledge creation

is a never-ending process that upgrades itself continuously.


Socialization:

From tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge

The direct conveyance of tacit knowledge through shared experience

Socialization involves social conversion to share experience from tacit knowledge to tacit knowledge. This process attempts to share experience and thereby to create and exchange tacit knowledge. Thus, socialization is used in sharing learners’ experience and know-how with other learners.

Externalization:

From tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge

The process of articulating tacit knowledge into explicit concepts

Externalization involves the conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge. This process attempts to rationalize tacit knowledge and articulate it into explicit concepts and formal models (e.g., to write instruction manuals).

Combination:

From explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge

The process of systematizing concepts into a knowledge system

Combination converts explicit knowledge into more complex and systematic sets of explicit knowledge. This process involves individuals combining and exchanging different explicit knowledge to explicit knowledge with others. Existing learning information in the databases might be integrated to create new knowledge.

Internalization:

From explicit knowledge to tacit knowledge

Embodying explicit knowledge into tacit operational knowledge

Internalization is a process of embodying explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge and internalizing the individual experiences gained through the other models of knowledge creation in the form of shared mental models. Through internalization, explicit knowledge created is shared through an online learning community and converted into tacit knowledge by individuals.

Table 10: Details Description of Nonaka & Takeuchi SECI Model


4.6.1 The Concept of “Ba”

In addition to the SECI model the concept of “Ba” was introduced by Nonaka and

Konno (1998) The concept of “Ba” has also been discussed by, Nonaka and Toyama

(2002; 2003) Nonaka et al (2000, 2005) and recently by Peltokorpi et al (2007). There are

four types of “Ba”s; Originating, Interacting, Cyber and Exercising as shown in Figure

16 below. To participate in “Ba” means “to become engaged in knowledge creation,

dialogue, adapt to and shape practices and simultaneously transcend one’s own

limited perspective or boundaries” (Nonaka et al, 2006:1185).

Nonaka et al (2006) argue that “Ba” is different from communities of practice, as

discussed e.g. by Brown and Duguid (1991). While the boundaries for communities of

practice are determined by task, culture and history the boundaries for “Ba” may be

fluid and participation is driven by the opportunities to share and create knowledge.

The concept of “Ba” is an important component in the SECI model as it is argued to

provide “a platform for advancing individual and collective knowledge […] and exist

primarily on a level where meaning emerges, and therefore involves the tacit

dimension of knowing.” (Peltokorpi et al, 2007)

Figure 20: The Four Characteristics of Ba [Adapted: Nonaka and Konno, 1998]


Within an organization. knowledge-creating teams or projects play key roles in value

creation. Value creation in knowledge-creating companies emerges from interactions

within shared Ba but is not restricted to the physical Ba. The concept of Ba unifies the

physical space, the virtual space, and the mental spaces. Ba is the world where the

individual realizes himself as part of the environment on which his life depends.

Ba can be generated by organizational effort. What kind of knowledge is concentrated

in it depends on the situation and strategy of a company. Ba has an important role in

organizational design which the following three companies, Sharp, Toshiba and

Maekawa Seisakusho applied.

4.7 Analysis of JKR’s SECI Model

Figure 21: Applying SECI Model in JKR’s Context

The combined matrix of People-Process-Technology was derived as shown in Figure

22 below specifically in the context of SECI model. As described in the earlier part of

this report, both ‘Process’ and ‘Technology’ share a similar trait of being ‘containers’ as


opposed to ‘People’ being a variable. Hence, in responding to SECI’s four quadrants,

‘Process’ and ‘Technology’ attributes remained constant throughout the matrix for

each quadrant. On the other hand, ‘People’ attributes changes according to the

responding quadrant (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization)

with the assumption that each set of attributes will be able to provide ‘leads’ in

identifying components for the said quadrant based on the input given from the earlier

matrix.

Figure 22: The Combined Matrix of People-Process-Technology

4.7.1 Assumptions and ‘leads’ on knowledge flow.

For the purpose of this exercise and based from the input gained from the earlier set of

matrix, we have identified two premises as to where our preliminary assumptions on

the knowledge flow would be originated, as shown in Figure 23 below.

Controller Client Peers

Ba' (shared

space of

engagement)

Domain Enterprise

CADD

&

Analysis

E-GovernmentBranch

centric

Non-Standard Process

Standard

Process

Operational

Management

TechnologyPeople


Figure 23: Assumption on knowledge flow

The first premise focuses on formal and documented processes with structured input

and output. This premise is linked directly to JKR existing components such as SPK

(Sistem Pengurusan Kualiti), official guidelines, one-off procedures, so on and so forth.

With formality as its main focus, the presence of explicit source of information and

knowledge would be rather obvious but we are also anticipating the presence of some

tacit elements within the whole flow.

The second premise focuses more on the opposite of formal processes, which

highlights informal workflows and events that would be the source of information and

knowledge, especially tacit in nature. Both the input and output are basically

unstructured with the workflow/events covering various types of meetings (other

than that of the formal kind), forums, get-togethers sessions, etc. Similar to the first

premise, we anticipated presence of some explicit elements, albeit minimal throughout

the whole flow.

These two premises, in turn, able to establish a direct correlation with Nonaka’s &

Takeuchi SECI model of knowledge creation and transformation process within

organizations. Hence, this establishes the link between the attributes from the first

matrix set together with the combined matrix and also the SECI model.


4.7.2 The Process

Based on the given premises as stated above, the ‘Process’ component is further broken

into two segments, namely ‘Standard Process’ and ‘Non-standard Process’. The

‘Standard Process’ in this case derived from JKR’s own SPK as the source of reference,

which further broken down into two groups; ‘Operational’ and ‘Management’ (refer

left-hand side column of Figure 22). The SPK processes acted as the y-axis for cross-

referencing the combined matrix. Being a ‘container’, the attributes within the

‘Standard Process’ column are constant, based on current SPK processes.

The ‘Non-standard Process’ on the other hand directly mines any available tacit

presence from across the ‘People’ attributes set. This will be further explained in the

‘People’ section below.

4.7.3 The People

The ‘People’ attributes constantly changes based on the responding SECI quadrant.

Each set of attributes are listed with the assumption that it contains leads that would

correspond directly to the designated quadrant, as per Table 11 below.

4.7.4 The Technology

As with the constant attributes within the ‘Process’ column, the ‘Technology’

component also shows the same consistency across all its columns. The goal is to

simply identify which application is being used for specific process when the data is

cross-referenced. The detail relating to the applications, such as its user groups and its

functionalities were already captured within the first matrix set.


SECI quadrant Corresponding ‘People’

attributes/columns Justification

Socialization ‘Controller’, ‘Client’, ‘Peers’, ‘Ba’ (shared space of engagement)’, ‘Domain’

The listed attributes contain leads within the context of human/group entity together with shared space/events

because these are ‘Socialization’ elements.

Externalization ‘Output’, ‘Ba' (shared space of engagement)’, ‘Knowledge update’

The listed attributes contain leads within the context of formal/explicit content together with entities within shared space/events because

these represent ‘Externalization’ elements.

Combination ‘Input’, ‘Output’, ‘Knowledge update’, ‘Alternative tools/methodologies’

The listed attributes contain leads within the context of formal/explicit content together with other sources of alternative explicit input because these form up ‘Combination’ elements.

Internalization ‘Input’, ‘Alternative tools/methodologies’, ‘Offline data records’

The listed attributes contain leads within the context of formal/explicit content together with medium/format of data being shared because

these represent ‘Internalization’ elements.

Table 11: People Attributes in JKR’s SECI Model

4.8 Pre-JKR’s Knowledge Management Audit

The pre-knowledge management audit exercise was carried out with the objective to

further identify the dynamics of knowledge and its related components within JKR.

This would be critical in understanding the characteristics of JKR’s knowledge in the

context of its people, processes and technologies and how each key foundation area is

influencing the knowledge flow and whether it contributes to the formation of JKR

knowledge culture.


The matrix that was developed for this exercise correlates with the SECI model that

map out the creation and interchanging transformational process of knowledge

between its two states of tacit and explicit. Based on the input gained from the earlier

data gathering exercise, these input were again introduced to the same parameters,

only this time all the parameters from all three KFAs were combined and regrouped

under four main components that corresponds with the SECI model.

Socialization

The inputs derived from the data gathering exercise fulfill the

Socialization requirement of both people entities and shared space/events, indicating the creation and sharing of tacit knowledge via the combination of the two components.

Externalization

The conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit forms is evident

with the presence of all required components in the form of shared space/events together with various explicit contents as were provided by the participants.

Combination

The dataset that was grouped under this segment clearly indicates

the presence of explicit knowledge creation based on the presence of formal/explicit content together with other sources of alternative explicit input because these form up ‘Combination’ elements.

Internalization

The conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge is

evident with the presence of all required components in the form of formal/explicit content together with various medium/format of data being shared because these represent ‘Internalization’ elements.

Table 12: The Findings of JKR’s SECI Workshop


4.9 Conclusion of Workshop Findings

Both set of matrices churned out a consistent set of results and managed to establish a

clear linkage between them. Furthermore, the resulting output complies with standard

parameters in KM practice. Results from the first matrix successfully prove that

fundamental precursors tied to knowledge are clearly present within every level of

JKR as an organization. These precursors would play a critical function in enabling the

potential of knowledge propagation via a well planned albeit natural interactions

between each one of them within a structured ecosystem.

The propagative qualities of knowledge and its precursors would surely be enhanced

based on the healthy flow of knowledge creation, transformation and re-creation

within JKR’s ecosystem as per supported by results from the second matrix, which

complies with the SECI model. The combined results of both matrices only goes to

show that knowledge (sharing) culture is informally but significantly present and

flowing within every level of JKR’s organization.


5. DEVELOPMENT OF JKR’s TAXONOMY

“Taxonomy and classification provide a key new practice—an opportunity

to change the investment return profiles for current IT assets as well as to

deliver rapid returns on new application investment.”

Delphi Group, Boston

5.1 Introduction

The word taxonomy is derived from Greek words (taxis + nomos) - taxis is

arrangement and nomos law – and can be conjugated to mean “the science of

classification”. The Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus (1707 – 1778) was perhaps the first

to use the idea of taxonomy to classify the natural world. From its origins in the

classification of living things, the idea of taxonomy now has universal applications in

grouping knowledge so that it can be systematically developed, stored and re-used.

A taxonomy is a creation of structure and labels to aid location of relevant information.

A closer definition might be the arrangement and labeling of metadata to allow nature,

a taxonomy imposes a topical structure on information. Using taxonomic subject

categories in searches simplifies the search construction process. The searcher does not

have to define the subject or master the vocabulary of terms unique to that subject in

order to search for information. Taxonomies are the classification scheme used to

categorize a set of information items. They represent an agreed vocabulary of topics

arranged around a particular theme. Taxonomies have become an important part of

knowledge management solutions.

A taxonomy is a creation of structure and labels to aid location of relevant information.

A closer definition might be the arrangement and labelling of metadata to allow

primary data or information to be systematically managed and manipulated (Gilchirst

and Kibby, 2000). A taxonomy is a hierarchical presentation of information that

represents a specific knowledge domain. It includes several sub-topics that can contain

two types of relations, namely, hierarchical relations where one category is viewed as

being above another category, and non-hierarchical relations using links that indicates

that a certain category is related to another category. Applications are the navigation

tools available to help users find information (Graef 2001).


The need to classify information is not new. One of the first large organized

cataloguing and classification projects was in the center of ancient knowledge at the

library in Alexandria, Egypt. Thus, classifying information becomes more important as

the number of items increases and people have more trouble remembering what they

have and where to find it. Indeed, KM is specifically focused on not only giving people

the right information, but going to the trouble of distilling it into validated

contextually connected knowledge that fuses information and data from a variety of

distinct topical areas.

Figure 24: Defining Taxonomy and Classification

[Source: Delphi Group, 2004]

A classification is hierarchic and multi-faceted in order to support multiple

perspectives such as user profiles, applications or data models. When recognised that

small corporate taxonomies comprise up to a thousand knowledge resource items and

large ones greater that twenty thousand (Woods, 2004), it is easy to understand why

an automatic processor of metadata (often times extractor) and classification rules is

necessary.


