Case Study
A Typical Knowledge Structure Mapping Project
John L. Gordon November 2006
Comico plc is not a real company, it is one invented to represent the sort of work that is undertaken on a typical Knowledge Structure Map project. In this scenario, the company wishes to investigate and improve the department responsible for all after sales work, the Service and Delivery department.
Initial meetings produced the framework for the knowledge study. An internal ‘Knowledge Leader’ was identified. This person helped to select 11 other staff to cooperate with interviews. Their collective knowledge spanned all of the knowledge required in the Service and Delivery department.
A pre-project information form was completed. This would help to ensure that all of the resources necessary for the study were available when they were needed.
The project began with an information session for all of the staff to be involved, leading to a group interview to elicit the main knowledge structure. Individual interviews and consultations with the knowledge leader were complete within two weeks of the start date. Two further weeks of data analysis and report compilation preceded the delivery of results to the management of Comico plc.The Results:
Results were centred on a visualisation of the knowledge required for Service and Delivery. A significant knowledge overlap was discovered between System Installation and Customer Services. This may influence the company’s earlier decision to outsource System Installation. Other significant overlaps involving installation were also identified, in particular, the important. overlap with Planning and Logistics.
Although service evaluation was thought to be relatively unimportant by staff, it still turned out to be one of the highest risk knowledge areas. Its poorly explored knowledge sub structure also turned out to be the knowledge areas at most risk. I It was clear from interviews that service evaluation was not operating as management expected it to and the company possessed little if any knowledge of how to designing service assessment procedures.
The highest risk knowledge identified during the study was that of 'Manpower Capabilities'. It is believed that better working arrangements and improved training can help reduce the risk for this knowledge area.
The automated Options for Action generation rules suggested that setting up a community of practice within Customer Services should be given consideration. Knowledge areas such as 'Common Faults & solutions' may benefit from records arising from the community of practice and other areas such as the high risk 'Diagnostic fault finding methods' may also benefit from shared experiences and approaches.
There are 6 direct knowledge prerequisites of 'Customer Services. Of these, three are members of the top 10% of highest risk knowledge from the study. A strategy of training support coupled with a method of recording and making available elements of good practice within these knowledge areas may help to reduce the risk associated with them.
There are 5 knowledge elements that are thought to be the most specialised knowledge within Service and Delivery. In general these knowledge elements are considered to be not very well known and also quite important. It is also thought that the knowledge is acquired mainly through study.
This indicates that these knowledge elements should be properly documented and available for reference by appropriate staff. Where the knowledge is considered to be unstable or changes rapidly, as in the case of 'Pricing structures', the documentation should be regularly reviewed so that it is always up to date.
In summary, staff see the knowledge resource as very important, generally not too difficult to replace and quite stable. The overall knowledge risk for Service and Delivery also seems reasonable. These conclusions can be drawn from the spread the spread of parameter values for the whole study. The department seems generally healthy from a knowledge perspective.. However, the specific knowledge issues raised by this study are likely to lead to worthwhile improvements if acted upon.
Review:
This information is a compressed version of the sort of things that have been identified in previous Knowledge Studies using the Knowledge Structure Map methodology. The software tool that is used to record the information elicited during interviews can produce a complete web resource for use by staff. This is a fully automated process requiring no further human intervention. A site based on the study discussed here can be found at KSTweb. This knowledge study method is based on the way experts can acquire their knowledge and is therefore suited to delivering learning support material. The current version of this is called Corax and information about it can be found at corax. The files used by corax to deliver an e-learning support system are also produced directly by the Knowledge Study Tool.