Towards a Framework for Human Aspects of IT-driven ...

The 8th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising. Rome, Italy, 17-19 June 2002

Towards a Framework for Human Aspects of IT-driven Knowledge Management Solutions Berend Denkena, Hans Kurt Tönshoff, René Apitz Institute of Production Engineering and Machine Tools (IFW), University of Hannover, Schloßwender Str. 5, 30159 Hannover, Germany, [email protected] Abstract Human aspects are usually seen as the key for success or failure of knowledge management projects. In particular, cultural and organisational aspects are often cited among the most important factors for successful projects. However, as long as software support is seen as a useful approach to manage large pools of information, regarding human aspects should begin earlier than with the introduction of software and should also include questions of the system’s design. Knowledge management tools will only be accepted if they are self-descriptive in the way they are to use and offer the fastest possible access to a pool of useful information. The paper structures these human aspects of ITdriven knowledge management projects with special regard to concurrent enterprises. Keywords Knowledge management, information management, human aspects

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Introduction

Knowledge Management is one of the most frequently discussed topics of today’s economy. All mayor companies focus on knowledge as a valuable asset. Many of them claim to have succeeded at least partially on the field of “managing” their knowledge. But what is knowledge management actually? The mere storage of information is no longer a significant problem. Finding the right piece of information at the right time in terms of information logistics is still a challenge. The larger and more heterogeneous the users and the stored information items are, the more difficult the problem of retrieving what is really needed becomes. A few people working on the same field or project will share a rather homogenous pool of information and documents. If different departments, a company as a whole or a concurrent enterprise as temporary alliance of independent manufacturers are regarded, this pool of information becomes obviously less manageable. However, information technology may help to cope with this challenge.

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Related Work and Literature

Human, i.e. psychological, cultural and organisational aspects, are widely seen as one of the key success factors for knowledge management projects. Long before the term knowledge management itself became popular, the information seeking behaviour of people or certain groups of people like e.g. engineers was investigated. Early work [Gerstberger, Allen, 1968] postulated a direct relationship between the perceived accessibility of information channels and their utilisation, but found no evidence that the quality of information has a similar influence. [Byström, Järvelin, 1994] focus on the influence of the performed task on the choice of an information source, whereas [Allen, Hall, 1993] give an overview of empirical studies on the information seeking behaviour as well as of characteristics of the engineering domain, showing that engineers tend to internal or personal sources that are easily accessible. [Hertzum, Pejtersen, 1999] point out that engineers do not necessarily search for documents, but


also for colleagues or other people that may help to solve a problem. This view is supported by [Bichteler, Ward, 1989], who link the information seeking behaviour to the time available for searching. Note that this paper comes from a slightly different domain than the engineering one. Other authors regard cultural aspects. [Nonaka, 1991] focuses on the creation of an innovationfriendly culture within in a company, i.e. on the process of creating new pieces of knowledge. On the other hand, [Davenport, 1997] gives a comprehensive overview of measures that facilitate knowledge management activities within a company. Furthermore, there is an ever growing number of success stories and reports about experiences on this field that highlight some of these aspects. However, the literature basis is rather small with regard to concurrent enterprising,. [Dijksta et al., 1999] name a few aspects. If software systems for supporting knowledge management are described, human aspects are rarely explicitly discussed. [Hayman, Elliman, 2000] name autonomy of action, delegation and trust, informal team interactions and the knowledge worker’s “informing” process as human elements that have to be addressed. Focussing on processes, a high level of conceptualisation and a rigid guidance of the user are expected to have a negative influence. Corporate Memories or Organisational Memory Information Systems (OMIS) as described in [Ackermann, 1993], [Kühn, Abecker, 1997] or [Abecker et al., 1998] can be expected to be able to form a userfriendly basis for knowledge management. A Corporate Memory is a comprehensive storage for all relevant kinds of information within a company and can use organisational knowledge to form a context for technical and product knowledge. A system that is influenced by this approach is described in [Tönshoff, Apitz, 2002] and in [Tönshoff et al., 2001].

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The user as a starting point

Knowledge is only valuable if it can be used – as a matter of fact, it is possibly the only item that becomes more valuable the more it is used. It can be regarded as information in a context that can e.g. be formed by personal experience. From a technical point of view, “managing knowledge” primarily means handling information and offering it to somebody who is looking for information. This process can be supported by regarding the person’s context, for example his position within a company, his task, skills or interests. The creation of new portions of knowledge will usually remain a task for the user himself, but information technology can help him to achieve this goal. At this point it becomes evident that knowledge management can only succeed if it concentrates on the user and his personal context and situation as a starting point. A user will only be willing to accept a software tool that respects his way of trying to retrieve information, is self-descriptive in the way it is to handle, fast and easy to use and – of course – answers his initial question. Consequently, not only his context, but also his general approach while searching for answers is important: In which way does he attempt to find a solution for his problem? But placing the user in the centre of knowledge management of course has a second crucial dimension: Organisational and cultural problems are often cited as obstacles for knowledge management. These problems descend from personal fears or rivalry between individuals, groups or organisational units. Diminishing these obstacles is another aspect.