5.2 The Corporate Taxonomy

Until comparatively recently, the value of a company was determined mainly by the

value of its tangible assets. In recent years, however, it has been increasingly

recognized that in the post-industrial era, an organization’s success is more dependent

on its intellectual assets than on the value of its physical resources.

A taxonomy is a subject map to an organization’s content. It reflects the organization’s

purpose or industry, the functions and responsibilities of the persons or groups who

need to access the content, and the purposes/reasons for accessing the content.”

Hence a corporate taxonomy may be viewed as a conceptual map, an information

access tool, and a communications and training device at the same time, providing

history, expertise and inside information that can assist every business activity.

The way your company organizes information (i.e. its taxonomy) is critical to its

future. A taxonomy not only frames the way people make decisions, but also helps

them find the information to weigh all the alternatives. A good taxonomy helps

decision makers see all the perspectives, "drill down" to get details from each, and

explore lateral relationships among them. Without it, your company will find it

difficult to leverage intellectual capital, engage in electronic commerce, keep up with

employee training, and get the most out of strategic partnerships.

Corporate taxonomy is the hierarchical classification of entities of interest of an

enterprise, organization or administration, used to classify documents, digital assets

and other information. Taxonomies can cover virtually any type of physical or

conceptual entities (products, processes, knowledge fields, human groups, etc.) at any

level of granularity which is the extent to which a system is broken down into small

parts, either the system itself or its description or observation. [Wikipedia].

Corporate taxonomies are increasingly used in information systems (particularly

content management and knowledge management systems), as a way to allow instant

access to the right information within exponentially growing volumes of data in

learning organizations. Relatively simple systems based on semantic networks and

taxonomies proved to be a serious competitor to heavy data mining systems and

behaviour analysis software in contextual filtering applications used for routing

customer requests, "pushing" content on a Web site or delivering product advertising

in a targeted and pertinent way.

Corporate taxonomy is the key to success for building effective content and knowledge

management systems. Content management system is an important sub-system of any

corporate knowledge management initiatives.


In order to ensure that the Lessons Learned from many enterprise scale projects are

incorporated and current Best Practices are used, the Corporate/Enterprise KM

Taxonomy uses the following primary design principles:

1. User effectiveness in retrieving, sharing, and storing data, information, and

knowledge is the primary metric of success;

2. Multiple perspectives of organizing schema are needed to create intuitive

navigational and classifying structures for the variety of user types;

3. Local commands should be able to develop and use their own organizing

schema in addition to the schema within the Enterprise KM Taxonomy;

4. All of the domains, including locally developed sub-domains, must be

completely cross-referenced to allow people to transparently access information

across the enterprise without having to struggle with different and non-

interoperable schema.

5.2.1 Building Blocks for Corporate/Enterprise Taxonomies

Some of the fundamental challenges on how knowledge (explicit as well as tacit) may

be incorporated into a corporate taxonomy are addressed by a variety of techniques

drawn from the domains of computer and information science. These include the

concepts of directories of domain expertise; classification and clustering; indexing,

tagging and the use of meta-data. Classification is the technique used to organise a

body of knowledge assets that reside within an organisation. It is supported by meta-

data which are used as keywords or descriptors for indexing, storing and searching

knowledge assets.

The word “Metadata” is derived from Greek and Latin words (Greek: Meta + Latin:

Data). Since Meta means along with, next or after, metadata is data about data itself; it

contains information about other nuggets of information or knowledge. Metadata is

documentation about documents and objects; they describe resources, indicate where

they are located, and outline what is required in order to use them successfully. In

creating corporate taxonomies, a practitioner makes use of metadata to describe

documents and other resources thereby enabling a richer means of defining the context

of the resource and to provide more information access points to support information

query and retrieval operations. This is a technique known as tagging in contemporary


parlance and is very relevant to the idea of describing knowledge assets (whether

codified or residing within experts) and cataloguing them for storage and search.

Figure 25: Presenting Knowledge Audits as Ontologies

[Source: Perez-Soltero et al, 2006, p47]

The nexus between a knowledge audit and creating a corporate taxonomy is indeed a

symmetric one. Perez-Soltero et al. (2006) have presented a methodology which results

in a knowledge inventory comprising knowledge maps and knowledge flows that

identify inefficiencies reflected in duplication of efforts, knowledge gaps, knowledge

barriers and knowledge-bottlenecks. They show the feasibility of using ontologies as

representational schemas in order to formally present the results of a knowledge audit

which address the problems of knowledge leakage and additionally the benefits of re-

using valuable knowledge. Figure 25 is an abstraction of their methodology. Whilst

such an approach makes sense from the point of schematic representation of the

results of a knowledge audit for the purpose of communicating with stakeholders, we

argue that the opposite is even more critical. The design of a corporate taxonomy must

necessarily take into account the ease of auditing knowledge inventories, flows,

leakages and gaps, and must facilitate the continual growth of the knowledge or

learning organisation.

Maximum return on the investment (ROI) of building a taxonomy does not come from

viewing it as a stand-alone tool, but as a integrated strategically leveraged module of


an integrated information architecture. Taxonomies can and should be integrated with

other applications. New approaches to integrating taxonomies with search functions

can provide high leverage and innovative features in these architecture projects.

In the most basic approach, a taxonomy can exist side-by-side, stand-alone to a search

tool as a separate investigative alternative. The search tool provides content-based

targeted search, the taxonomy a navigation path of discovery. Each function exists as

an alternative to the user to support distinct approaches to research. It should be

noted, however, that even in this “separate but equal” approach, taxonomy

technology, and related thesaurus technology can be leveraged by the search engine to

provide more accurate search results. The ability for search engines to search not just

on keywords, but also on implied concepts and ideas can be implemented through the

integration of lexical and linguistic techniques and know-how captured in a thesaurus

and or taxonomy.

The taxonomy can also be leveraged as a front-end to search. A user who is somewhat

naive about an overall subject area and its many facets might begin the research

process by navigating through a taxonomy. When a particular node of interest is

discovered, a subsequent search could be executed—this time against only the content

in this particular node of the taxonomy—to drill down and locate sources which

contain occurrences of specific words, phrases and/or concepts. In this manner, a

broad search is narrowed (precision increased) by discovering sub-topics of focus

through the taxonomy. Once embedded in this area, search is used to further refine the

investigation to a particular issue.

The strategic deployment of a taxonomy in an organization’s overall information

architecture can provides many enhancements to information work. But at what cost?

Taxonomy design and construction is not without a cost in technology resources, and,

more important, in skilled human resources needed to develop the practice.

The application of taxonomy as a mean to organize business content is a much more

complex issue. When applied to business content, as opposed to scientific

classification, taxonomy is a conceptual organizational structure. Unlike the

categorizing of life forms, categorizing business documents can and should be

ambiguous. A document could and perhaps should be placed in multiple categories

depending on the business context and the task environment or expertise of the user.

This added level of classification complexity in the business setting makes the design

and construction of taxonomy structures all the more challenging.


5.3 Knowledge Taxonomy

“The knowledge taxonomy must fit the goals and strategies of the target

business. It must reflect the needs, behaviour, tasks and vocabulary of the

users as well, and be able to provide multiple paths and points of view,”

Marcia Morante, KnowledgeCurve

A taxonomy is a structured set of names and descriptions used to organize sources in a

consistent way. A typical taxonomy uses a logical arrangement but doesn’t account for

users’ particular decision-making and action-taking needs. A knowledge taxonomy

focuses on enabling efficient and interoperable retrieval and sharing of knowledge,

information, and data across the enterprise by building in natural workflow and

knowledge needs in an intuitive structure.

There are many considerations that need to be taken into account when developing

taxonomy, including facets and intended use, for instance. In order to construct

knowledge taxonomy, we must define what we mean by knowledge and how

knowledge differs from information and data. Does a KM system provide automated

access to all electronically available information across the enterprise from a portal?

Does it require full-time content creators and editors to produce summaries and

analyses? Is corporate personnel directory knowledge? The answer to all of these

questions is: it depends! It depends on what the user needs to know at that moment

and if that piece of information is all they need or only a small component of what they

need.

The following Figure 26 shows how information progressively moves from individual

pieces of data that are devoid of context and relationships, up the cognitive staircase to

information where pieces are grouped together, to knowledge where disparate

information sources are brought together and fused in a validated way, and finally

into a human’s cognitive processes as understanding. At each step, there are greater

connections made among the variety of related items with authenticity and strength of

relationships explicitly made. One type of knowledge taxonomy is the famous Bloom

Taxonomy of educational objectives that outlines the major cognitive areas of thinking

and analyzing (Bloom et al., 1956). Bloom actually starts with knowledge and moves


sequentially upward in cognitive skills (Rademacher, 1999) with the following major

areas:

1. Knowledge: remembering previously learned material, recall facts or theories;

bring to mind;

2. Comprehension: grasping the meaning of material; interpreting; predicting

outcome and effects (estimating future trends);

3. Application: ability to use learned material in a new situation; apply rules, laws,

methods, and theories;

4. Analysis: breaking down into parts; understanding, organization, clarifying,

concluding;

5. Synthesis: ability to put parts together to form a new whole; unique

communication; set of abstract relations;

6. Evaluation: ability to judge values far purpose; base on criteria; support

judgment with reasons (no guessing).

Figure 26: How data is transformed into information knowledge?


5.4 Knowledge Ontology

“When we want to enable sharing and reuse, we define an ontology as a

specification used for making ontological commitments”

Gruber, T. R., Knowledge Acquisition

Ontologies are the conceptual framework that people are really trying to express in a

classification scheme. The ontology is translated into a hierarchy of descriptive

categories that forms the taxonomic schema used to control the classification process.

Even with a detailed taxonomy, the classification scheme cannot convey the relative

importance of the taxonomy nodes within the document nor the relationship among

the nodes, which is exactly the contextual information needed to transform

information into knowledge.

To escalate the understanding of taxonomy up a notch, we can refer to a new and

expanded definition of taxonomy to be ontology which, contextualised, means, a high

level device constructed to enable its users to gain an understanding of, and navigate

around, available information. Originating from a theological context, ontology

generally means the study of what exists in order to achieve a cogent description of

reality. An appropriate analogy would be the notion of a knowledge map.


data, information, knowledge and meta-knowledge are transformed from one state to

another. To simplify the analysis of knowledge flows, the framework described here is

based primarily on the General Knowledge Model. The model organizes knowledge

flows into four primary activity areas: knowledge creation, retention, transfer and

utilization (Conrad and Newman, 2000)

Ontology in knowledge management contributes directly to the application

functionality. Ontologies help in all three fundamental knowledge management

processes, namely, communication, integration, and reasoning. Once ontology has

been created, it serves as a base for communication, facilitating knowledge transfer. To

do this, it provides precise notation for queries on the domain of interest. Likewise, it

facilitates the interpretation of messages, establishing a proper interpretation context.

Then it serves to integrate varied knowledge sources. Finally, the most complex


applications can use the ontologies to find new rules or patterns that had not appeared

before.

The main purpose of any ontology is to enable communication between computer

systems in a way that is independent of the individual system technologies,

information architectures and application domain. The key ingredients that make up

ontology are a vocabulary of basic terms and a precise specification of what those

terms mean. The rich set of relations between these terms guide knowledge workers

and knowledge systems navigate through the corporate semantic space. Categories or

directories provide a meaningful context for retrieved information because they

delineate conceptual relationships. Within a category, searchers can hop from one

associated concept to another, learn about related terms, or begin their search at a

broader term in the hierarchy and move down to more specific instances of a concept.

Ontology also helps in improving communication. Directories and ontologies function

to hook people and context together. They provide a common language, and workers

better relate concepts across departments, divisions and companies. Ontology

classifies information into logical categories that allow users to readily browse through

content. They are often used in tandem with search and retrieval tools (keyword- or

concept-based) to help locate target information. However, unlike search technology

alone, ontologies reveal the overall structure of a knowledgebase, in a hierarchy that is

visible to the user. The user navigates through sub-categories to narrow the search, a

process that helps avoid false hits that are outside the area of interest. When used with

search and retrieval tools, ontologies aid in efficiency by limiting the volume of

material that must be searched.

