A knowledge centre is a formalised division within the organisation that specialises in the collection, analysis and above all implementation of specific areas of operational performance. It is the practical application of knowledge management on a bottom up rather than top down methodology. Though all enterprises have informal knowledge centres, their formalisation has significant advantages:
It enables the the enterprise to decentralise, by passing authority and responsibility down to the knowledge centre for a specific part of operational performance, which is particularly valuable for
change management, all aspects of business planning, planning effectiveness reviews in the planning cycle, succession and
exit planning;
They add considerably to the ability of the enterprise to handle complex strategies such as product development and international expansion;
With increased knowledge should come increased productivity, especially when coupled with a programme to continually enhance the effectiveness of the knowledge centre (see below);
As it collects and uses information in decision making and implementation, the existence of the knowledge centre improves overall management information systems by ensuring that information is accurate, simple, useful, and timely;
Knowledge centres are vital to manage increasingly complex software to ensure that the enterprise works smarter rather than harder;
Knowledge centres can most easily develop and manage their own standard operating procedures;
It improves planning through a process of bottom up rather than top down analysis of each important component of the business and speeds
action planning and implementation;
It should improve competitive advantage as the focus of the unit should be to improve operational performance against external benchmarks as part of its
competitive analysis in addition to internal targets;
It should improve overall skills development through the ease of identification of skills requirements, and with the focus on skills development that the knowledge centre creates further enhance core competences and ensure that the group works smarter rather than harder including the management of
cost cutting projects;
It greatly improves risk assessments and with it the effectiveness of contingency planning;
It should enable the enterprise to further drive the percentage of activities that are completed by teams and those that can be subjected to management by objectives;
It should improve motivation as it enables the enterprise to create a balanced scorecard for each centre which can be linked with bonus systems.
Disadvantages obviously exist:
The decentralisation of information that is part of the knowledge centre concept tends to increase secrecy, even though it may improve security;
Decentralisation of critical information may significantly increase risk;
Certain specialist functions need to remain centralised because of economies of scale;
Ideas from outside the knowledge centre will often be hotly contested – a feature of the not invented here (NIH) syndrome;
Demands for increased investment from the centre may be difficult to control as the information on which to judge their effectiveness is held by the knowledge centre itself.
Creating a knowledge centre
Knowledge centres can be created using a step by step procedure:
Separating the organisation into operational areas. Any analysis of the way in which an enterprise works will quickly define operational requirements, which can be further formalised with some graphical representation such as an organogram;
Defining authority and responsibility (especially for project management and budgeting);
Establishing KPI/ benchmarks for operational areas. This separates the enterprise into units based around functional responsibility for a specific set of tasks;
Creating a monitoring system. This defines how the operational area will present and manage its area of responsibility, and the way in which it will contribute to overall business planning, by using the most appropriate software in many cases;
Identifying information flows. An understanding of how data inflows, collection, analysis, storage and outflows are currently managed against best practice will highlight strengths and weaknesses in the operational area, and create an agenda for change. The use of an information flow map is a useful tool;
Defining skills requirements and measuring existing skills profiles. For a specific knowledge centre there will be an “ideal” skills set. Identifying what this is, will enable the existing skills profile within the existing team to be measured (five categories – expert, proficient, competent, advanced beginner, novice are useful) and skills gaps identified;
Creating new objectives will be necessary once existing systems have been reviewed, future requirements identified (where are we? where do we want to be – and when? how do we get there?) and gaps defined;
Reviewing authority and responsibility (this may mean a re-write of job descriptions) within the knowledge centre will then assist the group in the completion of the necessary
action planning and implementation
that will take the existing system and build its core competence and competitive advantage.
Managing the project plan for the creation of knowledge centres
Once these stages have been completed, the project plan can be implemented. Key elements of it are likely to be:
The collection of best practice into a series of standard operating
procedures, which can then be tested to ensure that they do improve operational efficiencies and provide the basis for an expert system;
Training to meet the skills gap;
The introduction and then integration of appropriate software alongside a smoothly functioning expert system;
The identification and introduction of any artificial intelligence approaches that deal with standard problems and enable the knowledge centre to move further up the value chain.
Knowledge centres as the first stage in the development of the planning platform
Ibis uses the knowledge centre concept as the initial starting point for the development of their planning platform. For a no-obligation review of your existing planning systems e-mail Ibis
now.