5.5 Knowledge Taxonomy and Ontology

In the context of corporate intranet and knowledge organization, there are two

important characteristics of ontologies and taxonomies.

1. Ontology is more than an agreed vocabulary: Ontology provides a set of well-

founded constructs that can be leveraged to build meaningful higher level

knowledge. The terms in taxonomies and ontologies are selected with great

care, ensuring that the most basic (abstract) foundational concepts and

distinctions are defined and specified. The terms chosen form a complete set,

whose relationships to each other are defined using formal techniques. It is


these formally defined relationships that provide a semantic basis for the

terminology chosen.

2. Ontology is more than a classification of terms: Although taxonomy

contributes to the semantics of a term in a vocabulary, ontologies include richer

relationships between terms. It is these rich relationships that enable the

expression of domain-specific knowledge, without the need to include domain-

specific terms.

Taxonomy-based knowledge management solutions are well known and widely

practiced in the industry today. However, the limitations of corporate taxonomies are

the entry points for ontology-based approaches. However, it is important to note that

the organizational content management systems and knowledge management systems

make use of ontologies and taxonomies at several functional points that include:

document categorization, indexing, document retrieval (whole or partial), user query

expansion, query matching, and result verification. Since rich media documents are

also becoming pervasive and important (perhaps more important than the textual

documents) there is an emphasis on extending the ontologies work for multimedia

documents as well.

Simple taxonomies that have a fixed relationship (e.g. “is-a”) or no clearly defined

relationship (e.g. “is related to”) have many limitations effectively staging and

delivering knowledge. However, ontologies are richer than taxonomies as they allow

different kinds of relations between concepts. In addition, these relations are governed

by definable set of axioms such as Disjoint-ness, covering, equivalence, subsumption

etc.

Ontology helps in organizational knowledge management in several ways both in

content and information staging as well as in content deployment. Though the way in

which ontologies are used may be completely different. For example, ontological

parameters for automatic document classification and for visualization tools such as

animated or hyperbolic trees can be very different, though both share the goal of

easing information access; they employ different techniques of information

organization. Another difference between classification and visualization tools is that

animated trees do not materially reorder content. Classification directories physically

catalog documents in an enterprise portal. In contrast, visualization tools graphically

link similar content together regardless of where material is located. A simple

taxonomy will not be able to provide this flexibility.


5.6 Knowledge Mapping

“Without geography, you are nowhere”

— Jimmy Buffet

According to some analysts, the capacity of digital storage in the last decade has

increased worldwide at twice the rate predicted for the growth of computing power

(Fayyad and Uthurusamy, 2002). The gaps between the two trends represent an

interesting pattern in the state of technological evolution. Our ability to capture and

store data has by far outpaced our ability to process and utilise it. The proliferation of

knowledge artefacts in organisational stores creates an overload that is threatening to

inhibit the efficient functioning of these organisations. As more artefacts are added to

an organisational store, it becomes clear that there need to be some sort of mechanism

to help organise and search for useful knowledge from these stores. Otherwise it may

remain invisible and unused. This poses a major challenge for knowledge

management (KM).

Some authors point to “knowledge mapping” as a feasible KM method to coordinate,

simplify, highlight and navigate through complex webs of knowledge possessed by

institutions (Wexler, 2001). Knowledge maps or k-maps point to knowledge but they

do not contain it. They are guides, not repositories (Davenport and Prusak, 1998). One

of the main purposes of knowledge maps is to locate important knowledge in an

organisation and show users where to find it (Kim et al., 2003). Effective k-maps

should point not only to people but to documents and databases as well. Knowledge

maps should also locate actionable information, identify domain experts, and facilitate

organisation-wide learning (Eppler, 2003).

A knowledge map is the intellectual infrastructure for KM initiatives. The basis for it

consists of multiple taxonomies for content repositories, dynamic categorization of

people, their expertise, and the communities they belong to, and finally a set of

taxonomies for the variety of tasks that are performed within and by the company

communities.

The group of concept-based k-maps or taxonomies includes conceptual knowledge

maps (Plumley, 2003) and knowledge structure maps (Eppler, 2003). Both these maps

provide a framework for capturing and organising domain knowledge of an


organisation around topical areas. They represent a method of structuring and

classifying content in a hierarchical manner. Concept based maps also allow for

internal experts’ knowledge to be made explicit in a visual, graphical representation

that can be easily understood and shared. Mind maps (Wexler, 2001) as special forms

of concept or cognitive maps provide further ability to express and organise a person’s

thoughts about a given topic.

The taxonomies of content, people, and tasks then have to be mapped across the three

components in order to provide a foundation for the integration of such KM enterprise

projects as knowledge retrieval, for both document based knowledge and the tacit

knowledge located within the minds of the companies experts. It is also the

foundation for collaboration, both for capturing the knowledge that is generated in

those collaborative communities, and for providing the framework within which

knowledge facilitators or knowledge managers will operate as they provide services

for those collaborative communities.

5.6.1 Building a Knowledge Map

Technically, a knowledge map is a logical abstraction of a corporate taxonomy, which

includes implementation details such as how knowledge assets are to be captured and

indexed.

There are two recommended approaches to knowledge mapping (NLH 2005): (i) map

knowledge resources and assets, showing what knowledge exists in the organisation

and where it can be found; and (ii) include knowledge flows, showing how that

knowledge moves around the organisation from source to target. In both cases, the

key is a diagrammatic schemata of corporate knowledge of the explicit as well as tacit

nature and an accompanying realisation of the value-added during the course of the

knowledge flows. This may be derived from well-known techniques such as process

maps, class diagrams, use cases and organisation charts.


Figure 27: Building a Knowledge Map

[Source: Drew, 1999, p 134]

Building a knowledge map looks deceptively simple but perhaps requires more effort

and resources than any other phase of developing a corporate taxonomy. It is a

profound, soul-search that involves the highest level of strategic management and

domain expertise to make judgments on fundamental business and knowledge

strategies. One technique for deriving a K-Map involves the use of the so-called Boston

Box suggested by Drew (1999). Figure 1 shows four quadrants of the Boston Box for

analysis of a complete coverage of an organisation’s knowledge capital. Quadrant 1

asks what the core competencies of the organization are. Quadrant 3 addresses the

unexploited seepage in its knowledge capital repository. Quadrant 2 takes the

organizational learning impetus which seeks to position the organization to execute its

strategic plans for growth. Quadrant 4 refers to the blind spot of hidden opportunities

and threats that may not be (as yet) apparent within the organisation’s leadership.

Daunting as this analysis may seem, it is not a paradigm shift. The point being made

is that the organisation of knowledge in the form of a corporate taxonomy carries with

it criteria for evaluating possible gaps as well as leaks that need to be plugged.

What then makes a corporate taxonomy effective, extendable and practical? Table 13

below – a compilation from Gilchrist (2001), Graef (2001), Lehman (2003) and Woods

(2004) – offers eight perspectives or families of taxonomic elements, which apply to an

organization, although more perspectives do not necessarily translate to greater

business effectiveness.


Industry Segments Marketing/Positioning/Competitive Intelligence Perspective; Industry Segments may overlap with Products and Services.

Organizational Functions The organization breakdown of a business or organization by function or responsibility

Business Relationships The intensities and types of other companies or organizations a business deals with; including customers, vendors, regulators, associations, partners etc.

Business Issues & Events Economic, legal, M&A, regulatory, environmental, labour, safety, other government interfaces, etc.

Products & Services Products sold; MRO materials; indirect services, direct materials & services purchased.

Technologies Applicable to the industry or industries in which the firm participates. Basic or applied sciences are also included as appropriate.

Geography Referring to location, particularly region or jurisdiction.

Document or Record Types This perspective provides valuable reduction of results based upon the document’s purpose and its connection to the information need.

Table 13: Perspectives of Taxonomic Elements

As a guide to content, a taxonomy has multiple entry points (such as business

functions or product types), and will have the same element (lowest level class). The

consensus on what characterizes useful elements of corporate taxonomies is the

following:

1) They are precise and do not overlap - the closer to proper named elements at

the lowest level, the better;

2) They are independent of the type of content, and the organization structure;

3) They reflect the access needs and expectations of every constituency inside or

outside the organization;

4) They recognize and apply industry standards whenever possible.

To conclude, it is clear that corporate taxonomies have indispensable roles in the

organization of business knowledge. The bottom-line for a good taxonomy is whether

or not the knowledge sharing process is facilitated. There are methods and tools

which help verify and validate that such sharing is indeed taking place. In the next

section of this report, some of these building blocks are described.


5.7 Faceted Classification

A faceted classification system allows the assignment of multiple classifications to an

object, enabling the classifications to be ordered in multiple ways, rather than in a

single, pre-determined, taxonomic order. A facet comprises "clearly defined, mutually

exclusive, and collectively exhaustive aspects, properties or characteristics of a class or

specific subject". For example, a collection of books might be classified using an author

facet, a subject facet, a date facet, etc.

Faceted classification is used in faceted search systems that enable a user to navigate

information along multiple paths corresponding to different orderings of the facets.

This contrasts with traditional taxonomies in which the hierarchy of categories is fixed

and unchanging.

Faceted classifications are increasingly common on the World Wide Web, especially on

commercial web sites (Adkisson, 2003). This is not surprising—facets are a natural way

of organizing things. Many web designers have probably rediscovered them

independently by asking, "What other ways would people want to view this data?

What's another way to slice it?" A survey of the literature on applying facets on the

web (Denton, 2003) shows that librarians think it a good idea but are unsure how to do

it, while the web people who are already doing it are often unaware of S.R.

Ranganathan, the Classification Research Group, and the decades of history behind

facets.

Facets will handle three or more dimensions of classification. When, for the purposes

of the classification, it is possible to organize the entities by three or more mutually

exclusive and jointly exhaustive categories, then facets are probably the appropriate

classification. Facets can be used to organize the entire world of knowledge, or the

clothes in your cupboard, or anything in between.

Kwasnick (1999) lists several things in favour of faceted classifications: they do not

require complete knowledge of the entities or their relationships; they are hospitable

(can accommodate new entities easily); they are flexible; they are expressive; they can

be ad hoc and free-form; and they allow many different perspectives on and

approaches to the things classified.

Facets and the web go well together. It is easy show the user a menu of facet listings

and let him or her pick and choose what is of interest. The user can make quick

choices, thinking, "I'd like to see something with that, and that, and a bit of that, and I

don't care about the rest," then click a button and see the results. Such systems are

becoming more common and users will be ever more comfortable with them.


5.8 Proposed JKR’s Taxonomy

For the purpose of JKR taxonomy overview, two implementation case studies on

enterprise taxonomy were chosen as a benchmarking point, namely The National

Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Singapore Government-wide

Metadata Standard (SGMS), a part of the Singapore e-Government initiative. Both of

these case studies are often referred to due to their organizational status plus the

success that they have garnered at the global level, especially the Singapore e-

Government initiative that had been touted as one of the best implementation model,

if not the best. Both of the taxonomy developments are closely linked to the world’s

leading metadata element set standard for cross-domain information resource

description, dubbed The Dublin Core. Dublin Core is widely used to describe digital

materials such as video, sound, image, text, and composite media like web pages.

Implementations of Dublin Core typically make use of XML and are Resource

Description Framework based. Dublin Core is defined by ISO in ISO Standard 15836,

and NISO Standard Z39.85-2007. Also, both taxonomy implementations applied multi-

faceted navigation approach in order to allow a more intuitive multiple perspectives

and dynamic selection of categories, thus increasing search efficiency.

5.8.1 NASA Taxonomy.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is one of the world’s

leading space technology agency. NASA comprises of 12 separate Centers constantly

engaged in a variety of technological activities with product lines that reflect their

specialized work. The nature of their disciplines utilize highly evolved engineering

and scientific vocabularies used by their internal technical communities across the

Agency .

Since NASA is also tasked to share its knowledge with a wider public audience

comprised of students, teachers, researchers and the media, organizing a large amount

of related but disjointed information into a useful, accurate, and trustworthy set of

knowledge easily turned into an enterprise-wide challenge. The wide variety of

constituencies and the amazing breadth of content types calls for a new approach in

the management of NASA's intellectual properties. Thus, in the year 2002, in line with

the American E-Government Act that specifically calls for the development of

“standards and guidelines to categorize Federal Government electronic information”,

NASA took its first initiative in establishing its own taxonomy development. The


taxonomy work that has been completed to date puts NASA clearly ahead of other

federal agencies in the USA.

The objectives of the taxonomy development are:

• Make it easy for various audiences to find relevant information from NASA

programs quickly

• Provide one stop shopping for NASA resources through web space directories

• Share knowledge by enabling users to easily find links to databases and tools

• Provide search results targeted to user interests

The NASA Taxonomy is an effort on building an enterprise-wide taxonomy for NASA.

The intended use of the taxonomy is to help NASA personnel – scientists and

engineers find information, through the use of intelligent search, browsing, and

navigation systems that utilize the taxonomy. A top-down approach to taxonomy

development was followed. Subject matter experts from various areas such as

unmanned space mission development, mission technology development, engineering

configuration management and product data management systems were extensively

consulted. Also, input was sought from managers of IT systems and project content for

manned missions.

The taxonomy development was done in accordance with industry best practices such

as hierarchical granularity, polyhierarchy, mapping aliases, existing standards, and

modularity. The taxonomy comprises of different chunks or “facets” reflecting

organization and division as NASA such as based on discipline (various NASA

scientific and engineering disciplines), NASA locations, NASA organizations etc. An

intelligent browsing and navigation capability for NASA enterprise information using

the taxonomy was also developed.

5.8.2 Singapore Government-wide Metadata Standard (SGMS).

As part of the key programs under its ‘eGAP II’, The Singapore Government Online

Search Engine was initiated with the aims to integrate and improve the relevance of

search results across all published Government-wide information and services on the

Internet. It provides a metadata-enabled search engine with a taxonomy-driven user

interface for the public to reach Government e-services conveniently and effectively.

The objectives of this project are:


Enable effective and efficient searches that meet the 30% improvement in search

performance target.

Provide taxonomy to ease searching and retrieving content.

Establish government-wide taxonomy and metadata standard.

Facilitate automated meta-tagging of content for agencies.

The project benefits those who need to search on Government information and

services available on the Internet. Public sector employees will also experience the

benefits of this improved search service on the Government Intranet information and

services.

5.8.3 JKR’s Taxonomy

Ten Facets have been derived for the JKR’s Taxonomy by aligning with all the aspects

and possibilities that might exist within JKR’s Domain. The initial two workshops

conducted earlier also help us to propose the taxonomy. With some efforts to optimize

the numbers of taxonomy derived to avoid the complexity of searching and handling

the information, these facets which shows in Table 10 below will elaborate the “What”

and “Why” this taxonomy should exist.

Facets What Why

Access control

Type of standard controller imposed

within JKR workflow intended to be

used to mark individual information

items so that their access can be

controlled properly when they are

moved between systems.

Enabling user identification/filtration

based on confidentiality classification

as standard controller of information

accessibility

Audiences A class of entity for whom the resource

is intended or useful.

Enabling identification/filtration based

on all groups/entities that are

interacting with JKR at any given point

Business

purpose

Names of business purposes for which

the content of the resource was

prepared.

Giving users the overall functionalities

and internal work scope on a day to day

basis


Facets What Why

Competencies

Names of vocational or technical

specialties that is relevant to the

content of the resource.

Represents key thrust of an organization

such as JKR in conveying its expertise

and its primary goal of becoming Center

of Excellence

Content types

The nature or genre (standardized

mediums and formats) of the content

of the resource.

Enable identification/filtration based on

specific JKR content type

Locations Geographical entities that are relevant

to the content of the resource.

Users need to be able to (identify or

filter out) based on specific geographical

locations of various JKR related interests

and projects

Organizations Breakdown of JKR functional groups.

Giving users identification/filtration

perspective based on JKR high level

organization chart

Project

implementation

Names of projects that are a topic of

the content of the resource.

Enabling identification/filtration based

on all related project implementation

carried out by JKR

Strategic

framework

Structured enterprise goals and

guidelines that contribute to the

content of the resource.

Enabling users to have perspectives on

JKR structured enterprise Vision and

Mission and guidelines that have been

established

Total Asset Life

Cycle

Enabling users to have perspectives on

all standards Work Breakdown

Structures (WBS) for related JKR

activities over the lifecycle of the

asset.

Represents a majority of JKR focus and

responsibility especially in giving users

understanding of the processes

involved.

Table 14: Proposed JKR’s Taxonomy

Details of all the proposed JKR’s Facets are shown in Table 13 below.


Facet/Branch Facet Description 1st Layer/Scope Scope Description

Access Control

Type of standard controller imposed within JKR workflow intended to be used to mark individual information items so that their access can be controlled properly when they are moved between systems.

Classified

Materials which have access controlled for reasons of national security. Materials should not be marked as "Classified", they must be marked according to the more specific classification levels of Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret. Classified materials must not be transferred to an unclassified system.

Public

Materials which have been reviewed and whose release to the public has been approved.

Sensitive But Unclassified

Information, regardless of its form (digital, hard-copy, magnetic tape, etc.), the release of which could cause harm to a person's privacy or welfare, adversely impact economic or industrial institutions, or compromise programs or operations essential to the safeguarding of our national interests is designated as SBU to control or restrict its access. Information designated as SBU shall be afforded appropriate protection sufficient to safeguard it from unauthorized disclosure. Within JKR and the Federal Government, such information had previously been designated "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY." This designation was changed at JKR to "Administratively Controlled Information" for clarity and to more accurately describe the status of information to be protected. However, recent efforts to apply consistent terminology across multiple federal agencies have prompted JKR to change the designation to "Sensitive but Unclassified." Therefore the caveat "SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED (SBU)" will be used to identify sensitive but unclassified information within the JKR community when that information is not otherwise specifically described and governed by statute or regulation. The use of caveats other than SBU will be governed by the statutes and regulations issued for the applicable category of information.

Unreviewed

Used to mark materials which have not been reviewed for release to the public. Until they have been reviewed, the materials should be treated as Sensitive But Unclassified, with moderate levels of risk around compromise of their confidentiality, integrity, and availability.



Audience

A class of entity for whom the resource is intended or useful.

Internal

JKR intergroup of people consisting Administration, Professional and Semi Professional staffs

External

A cluster of group who are outside of JKR intergroup such as contractors, consultants, general public, government, academia etc.

Business Purposes

Administration

The act or process of administering, especially the management of a government or large institution, in this case, JKR

Financial Management

Concerned with all aspects of how the business deals with its financial resources in order to maximize profit over the long term. This covers financial planning, financial accounting, financial analysis, management accounting, capital appraisal and budgeting

Human Resources

How people are managed by organizations from a traditionally administrative function to a strategic one that recognizes the link between talented and engaged people and organizational success.

Inspectorate

An Inspectorate is a civilian or body charged with the mission of inspecting and reporting on some institution or institutions in its field of competence

Legal and Technical Deriving authority from or founded on law.

Procurement

The acquisition of goods and/or services at the best possible total cost of ownership, in the right quality and quantity, at the right time, in the right place and from the right source for the direct benefit or use of corporations, individuals, or even governments, generally via a contract, or it can be the same way selection for human resource.

Program Formulation

The formulation of one-off programs that is objective-centric and is specific on its execution and goals

Program Management

Process of managing several related projects, often with the intention of improving an organization's performance. In practice and in its aims it is often closely related to Systems engineering



Asset and Supply

Professional asset and supply management helps JKR realize the full value of its energy and resource portfolio. This is enabled through identification of its various asset listings and its supply chain

Competencies

Names of vocational or technical specialties that is relevant to the content of the resource.

Technical

These are competencies that support the core function of JKR. The listed competencies lends to the technical credibility of JKR in its service delivery. These are not baseline competencies, but critical proficiency areas that underpins the role and unique value propositions of JKR

Non-Technical

Characteristics that are out of the boundary of technical disciplines that encompasses behavioural, functional and generic traits. It also includes language and ICT competencies

Content Type

The nature or genre (standardized mediums and formats) of the content of the resource.

Announcements

A broadcast message, especially a program note or commercial. It could also be a public or formal notice announcing something

Calendars and Schedules

A list or register, esp. one arranged chronologically, as of appointments, work to be done. Any of various systems of reckoning time in which the beginning, length, and divisions of a year are defined

Case Studies

A study of an individual unit, as a person, family, or social group, usually emphasizing developmental issues and relationships with the environment, esp. in order to compare a larger group to the individual unit

Catalogues

A list or itemized display, as of titles, course offerings, or articles for exhibition or sale, usually including descriptive information or illustrations

Correspondence Formal communication by exchange of letters

Databases

A set of data grouped together in one location in (or accessible by) a computer. A computerized database has been likened to an electronic filing cabinet of information arranged for easy access or for a specific purpose



Designs and Specifications

Provides precise and explicit information about the requirements for a product design. A design specification provides in-depth detail about the functional and non-functional design requirements including assumptions, constraints, performance, dimensions, weight, reliability and standards. It provides the user with all of the information and references necessary so they can achieve the intended outcome. The design specification result should be consistently reproducible providing the same standard outcome

Drawings

The art of representing objects or forms on a surface chiefly by means of lines that results in a sketch, plan, or design

Educational Materials

Valuable learning tools feature up-to-date information and valuable educational resources that focus on JKR environment.

Forms and Templates

A document with blanks for the insertion of details or information or an electronic file with a predesigned, customized format and structure, as for a fax, letter, or expense report, ready to be filled in. A document or file having a preset format, used as a starting point for a particular application so that the format does not have to be recreated each time it is used

Manuals

A handbook, esp. one giving information or instructions on how to execute a specific task that is commonly accepted

Maps

A representation, usually on a flat surface, as of the features of an area of the earth or a portion of the heavens, showing them in their respective forms, sizes, and relationships according to some convention of representation

Meeting Documents

A written or printed paper that bears the original, official, or legal form of something derived from a meeting and can be used to furnish decisive evidence or information



Planning Documents

Any written item, as a book, article, or letter, esp. of a factual or informative nature that is the result of a prior planning arrangement

Policies and Procedures

A course of action, guiding principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous or the sequence of actions or instructions to be followed in solving a problem or accomplishing a task

Presentations

Something, such as a lecture or speech that is set forth for an audience. It can also be The process of offering for consideration or display

Records

An account, as of information or facts, set down especially in writing as a means of preserving knowledge. Information or data on a particular subject collected and preserved

Reference Sources

Use or recourse for purposes of information that is frequently used as a source to facilitate a current process or procedure

Reports

An account or statement describing in detail an event, situation, or the like, usually as the result of observation, inquiry

General Software

The programs and instructions that runs on a computer, as opposed to the actual physical machinery and devices that compose the hardware.

Standards

Something, such as a practice or a product that is widely recognized or employed, especially because of its excellence. A standard is a document that establishes uniform engineering or technical specifications, criteria, methods, processes, or practices.

Web Pages

A document on the World Wide Web, consisting of an HTML file and any related files for scripts and graphics, and often hyperlinked to other documents on the Web.

Location

Geographical entities that is relevant to the content of the resource.

Peninsular

The part of Malaysia which lies on the Malay Peninsula. Ex, Selangor, Perak.



Federal Territories

Collective of three territories, namely Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Labuan, governed directly by the federal government of Malaysia.

East Malaysia

The part of Malaysia that is on the island of Borneo. Ex. Sabah, Sarawak

Others

Outside Malaysia territories such as other countries.

Organisation

Breakdown of JKR functional groups.

Project Implementation

Names of projects that are a topic of the content of the resource.

Physical Projects

Physical projects are strategies to directly impact built environments, removing barriers to physical activity and enhance safety (e.g. trails, pedestrian improvements at intersections). While the built environment is heavily determined by public policies, active living partnerships should also look for opportunities to improve physical spaces that do not rely on a policy decision per se. Physical projects include a wide range of sizes from community trails to sidewalks to signage pointing out active living opportunities on taking the stairs. Ex. Lebuhraya Pantai Timur (LPT)

ICT Projects

Projects undertaken with ICT perspectives that are in accordance with the JKR ICT Strategic Plan

Strategic Framework

Structured enterprise goals and guidelines that contribute to the content of the resource.

Customer Focus

The concept that the customer is the only person qualified to specify what Quality means. This leads to detailed analyses of who are the customers, what are their needs, what features (or new) are required of JKR products/services, how do customers rate JKR products/services versus JKR competitors and why, how can we keep JKR customers satisfied

Asset Management

Optimal management of the physical assets of an organization to maximize value. It covers such things as the design, construction, commissioning, operations, maintenance and decommissioning/replacement of plant, equipment and facilities. It refers to the management of the assets across departments, locations, facilities and, in some cases, business units



Performance Measurement and Reporting

Activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner. Performance management can focus on performance of the organization, a department, processes to build a product or service, employees, etc. It consists of a set of processes that help organizations optimize their business performance. It provides a framework for organizing, automating and analyzing business methodologies, metrics, processes and systems that drive business performance

Strategic Competency Development

Developing a competent workforce and effective leaders, matching the right people with the right job and to measure performance for continuous improvement

Standardisation

The process of developing and agreeing upon technical standards. Some standards are mandatory while others are voluntary. Voluntary standards are available if one chooses to use them. Some are de facto standards, meaning a norm or requirement which has an informal but dominant status. Some standards are de jure, meaning formal legal requirements. Formal standards organizations, such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or the American National Standards Institute, are independent of the manufacturers of the goods for which they publish standards.

Earned Value

An approach where there is monitoring of the project plan, actual work and work-completed value to see if a project is on track. Earned Value indicates how much of the budget and time should have been spent, with regards to the amount of work done to date.

Leveraging on ICT

Enhance effective communication through ICT and automating processes to facilitate better workflow procedures

Effective Implementation of Malaysian Plans

Ensuring Malaysian Plan projects are implemented through appropriate methodologies and capitalizing on innovations for quality outcomes



Total Asset Life Cycle (TALC)

A plan developed for the management of one or more infrastructure (incl. building) assets that combines multi-disciplinary management techniques (incl. technical and financial) over the lifecycle of the asset in the most cost-effective manner to provide a specified level of service. A significant component of the plan is a long-term cash flow projection for the activities

Asset Planning

The need for new assets to be identified planned and prepped. Total asset planning is based on creating and using assets to ensure the functions and objectives of the agency are met with regards to budget constraints.

Asset Design

This covers the scope and objectives of the design, the activity stages of the design process, relevant verification and validation of the design and resources involved in the design process

Procurement

Asset procurement process determines how respective assets are acquired. It is carried out within legal statutes, regulations and government directives

Construction

Quality; Optimal supervision; Conforming to specifications and guidelines; Cost and timeline control; Competencies of relevant parties; and Co-ordination of all relevant parties.

Commissioning and Handover

All competencies, uniformity, testing and commissioning of said assets are taken into account with Operation Manual guidelines, maintenance and as-built drawing as parameters.

Asset Register

Asset / component identification coding that tally with identification codes on as-built drawings. Updating precise records and asset data valuation will assist in determining the most effective course of action on asset usage

Operation & Maintenance Planning

Determining all asset commissioning objectives are met with adherence to specific standards, practices and asset commission criterion. Subsequent maintenance methods are finalized before being carried out and implemented

Operation & Maintenance Execution

Based on Best Practices Method, management of asset facilities is carried out with focus on operational hours, safety, cleanliness, space management, ceremonial management, energy management, waste management, human resource, crisis and risk management, performance management, etc



Upgrading & Refurbishment

All upgrading and refurbishment procedures must undergo the sequential stages of a conventional asset life cycle, i.e. redesigning, procurement, construction and re-commissioning

Asset Disposal

The final stage is scrutinized thoroughly and all primary aspects are taken into account which are technical, legal and economic evaluation binding. It must be executed by only the professionals or qualified bodies

Table 15: 1st Level JKR’s Facet description


6. ANALYSIS OF KM IN JKR

“We’re drowning in information and starving for knowledge”

— Rutherford D. Rodgers

A KM analysis is crucial for determining the state of KM in a corporation especially in

identifying the dynamics of knowledge and its prevalent culture that exist in the said

corporation. The selection of analytical tools is also important in order to ensure that

all relevant parameters are being captured and measured accordingly. Four-quadrant

methodologies such as SWOT and PEST are often being the most commonly used and

suitable for general analytical derivation. In the case of JKR’s own KM analysis, a

SWOT analysis is presented for such purpose, where the combination of Strength-

Opportunities versus Weakness-Threat are being mapped out on all Key Foundation

Areas (KFA’s) involved, namely People-Process-Technology.

6.1 JKR’s Knowledge Management SWOT Analysis


SWOT KFA’s Findings

Strengths People

Aware and conscious about their roles, responsibilities and domain expertise within JKR

Aware and conscious about their peers’ roles, responsibilities and domain expertise within JKR

Positive attitude towards additional knowledge transmitted via trainings and have high expectations of such knowledge transfer events

Able to initiate and actively participate in knowledge sharing sessions within each level of organization

Realize the functionality, importance and benefits gained from knowledge sharing sessions



Able to initiate and implement positive actions and output based on knowledge gained from various knowledge sharing sessions

Able to identify network of peer and client base internally and externally of JKR

Having knowledge to leverage on existing computer systems to maximize achieving working goals

Able to recognize and practice alternative methodologies in fulfilling work objectives

Positive attitude towards knowledge centric initiatives

Process

Established process flow that connects all critical components relating to knowledge propagation

Process flow are targeted to specific business goals

No redundancy between different processes

Technology

Well established system implementation especially at enterprise level

Well established adoption of computerized system at all levels

Clear technological roadmap for the whole organization especially in addressing enterprise objectives

Most application systems are designed with specific business goals

Weaknesses

People

Existence of knowledge silos within the organization

Resistance to knowledge sharing due to fear of losing position within the organization

Lack of formal awareness in describing the potential benefits of knowledge sharing

Non existence of incentive / reward program for domain experts within the organization

Process No direct function in spurring knowledge creation,

dissemination and distribution

No recognition of tacit knowledge

Technology Branch centric applications formed islands of knowledge contributing to silo formation within the organization



Opportunities

People Existing of new social trends stemming from newfound

technology such as search engine and social network helps promote informal knowledge related culture

Process Potential assimilation of knowledge creation and sharing elements via a formal work flow

Technology Availability of new tools / platforms (i.e. Internet, social

network) that informally promotes knowledge sharing culture

Threats

People Inefficient change management implementation in assisting the development of KM

Process Rigid process flow that would not allow any attempt at inclusion of knowledge propagating elements

Technology Application system design that does not address specific

business focus/goals thus making it difficult to measure the effectiveness of any KM initiatives

Table 16: JKR’s KM SWOT Analysis

6.1.1 Conclusion of SWOT Analysis

Based on all given inputs from the preliminary audit exercises and the SWOT analysis

done on the inputs, it can be safely concluded that knowledge culture is informally but

significantly present and flowing within the JKR organization. Thus, the ECKM

strategies should be focused on formalizing, nurturing and propagating the existing

informal knowledge culture by giving it a proper structure and clear cut goals.


6.2 Tools and Technology Evaluations

“It is not computers that make the difference,

but what people do with them”

Paul Strassmann

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) offer valuable support for

knowledge management activities. Indeed, many tasks in knowledge management

(e.g. communication across geographical boundaries) only really become feasible

through the use of appropriate technologies.

However, to ensure that they provide the support required, the decision for any

technology-based solution(s) should be driven by knowledge management needs and

not by technical considerations. Discussing specific technical solutions before the

actual knowledge management goals have been set, or even adjusting goals to suit

technical constraints (and without considering people-oriented alternatives) are clear

warning signals.

Establishing an overview of the different technologies available and the activities they

support can be very useful in the knowledge management implementation process.

The example given in Figure 28 considers different technologies with a view to seven

basic knowledge management activities. Knowledge planning activities include the

definition of knowledge management goals and strategies. Knowledge creating

focuses on the development of new knowledge, whilst knowledge integration makes

existing (internal or external) knowledge available throughout the company. The role

of knowledge organisation is to bring structure into all this knowledge. Knowledge

transfer includes both planned, institutionalised transfer as well as spontaneous

knowledge exchange. Knowledge maintenance activities ensure obsolete, out-of-date

knowledge is identified, updated or even “forgotten”. Finally, assessing knowledge

provides an overview of the knowledge available and determines how it has

developed over time. It also indicates the extent to which knowledge goals have been

reached.


Figure 28: Extent of support provided by technology for KM activities

(Sammer, et al., 2003)

Figure 28 gives an overview of the support that the different technologies available can

provide for knowledge management activities. An overall consideration shows that

knowledge planning activities benefit least from information and communication

technologies, and that they also only provide limited support in knowledge assessment. They

are, however, particularly effective in knowledge transfer activities and also provide sound

support for knowledge integration and organisation.


However, if all seven knowledge management activities are considered as a whole, the

actual differences in the extent of the contributions made by the individual technology

groups are less pronounced. Furthermore, the relevance of formats, standards and

content generation tools should not be overlooked. They play a remarkably important

role, yet are often neglected. Document management systems continue to play a major

role in information technology based support for knowledge management. Table 17

describes the most important contributions each of the different technology groups

makes to the individual knowledge management activities.

Technology consideration

Description Example

Communication technologies

Communication technologies such as e-mail and video conferencing are particularly useful for knowledge transfer activities. They can also make a significant contribution to knowledge creation activities, where success often depends on communication between many people and/or across different locations.

E-mail, video conferencing, real time messaging

Collaboration technologies

Collaboration technologies combine different communication technologies with other tools (such as virtual whiteboard and brainstorming tools) and make them available in one single interface. Consequently, they can also contribute significantly to knowledge transfer and knowledge creation activities. Workflow management systems support structured forms of collaboration, in particular knowledge maintenance.

Groupware, wiki, blog, micro-blog, social network, time management (calendar)

Document management

Document management and content management systems play a major role in integrating content, since they act as a collection point for all documented knowledge. Classification schemes are one way of organising this content. Search mechanisms facilitate knowledge transfer. One of the core functions of these types of systems is the simplified maintenance of large amounts of data.

Knowledgetree, DocuWare, FileBound

Adaptation and presentation technologies

Adaptation and presentation technologies include personalisation tools, visualisation tools and automatic recommendation tools that forward relevant content. All these tools help facilitate knowledge transfer. Visualisation techniques also help to give a better overview of the complex structures involved in knowledge organisation.

Mind map, Gant Chart, SWOT



Description Example

e-learning environments

The strengths of e-Learning environments lie primarily in the integration of different content and in helping users both to understand this content and communicate with each other, leading ultimately to further knowledge transfer. The testing components included in eLearning systems make them one of the few technologies that can help with a detailed assessment of non-explicit knowledge.

Content generation tools

Content generation tools include authoring tools and technologies for automatically generating new content. They provide support for knowledge creation and knowledge integration. Specialised tools are also available to help with the handling of the complex structures encountered in organising knowledge. Most of these technologies are not only useful for generating content, they also provide support for knowledge maintenance activities.

Wiki, Enterprise Content Management,

Personal KM tools

There are still relatively few personal knowledge management tools available, but solutions do exist to support activities like mind mapping or bibliography management. These tools focus more on the development, organisation, integration and maintenance of knowledge for personal use than on knowledge transfer.

Mind map, concept map, tree structure

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence is now being increasingly used in knowledge management applications. These technologies are of most benefit to knowledge organisation activities, for example, the automated classification of documents. Agent technologies also support knowledge integration and transfer.

Semantic web technology

Networking technologies

Networking technologies rarely take centre stage in knowledge management initiatives. However, they provide the necessary infrastructure for many activities, and are particularly important for knowledge transfer.

Internet

Formats and Standards

Networking technologies rarely take centre stage in knowledge management initiatives. However, they provide the necessary infrastructure for many activities, and are particularly important for knowledge transfer.

Taxonomy classification



Description Example

Hardware

The formats and standards relevant for knowledge management range from file transfer formats and meta data standards to common classification schemes. These are a necessary requirement for the efficient integration, organisation, and maintenance of content within an organisation and play a special role in knowledge transfer across corporate boundaries

Table 17: Contribution made by technology components to KM activities

6.2.1 Criteria Selection Procedure

Information and communication technologies can obviously make a significant

contribution to operative knowledge management. However, it makes little sense to

focus on the actual technologies to be used before work processes have been analysed

and the relevant links between data and knowledge identified. The technical selection

process should always be based on the goals a company has set for its knowledge

management activities. This, of course, requires a detailed consideration of all aspects

involved.

A strengths/weaknesses analysis of the existing computer infrastructure determines

the technical starting basis in the organisation. The results of this analysis can then be

used to draw up the list of criteria for the remainder of the selection process.

Additional requirements can also be identified by holding personal interviews with

selected potential users (this process of "involving the involved" is highly

recommended). In a subsequent two-stage evaluation process, the most appropriate

information and communication technologies can then be selected from the wide

range available.

The fact that there is no need to actually test the product in the first stage of the

evaluation process increases the efficiency of the selection process. At this stage, a cost-

benefits analysis using appropriate, predefined criteria should be sufficient. Figure 29

lists some possible analysis criteria.


Figure 29: Possible criteria for evaluating software products (Sammer, et al., 2003)

Only three to five of the "top" software products from stage one should be selected for

inclusion in the second stage of the evaluation process. Possible selection criteria in

this stage include user-friendliness and the time and costs that are likely to be involved

in implementing the solution (incl. customising). User-friendliness can be evaluated

using a number of scenarios designed to test the product in realistic day-to-day

business cases. A cost-benefits analysis can also be used to assess user-friendliness. In

this phase, it is particularly important to compare the test products with any existing

solutions in the organisation to establish a clear picture of the potential improvements

they could bring. Implementation costs include both hardware and software costs. The

time and effort required to implement the chosen solution (training courses, internal

implementation) should also be calculated as part of the implementation costs.

Any costs incurred in the evaluation process (primarily in phase two, including the

costs of defining test scenarios, operational tests, software costs, etc.) should be seen as


a necessary investment in a comprehensive selection process. These costs should later

be amortised by the selection of a tool that best suits company requirements.

6.2.2 Conclusion of the Technology and Tools Analysis

Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

Knowledge Management

Activities Technology Types Main Selection Criteria

Technology Conclusion

Planning Knowledge

Creating Knowledge

Integrating Knowledge

Organizing Knowledge

Transferring Knowledge

Maintaining Knowledge

Assessing Knowledge

Communication technologies

Collaboration technologies

Document management

Adaptation and presentation technologies

E-learning environments

Content generation tools

Personal KM tools

Artificial intelligence

Networking technologies

Format and Standards

Hardware

Main focus of application

Communication policy

Support/Services

System requirement

Program/data interfaces

Basic knowledge

Costs

Licensing terms

References

“Quick Wins” approach must be used to demonstrate the full potential and to maintained the momentum of KM implementation

Cheap and easy initiative can be quickly implemented to secure community support

Exploiting the mature Open Source solution

Extending the pilot project Online Practical Site Management Guide (ePSMG)

Table 18: Overview of Tools & Technology Evolution


Based on all given selection and criteria with information gathering of existing

system/applications and network infrastructure, the “Quick Wins” approach must be

develop to demonstrate the full potential of knowledge sharing. This approach is

crucial to maintain the momentum of the KM implementation by using relatively

cheap and easy initiatives that can be quickly implemented in an attempt to secure

community support. Whilst the other KM initiatives such as study and detailed tacit

information gathering exercise are being implemented, the pilot project of Online

Practical Site Management Guide (ePSMG) can be extended to drive the KM culture

and give the “Quick Wins” effect to future Knowledge Management adopters.


7. DEVELOPMENT OF JKR ECKM FRAMEWORK

“Use a Framework to build the credibility of your KM Initiative &

to highlight the importance of People & Process issues..”

- James Robertson, KM Column

The overall JKR ECKM framework would consist of three primary deliverables that

would form the framework’s pillars, namely JKR’s ECKM Roadmap, Policies and

Guidelines. The combination of the three would define JKR’s own KM strategies and

mission-critical goals based on its overall vision and mission as one of the country’s

leading public service agency. JKR ECKM roadmap would act as an implementation

blueprint for the whole organization to act upon and executed. It would also provide a

unified direction in terms of JKR’s long term KM aspiration. The ECKM policies and

guidelines would on the other hand become the organization’s KM regulations in

assuring that all necessary steps and conducts are being properly carried out and

followed. Each of these deliverables is customized to suit JKR's needs and goals to

ensure that its KM implementation would not only achieve its goal successfully, but

also to maximize JKR's return on its KM investments.

7.1 Development of the Proposed JKR’s ECKM Roadmap

For the purpose of JKR’s ECKM high level framework formulation, a four phases

Roadmap is proposed after two preliminary audits were conducted in assessing and

determining critical indicators related to the existence of knowledge culture within

various levels of JKR’s organization as shown in Figure 29. The four phases Roadmap

also took into account other significant factors that would greatly influence the success

rate of JKR ECKM implementation such as budget availability under the Rancangan

Malaysia (RMK), JKR’s own Strategic Framework and also other internal initiatives,

both planned and those which have been implemented in parallel.


Figure 30: Proposed JKR’s ECKM Roadmap


7.1.1 Phase 1: Initiation.

Initiation is a critical phase of laying down the fundamental foundation work of

reviewing, auditing, assessing and strategizing all things KM from the organization’s

perspective. The exercises included in this phase are:

After Action Review;

Detailed Knowledge & KM Audit;

Development of Knowledge Experts Directory;

Development of Knowledge Ontology;

Appointment of Knowledge Managers (KMers);

Early adopters training & awareness workshop.

All exercises involving review, audits and assessment are to be conducted in the

designated order as per listed above. The estimated combined timeframe for the After

Action Review, Detailed Knowledge Audit and Detailed Knowledge Management

(KM) Audit is approximately six months, although it would actually encroach into

some part of the second phase where a parallel ‘Pilot’ implementation would be

carried out as a ‘quick win’ strategy. The Initiation Phase would also include

development for both JKR’s Knowledge Experts Directory and Knowledge Ontology.

Training and awareness workshop sessions for early adopters would also begin in the

Initiation Phase and would continue throughout the Mobilization Phase. More

importantly, a ‘best practice’ template must be produced at the end of the initiation

phase in order to proceed to the next phase of actions. The estimated overall timeframe

for the initiation phase is approximately six months.

7.1.2 Phase 2: Mobilization.

The second phase focuses more on mobilizing the ECKM initiative to all level within

the JKR organization. The ‘best practice’ template that would be generated from the

earlier phase will be the primary tool in spreading the ECKM implementation

enterprise wide. The work that needs to be carried out revolves around the activities as

per listed below:

Develop & implement KM road maps in the individual business units;

Establish knowledge sharing and creation as career criteria;

JKR’s Wiki Extended Development.


As a continuation of the Initiation Phase, a ‘quick win’ exercise is to be conducted on a

pilot basis. A ‘quick win’ is a collective implementation of the Initiation Phase and in

the form of a road map involving either selected branch or sector, or it can also be

executed based on a specifically chosen business process that would enable a simple

and straightforward return on investment (ROI) measurement. It is very much critical

that a specific ROI focus is set beforehand as this would give the whole pilot

implementation a non-moving target. Any potential success rate must be visible and

easily measured in order to create sense of satisfaction and would continuously

motivate the whole organization. The estimated overall timeframe for the second

phase is approximately nine months.

7.1.3 Phase 3: Institutionalization.

The third phase would move the ECKM implementation into a deeper level of the

organization’s consciousness by assimilating it with performance reviews and business

plans, as shown in the list below:

Provide centralized support for business unit Knowledge Officers

(establishment of a central KM Office - KMO);

Develop cross-departmental KM road map;

Integrate KM in business process;

Integrate KM in the performance reviews;

KM maturity assessment;

Integrate KM into organizational business plan;

Promote new knowledge based service offerings;

Implement intelligent KM workplaces;

Fully integrated JKR’s Wiki Development.

The execution of the third phase would materialize the formation of a formal central

body in the form of a Knowledge Management Office (KMO). Its primary functions are

to coordinate, regulate, monitor and become the one stop centre for the enterprise KM.

All business units would also be responsible in mobilizing their own KM strategies

and activities with the guidance and acknowledgement of the KM Office. The

estimated overall timeframe for the third phase is approximately twelve months

covering the whole of year 2011, but most of the proposed activities will be carried out

across into Phase Four to the first half of the year 2012.


7.1.4 Phase 4: Innovation.

The final phase would see various innovative ‘programs’ taking shape as a result of

mastering every aspects of KM and successful KM integration with the organization’s

critical business processes.

Basically, the innovation cycle should be a continuous process but for the purpose of

JKR ECKM Roadmap, the final phase would have the option to tentatively end by the

Rancangan Malaysia Ke-10 (RMK10).

7.2 The Proposed JKR’s ECKM Policies

Nurturing KM habits, particularly identification, acquisition, sharing and preserving

knowledge should be everyone’s responsibility in JKR. All knowledge sharing should

be encouraged and recognized throughout the enterprise. All key knowledge

performance and measurement should be determined by the KM Office (KMO).


The proposed policies are simplified in the Table 19, 20 and 21 below.

KMO is accountable for ensuring that information are updated and communicated using the KM system, in line with this policy.

“Knowledge accidents happen when people run into each other at places like this or at the water cooler, exchange information, and realize an opportunity for collaboration and a synergy between the projects they’re working on. We need to make knowledge accidents happen on purpose, regularly and, most importantly, with intent.”

(Al Zollar, CEO Lotus Development Corp, GovTech Conference, June, 2002)

KMO is responsible to establish the Knowledge Management Framework and interpret the content of KM Policy across JKR.

We wonder whether it is possible to be an excellent company without clarity in values and without having the right sort of values clarifying the value system and breathing life into it are the greatest contributions a leader can make.

(Peters and Waterman, 1982)

KMO shall ensure company maximizes the value of Knowledge Assets, facilitate the deployment of knowledge info structure (hard and soft) to enhance the culture of knowledge sharing and creation.

What we have learnt is that the soft stuff and the hard stuff are becoming increasingly intertwined. A company’s values – what it stands for, what its people believe in – are crucial to its competitive success. Indeed values drive the business.

(Robert Haas, CEO of Levi Strauss)

KMO shall develop an effective measurement and monitoring of trends to inform the policies in order to support knowledge sharing and creation and establish common development initiatives.

“Organizations failing to invest in their workforce and next generation workplace environment will face erosion of products and services (e.g., throughput, R&D, defect rates, market share), as well as diminished capacity to compete globally, as a result of growing employee malaise.”

(Mike Gotta, META Group, 2003)

Table 19: JKR’s Governance Policy for Knowledge Management Office (KMO)


All individual staff shall be responsible to gather, organize and share their own explicit and tacit knowledge.

“If you can’t maximize the power of the individual, you haven’t done anything. If you expand the ability of individual members of the organization, you expand the ability of the organization.” (Bob Buckman, CEO and Chairman of Buckman Laboratories)

All individual staff shall define their key knowledge goals that are aligned to the department objectives and goals.

“Knowledge is information that changes something or somebody – either by becoming grounds for actions, or by making an individual (or an institution) capable of different or more effective action”

(Peter F. Drucker in The New Realities)

All individual staff shall continuously update their own profile in the “Personal” section.

“As more members of the community discover the rewards of the learning journey, they contribute to expanding and nurturing their shared intelligence and the infrastructure that supports it. The stronger the infrastructure, the more support it provides to each individual’s learning journey.”

(George Pór, President of Organizational Learning Systems)

All individual staff shall be encouraged to attend knowledge sharing session organized by JKR.

“Because wealth creation is now in people’s heads rather than in their hands, your success will depend not only on your ability in managing workflow but on your talent in enticing from each person his best ideas, judgments, and effort.”

(Frances Horibe)

All individual staff shall update databases of good work practices and lessons learned to retain organizational knowledge.

“Focusing on document collection, management and indexing but providing little expert connection, many KM systems fail to provide stakeholders a means to locate and connect with the experts in their milieu. They fail to properly motivate those experts to share what they know and to capture this sharing in the process. Noncompliance is the greatest barrier to any KM systems’ success yet current KM solutions fail to motivate or measure employee contributions.”

( Knexa Knowledge Exchange brochure)

Table 20: JKR’s Governance Policy for Individual Staff


Knowledge manager should be accountable for improving the circulation of knowledge throughout the organization.

“Why is communication key to knowledge management? Because knowledge becomes productive when it flows. What Peter Drucker calls “high productivity of knowledge” is achieved when people share knowledge. Conversations have become the most value-adding activity in the organization — within teams, among teams, and even beyond the borders of the organization.”

(Edna Pasher)

Knowledge manager is responsible to apply new knowledge to improve behaviours.

“You don’t have to teach everyone everything. The goal isn’t to stuff the same knowledge into as many heads as possible, but to improve your return on intellectual capital. You can reduce the efforts of many by leveraging the knowledge of a few. “

(Thomas A. Stewart)

Knowledge Manager is responsible for creating awareness and conducting at least two knowledge sharing sessions per year.

"'The best single lesson I ever learned was to maximize the intellect of the company. You need to gather the knowledge of individuals, share those ideas and celebrate the sharing. That, in the end, is how a company becomes great."

(Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of GE)

The Head of Department is responsible to ensure all reports (trainings, visits, contacts and manuals) are archived in the knowledge portal.

“In the digital age, knowledge is our lifeblood. And documents are the DNA of knowledge.”

(Rick Thoman, CEO, Xerox)

Head of Department is accountable for building new intellectual capital required for future success.

“Knowledge management is a higher-order agenda. It starts with the CEO saying, ‘How do I make my organization more productive? How do I make my organization more effective? How do I capture the organizational knowledge to solve a specific problem? ”

(John M. Thompson, IBM )

The Head of Departments should define whether the document is ‘public’ or ‘private’

“People are five times more likely to ask a colleague for information than to consult any online resource.”

(2005 MIT research findings)

A copy of all other documents produced by the departments’ staff should be sent to KM unit for archiving centrality.

“The problem with documents being the cornerstone of knowledge management is that documents are stored everywhere within an organization.”

(Brad Bokoski, Operations Support Manager, BP Amoco)

Table 21: JKR’s Governance Policy for KMers and Head of Department


7.3 The Proposed JKR’s ECKM Guidelines

Identify known knowledge hoarders and those reluctant to participate in the knowledge sharing initiative and engage them in an easy and wise approach. Ask them what would make it easier for them to join in, and work with them toward a suitable solution.

Unwilling employees are treated in a coaxing manner. This will not alienate them and cause resentment towards the ECKM project and all those involved with it.

Implement a peer-to-peer support system for your fledgling knowledge community so that knowledge bearers would not feel as though they are alone in their efforts. This also provides them needed assistance.

Put a “face” to the knowledge community by creating a “personal” section profiling key knowledge contributors. This will go a long way towards humanizing the system and will allow the members within JKR to get to know people behind the information.

Create a mentoring program so newcomers do not feel estranged from the established knowledge community. Let them know that they can rely on the knowledge veterans for help; and these newcomers will, in turn, become future mentors themselves.

Lead by example. Knowledge bearers will be more likely to share if they see other sharing as well. This will create a domino effect: The more you share, the more others will share.

Acknowledge contributions so that active knowledge bearers have a sense of recognition for their hard work, and that they are being appreciated for the efforts.

Implement a knowledge contributors “Hall of Fame” or “Contributor of the Month” to highlight workers who go above-and-beyond.

Table 22: JKR’s ECKM Proposed Guidelines


8. THE RECOMMENDATIONS for ECKM

DEVELOPMENTS

“The prioritized recommendations are used to develop an overall

approach, which, in turn, leads to a detailed implementation plan”

- Boris Mutafelija & Harvey Stromberg

Based on the JKR’s proposed Roadmap mentioned in previous Chapter, the following

are the summary of the recommendations that JKR need to focus on future

development of successful ECKM.

All ECKM implementation must establish a clear and straightforward return on

investment (ROI) measurement.

All ECKM implementation must be focusing on specific business goals to

ensure that it is able to provide tangible and measurable results

An 'After Action Review' must be conducted almost immediately after the

commissioning of the ECKM framework and pre-analysis exercise in order to

maintain the momentum for the detailed knowledge & KM audit (so any gap in

the pre-analysis can be quickly identified and rectified)

A working template must be created at the end of the Initiation Phase so the

implementation can be extended in a 'Quick Win' scenario for selected

branch/sector

The ‘quick win’ is to be conducted on a pilot basis involving either selected

branch/sector, or it can also be executed based on a specifically chosen business

process.

Development of Knowledge Experts Directory and Knowledge Ontology

ideally should be conducted in parallel with the detailed KM audit as the

findings from the audit would relate closely to both developments, thus saves

precious time.

Awareness programs must be initiated at the very early stage in order to

facilitate a uniformed ECKM implementations throughout the organizations.


The following are the general recommendations for ECKM development as stated by

other literatures and are simplified as shown in Table 23 below.

Knowledge Management Activities

Recommendations

Planning

Services for design and creation of knowledge resources

Scribing service for key meetings, interviews, and presentations

Metric development and assessment

Creating

Document, engineering, and software development templates, services, procedures, and standards, including templates for word processing, presentations, drawings, models, and software

Meeting support tools

Voice and data conferencing

External electronic resource subscriptions

Expert research service

Integrating

ISO and security compliance

DNS implementation of NASA recommended standards

Standard data conversion and exchange tools and processes (e.g. native Office, PDF, HTML, XML)

Browse, search, and index JKR knowledge resources and Web sites to match standard JKR categories/taxonomies

Search across metadata from multiple repositories

Organizing

Services for document and data publishing (metadata standards document control/versioning, and access control)

Web metatag standards

Web publishing templates and procedures

Transferring Subject matter experts’ directories

Interest groups/forums

Integrated electronic threaded discussions and newsgroups

Maintaining Electronic high level catalog of institutional inactive and archived documents and data (including record collections)


Knowledge Management Activities

Recommendations

Online electronic repository of most frequently requested inactive and archived documents and data (including record collections)

Process to capture end-of-project documents and data for legal, institutional preservation and future access

Training in use and contributions to Knowledge Base

Communications to stakeholders about Knowledge Base

Routine metrics collection, security verifications, and virus scans

Assessing

Single user authentication process

Requests for network access to JKR Intranet

Establish incentives for contributions to and reuse of knowledge

JKR help desk interface agreement with KM services

Table 23: JKR’s ECKM Future Recommendations


9. CONCLUSION

The majority of employees, most significantly high-ranking officers who are

undoubtedly involved in JKR policy making decisions, believed that the Department

should have a well defined knowledge management strategy across the organisation.

This study shows that most of them agreed that the Department could gain a lot of

benefits from managing knowledge. In addition to improving work quality, having

up-to-date information and improving decision making, it was believed that by

managing knowledge the Department would be able to respond to customer needs. As

an organisation that is aligned far more to social benefits; literally being of service to

the people, than to making profits, it is very important for the employees to be more

knowledgeable and be able to facilitate the needs of the public. However, there is a

need for the Department to have a comprehensive programme that involves the whole

organisation, as the study shows that there were some employees who had work

experience of more than 20 years, but were still less confident on how knowledge can

be managed effectively and efficiently.

With regard to problems in managing knowledge, the study revealed that the most

difficult issue to manage was changing employees’ behaviour. The study indicated

that the employees with less work experience and who have been with the Department

for a few years felt that there were difficulties in changing employees’ behaviour.

Another pertinent issue was problems in maintaining data, where the results indicate

that the more experienced the person, the less difficult it is for them to maintain data

that are available in the Department. To overcome the problem, management should

consider having a strategy on how knowledge could be maintained and shared among

the employees, and how to allow new employees to gain knowledge without any

culture barriers which was emphasized a lot throughout the whole process.

The most important issue that the respondents believed has potential for developing a

successful Enterprise Content & Knowledge Management (ECKM) initiative was to

develop an organisational database of information and knowledge. Other important

issues were the need to develop effective and efficient methods of gathering

information and knowledge, to have systematic training for all employees and to

develop a culture that can promote knowledge sharing. With regard to knowledge

generation and sharing, most respondents believed that the current Lesson Learned,

Best Practices method, Total Asset Life Cycle workflow and ISO 9002 that the

Department is implementing have a great potential. However, to ensure that


information and knowledge can be generated and shared, the Department should

evaluate the current command and control of the Department and the communication

channels between the officers. These issues were regarded as the main barriers in the

Department. The study also revealed that employees do not face many problems in

accessing information and knowledge within their own units or division, but that it

was a little difficult when dealing with other units or divisions. Management should

think of a way to allow knowledge sharing among employees regardless of their units

or divisions and the integration of information across the departments. In a public

organisation, all employees should have adequate knowledge of the core business of

the Department to enable them to provide services effectively to the public. Planning a

comprehensive programme for different groups of employees is also necessary for the

Department, especially in narrowing the information and knowledge gaps between

different groups.

With regard to technology or tools that help employees to develop and gain

knowledge, e-mail, online information sources and the Internet were cited by most

respondents as either “very important” or “most important”. These results are similar

to the findings from an international survey sponsored by the Journal of Knowledge

Management (Chase 1997, p. 45) where e-mail, Intranet and Internet were cited as

being either “very effective” or “effective”. The study also shows that the younger

generation is more inclined to use electronic means in the gathering and sharing of

information and knowledge, compared to those who are older.

In conclusion, this study shows that knowledge management as a practice could be the

most influential strategy in managing knowledge in public organisations in Malaysia

in the near future. Although there is no specific term used in managing knowledge in

the organisation, it was believed that the current approach could help public

organisations in Malaysia to become knowledge-based organisations. The main reason

why public organisations in Malaysia will be successful in managing knowledge is the

government’s commitment in moving towards a K-economy. The K-based Economy

Master Plan (KEMP) introduced at the end of the year 2002, proved that the

government is very serious in transforming Malaysia from the P-based economy (P-

economy) to K-based economy (K-economy).


10. APPENDICES

Table below summaries all the appendices which will be referred to this proposal.

APPENDIX DESCRIPTION

A JKR Multi Faceted Taxonomy Breakdown

Table 24: List of Appendices


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JKR Taxonomy

Access Controls

Audiences

Business Purposes

Competencies

Content TypeLocations

Organisations

Project Implementations

Strategic Frameworks

Total Asset Life Cycle

Access Controls

Classified

Confidential

Secret

Top Secret

PublicSensitive But Unclassified

JKR Designated

Non-JKR Proprietary

Patents and Intellectual Property

Privacy Act

Procurement Sensitive

Unreviewed

Audience

Internal Employees

Administration Staff (Internal)

Administrative Staff (Internal)

Finance Staff (Internal)

HR Staff (Internal)

Managers (Internal)

Supporting Business Staff

Professional Staff (Internal)

Engineer

Civil Engineer

Mechanical Engineer

Electrical Engineer

Architect

QS

Planner

Land Surveyor

Semi Professional Staff (Internal)

TA

Technician

Draftsman

Supporting Technical Staff

Supporting StaffExternal

Contractors

Consultants

General public

Government

Ministries

Goverment Agencies

Central Agencies

Researchers

Vendors

Academia

Utility Providers

Professional Bodies

Business Purposes

Administration

Administrative Management Programs

Administrative Services

External Relationships

General

Internal Management Controls

Occupational Health

Organizational Structure

Safety

Security

Standards of Conduct


Accounting

Budget Formulation and Execution

Contractor Financial Management Reporting

Financial Reports

Fiscal Operations

Principles and General Policies

Travel Regulations

Human Resources

Employee Performance and Utilization

Employment

Executive Human ResourcesManagement

General (Human Resources)

Insurance and Annuities

Miscellaneous (Human Resources)

Personnel Provisions

Personnel Relations and Services

Time and Attendance

InspectorateAudit Program

Investigations Program

Legal and Technical

Automatic Data Processing Management

Communications

Information Technology Management

Laws and Legal Matters

Management Information Systems

Technology Utilization+ Technology Transfer

Procurement

Contractor Financial Management and Reporting

Contractor Labor Relations

Contractor-Held Government Property

Contracts (Procurement)

General (Procurement)

Reliability and Quality Assurance

Statement of Work

Program FormulationGeneral (Program Formulation)

Human Resources Utilization

Program Management

Advanced Studies

Environmental Management

General (Program Management)

Operations

Supporting Research and Technology

Tracking and Data Acquisition

Asset and Supply

Equipment Management

Expanded Supply Control

General (Asset and Supply)

Inventory Management

Storage and Distribution

Supply Cataloging

Utilization and Disposal

Competencies

Technical

Civil Engineering

Road Engineering & Geotechnique

Civil, Structures & Bridges

Electrical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering

Architecture

Quantity Survey

Non-Technical

Generic

Communication

Planning & Organization

People Management

Customer Service

Policies & Procedures

Functional

Quality Management

Project Management


Crisis Management Resolution

Advisory & Consultancy

Behavioral

Achievement Orientation

Adaptive Thinking

Knowledge Pursuit

Accountability

Impact & Influence

Professional Mastery

Visionary Leadership

ICT

Language

Content Type

AnnouncementsPress Kits

Press Releases

Calendars and SchedulesEvents

Agendas

Case StudiesLesson Learned

Do & Don't

Catalogs

Correspondencee-Mails

Memos

Databases

Designs and Specifications

Building Specifications

Standard Specification

Addendum Specification

Bridge Specification

Bridge Design Guideline

Term of Reference for Bridge & Viaducts

DJ 1/2001 Design Of Highway BridgesFor Hydraulic Action

Technical NotesArahan Teknik

REAM Guidlines

Road SpecificationSPJ (Standard Road Specification)

Quarry Spec

Vehicle and Heavy Plants Specs

Building Services Specs

Water Works/ Renticulation

Maritime Specification

Airport Specification

Drawings

Standard Drawing

Tender/Contract Drawing

Construction Drawing

As-Built Drawing

Temporary Bridge (Road Diversion)

Educational Materials

Slides

Syllabi

Pre Contract

Post Contract

Elearning/ Training Kits

Journal

Papers

Forms and Templates

Contract Forms

Contract Administration Forms

Checklists and Questionnaires

ManualsManual Prosedur Kerja Jambatan

Best Practices

MapsTopography Map

Road Maps

Meeting Documents

Action Items

Agendas

Minutes

Multimedia

Audio

Illustrations

Photographs

Video

Planning Documents

Policies and ProceduresArahan KPKR

Arahan dan Panduan PCKUB

Presentations

Records

Administrative Records

Agreements

Financial Records

Legal Documents

Patents

Procurement Records

Project Authorization Files

Qualification Records

Project Records

Project Test Records

Reference Sources

Directories

Gazetteers

Glossaries

Thesauri

Reports

Official Reports

Proceedings

Status Reports

Technical Reports

Audit Reports

Complain Reports

Call Complain

SMS Complain

Web Complain

Email Complain

Walk In Complain

General Software

Standards

ISO Standards

ISO 9001:2008Sistem Pengurusan Kualiti (SPK)

MOAs

Man-Month

Scale of Fees

Other Standards

Bills & Quantities

Arahan Teknik Jalan

REAM Guideline

JKR Standard Beams

Standard Pedestrian Bridge

Web Pages

FAQs

Help Files

Site Maps

Locations

Peninsular

Kelantan

Terengganu

Pahang

Johor

Melaka

Negeri Sembilan

Selangor

Perak

Kedah

Pulau Pinang

Perlis

Federal Territories

Kuala Lumpur

Putrajaya

Labuan

East MalaysiaSabah

Sarawak

Others

Organisation

Sektor Bisnes

Cawangan Jalan

Bahagian Penyelarasan & Khidmat Sokongan

Bahagian Pengurusan Kontrak & Ukur Bahan

Bahagian Pengurusan Elektrik

Bahagian Pengurusan Projek

Penyeliaan Projek 1

Penyeliaan Projek 2

Bahagian Pengurusan Penyeliaan Projek 1 (BPP 1)

Cawangan Pengkalan Udara & Miritim


Bahagian Miritim

Bahagian Lapangan Terbang

Bahagian Arkitek

Bahagian Kontrak & Ukur Bahan

Bahagian Mekanikal (Komunikasi)

Bahagian Elektrikal (Komunikasi)

Cawangan Kerja Bangunan Am

Bahagian Pengurusan Projek Komunikasi


Bahagian Pengurusan Pembangunan Projek

Cawangan Kerja Kesihatan


Bahagian Pengurusan Pembinaan

Bahagian Komunikasi & Khidmat Teknikal


Cawangan Kerja Keselamatan


Bahagian Komunikasi & Khidmat Teknikal

Bahagian Pengurusan Korporat

Cawangan Kerja Pendidikan danPengajian Tinggi


Bahagian Korporat

Sektor Pakar

Cawangan Arkitek

Unit Pengurusan Dasar

Bahagian Reka Bentuk Fasiliti Kesihatan,Pendidikan & Pengajian Tinggi (BRBFKPPT)

Bahagian Penyelarasan & KhidmatSokongan (Korporat BPKS)

Bahagian Reka Bentuk Fasiliti BangunanAm, Keselamatan / Pertahanan (BRBFBAKP)

Bahagian Perundangan & Dokumentasi

Bahagian Teknologi & Inovasi Bangunan

Cawangan Kejuruteraan Elektrik


Bahagian Perunding Reka Bentuk

Khidmat Operasi Negeri

Bahagian Perkhidmatan Pakar

Cawangan Kejuruteraan Jalan & Geoteknik


Bahagian Kejuruteraan Jalan

Bahagian Keselamatan Jalan

Bahagian Kejuruteraan Geoteknik

Cawangan Kontrak & Ukur Bahan

Seksyen Pengurusan Korporat dan Pakar


Bahagian Perunding, Dokumentasi & ICT

Bahagian Perolehan dan Khidmat Kos

Bahagian Dasar dan Kontrak 1

Bahagian Dasar dan Kontrak 2

Pengajian Tinggi

Seksyen Pengurusan Projek

Bahagian Kerja Pendidikan dan Pengajian Tinggi

Bahagian Kerja Perubatan dan Kesihatan

Bahagian Penyenggaraan, Penswastaan dan Pelbagai

Bahagian Kerja Bangunan Am 1

Bahagian Kerja Bangunan Am 2

Bahagian Kerja Jalan dan Jambatan

Bahagian Projek - Projek Khas

Bahagian Kerja Keselamatan

Cawangan Kejuruteraan Awam, Struktur dan Jambatan


Bahagian Kejuruteraan Awam

Bahagian Kejuruteraan Struktur

Bahagian Jambatan

Bahagian Forensik Struktur

Bahagian Forensik Jambatan

Bahagian Pakar

Cawangan Kejuruteraan Mekanikal


Bahagian Kepakaran

Bahagian Reka Bentuk

Bahagian Perkhidmatan Harta

Cawangan Kejuruteraan MekanikalNegeri - Negeri

Cawangan Alam Sekitar dan Tenaga

Bahagian Alam Sekitar


Bahagian Tenaga

Sektor Pengurusan

Cawangan Pengurusan Korporat


Bahagian Kader

Bahagian Kewangan & Akaun

Bahagian Naziran & Integriti

Bahagian Pemantauan Projek

Bahagian Pengurusan Kualiti

Bahagian Dasar Sumber Manusia

Bahagian Pengurusan Sumber Manusia

Bahagian Komunikasi Korporat

Bahagian Audit Teknikal

Bahagian Teknologi Maklumat

Bahagian Keurusetiaan

Bahagian Pengurusan Bersepadu

Kumpulan Projek Khas

Cawangan Kejuruteraan Senggara

Bahagian Senggara Fasiliti Jalan

Bahagian Senggara Fasiliti Bangunan

Bahagian Kejuteraan Perkhidmatan Senggara

Bahagian Kejuteraan Cerun

Cawangan Pengurusan Projek Kompleks

Project Management Development Division

Complex Project Implementation Division

Change Management Division

Project Management Expertise Division

Administration

Special Projects

Unit JKR KESEDAR

JKR NEGERI

JKR Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur

JKR Wilayah Persekutuan Labuan

JKR Wilayah Persekutuan Putrajaya

Project Implementations

Physical Projects

New Projects

LPT

Mid Term Link (MTL)

ECER

Extensions

Upgrading

Repairs

ICT Projects

Enterprise Applications

SKALA

SPK

SEPAKAT WEB

CUTIWEB

E-OFIS

I-SUPERVISION

ETASS

GROUPWISE

ECKM

CADD & Analysis

ArchiCAD

Autodesk

ADT 3.3 (Autodesk Architectural Desktop)

AUTOCAD 2002

LDT 3.0 (Autodesk Land Desktop)

Autodesk REVIT

Civil Survey 3.0

Civil Design 3.0

STAAD

STAAD.Pro

STAAD.etc

STAAD.beava

Orion 15Structural Design Software

All branches esp. Cawangan Pakar

ARTLANTIS3D Rendering

IES

E-Government Applications

E-PEROLEHAN

E-SPKB

SISPEN

SPEKS

HRMIS

SPP2

SPATA

SPAA

Branch Centric Applications

Bridge Management System (BMS)

Kad Daftar Hak Milik Kenderaan & Rekod Penyenggaraan

Pendaftaran Kenderaan JKR (Federal)

i-SCADA

SPTK

Sistem Help Desk

Sistem Pengurusan Peperiksaan

Sistem Pengurusan Kompetensi dan Latihan

Sistem Pertukaran Pegawai

E-PRESTASI

E-USP

E-KOMUNITI DESA

EMAL

E-SENGGARA

E-Servis

E-Matrix

E-Pengurusan

Structured Forensic Data Management System

Pakej Penilaian Tender

ECA Online

Rates Online

Pakej Bayaran Interim

QS Consultant

SPSS

Content Management

SMART (Slope Management)

SPRS

Library Centric

Sistem ILMU

Web OPAC

WINISIS

Newspaper Clipping Database

Media Gallery Database

MyLIB

SirimLink

E-Journal

E-PERUNDING

HDM4

RAMS

MARRIS

eBanjir

Slope -W

Plaxis

ER Mapper

ERDAS

SIDRA

SketchUp

Professional Design System (PDS)

Sistem Maklumat Kemalangan

SILT

SCAN

Hummingbird

QPR

Masterbill

Builtsoft

Pengkalan Data Profil Perunding C&S

Senarai Pembekal Sistem KekudaBumbung Pasang Siap

Q-Network

Neural System

SISTEM TALIAN ADUAN RAKYATSELANGOR (STARS)

Web ptk.jkr.gov.my

Maklumat Kedudukan Jawatan

Pakej Pengiraan Kuantiti Bar Tetulang

Sistem Pemantauan Projek

ISIS

CMMS

GIS Application/ Software

MapInfo

ArcView 3.2a/ ArcView 9, ArcIMS 9, ArcPad

Autodesk Map3D

RIMS

Black Spot

Lanina

Weighbridge

EIA

Labuan Road Network

Strategic Framework

Customer Focus

Asset Management

Asset Planning

Asset Design

Procurement

Construction


Asset Register




Asset Disposal

Performance Measurement and Reporting

Strategic CompetencyDevelopment

Standardisation

Earned Value

Leveraging on ICTICT Strategic Plan

ECKM

BIM

Effective Implementation ofMalaysian Plans

Total Asset Life Cycle

Asset Planning

Asset Design

Procurement

Construction

Building WBS

Road WBS

Bridge WBS

Safety and Health WBS

Airport WBS

Maritime WBS

Senggara WBS


Asset Register




Asset Disposal