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Towards a framework

These approaches can be placed in a framework for human aspects in information technology driven knowledge management projects. This framework addresses two main fields that can be named “development of human-oriented software to support knowledge management” and “human-oriented introduction of software to support knowledge management”. It is important to


understand that these two fields tackle the same problem of user acceptance, are both crucial for success and are yet totally different from each other. Building a software for exchanging information within concurrent enterprises requires the use of certain components and technologies as well as regarding some aspects of human behaviour. In a simplified way it can be said that users do not necessarily take the best, let alone most efficient, way to obtain information, but rather the way that seems to be the easiest one and bears the least effort in itself. Thus, whatever technology is in charge for providing the desired information, it has to be accessed by an easy-to-use interface. Furthermore, the search for information and knowledge is not a mere search for documents – it is a quest for answers. These answers can be found in a document, but also in extern databases or by calling somebody on the telephone who used to face a similar problem. This calls for integrating numerous resources into a single point of access and alludes questions concerning the representation of these resources.

Organisational Organisational Memories Memories ContextContextbased basedKM KM

Motivation Motivation Software Software ergonomics ergonomics

CommuniCommunication cation

Organisation Organisation

Human Humaninformation information retrieval retrievalstrategies strategies

Metadata Metadata generation generation Navigation Navigation

Psychological, Psychological,cultural cultural and andorganisational organisationalaspects aspects

Development of human-oriented software

Incentives Incentives Change Change management management

Human-oriented introduction of software Ap/33816 © IFW

Figure 1: Human aspects of within IT-driven knowledge management A number of technologies can be implemented to achieve this objective. This may include the use of ontologies to represent the structures of a company, its documents or products. In contextbased knowledge management organisational structures of a company and the user’s task in a workflow can be taken into account for providing the user with information. Other important fields to be addressed are e.g. document management, extraction and management of metadata, suitable retrieval technologies, view management, navigation over heterogeneous information sources as well as possibilities to push information actively. While all these components form an approach for designing human-oriented knowledge management software, introducing the system and assuring its success calls for different measures, such as early communication and information of future users, organisational and cultural changes, support from the top-level management as well as questions of motivating and rewarding users, i.e. by establishing suitable incentive systems. During the software development the focus lies on the individual’s needs and interests, while establishing the software means considering larger groups of users.


All these challenges can be found for a single independent company as well as for a concurrent enterprise. However, introducing software is likely to face more significant obstacles due to the temporary character of a concurrent enterprise. This may e.g. comprise questions concerning the motivation of participants to share their knowledge, incentives as well as possible organisational changes.

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Conclusion

The paper introduces a framework for human aspects of information technology driven knowledge management projects. It proposes two main directions of human-oriented knowledge management: The development of human-oriented software and the human-oriented introduction of this software in a company. These two fields require different approaches. The development of a suitable software calls for certain components of information and document management technology and focuses primarily on the individual user. On the other hand, introducing this software poses questions of organisational and cultural changes as well as problems of motivation and practical incentive systems. Acknowledgement The content of this paper is an outcome of the KnowWork project, which is funded by the German Office for Education and Research (BMBF) and is supervised by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). The authors wish to acknowledge these institutions for their support. We also wish to acknowledge our gratitude and appreciation to our projects partners for their contribution during the development of various ideas and concepts presented in this paper. The KnowWork project was started in July 2000 by seven partners from industry and research in order to develop methods and tools for a context based knowledge management system that supports the co-operation between technical sales, design and process planning departments. References Abecker, A; Bernardi, A.; Hinkelmann, K., Sintek, M.: Toward a technology for Organizational Memories. IEEE Intelligent Systems, May/June 1998, p. 40-48. Ackermann, M. S.: Definitional and contextual issues in organizational and group memories. Proceedings of the Twenty-seventh Hawaii International Conference of System Sciences (HICSS), Organizational Memory minitrack, January, 1994. Also UC Irvine ICS Technical Report 93-42, September, 1993. Allen, K.; Hall, C. M.: The information-seeking behaviour of engineers. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science, Vol. 52. New York, Basel, Hong Kong: Dekker, 1993, p. 167-201.. Bichteler, J. Ward, D.: Information-seeking behaviour of geoscientists. Special Libraries, Vol. 79, N. 3, p. 169-178. Washington D.C.: Special Libraries Association, 1989. Byström, K.; Järvelin, K.: Task complexity affects information seeking and use. Information Processing & Management, Vol. 31, No. 2, p. 191-213, 1995. Davenport, T. H.; de Long, T. H.; Beers, M. C.: Successful knowledge management projects. Sloan Management Review, Vol. 39, No. 2, Winter 1998, p. 43 – 57. Dijkstra, J.; Verwijs, C., de Wit, D.; Haaren, E.; Bakker, R.: Knowledge Mangement for the extended enterprise. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising, The Hague, Netherlands, 15 – 17th March 1999, p. 81-87. Gerstberger, P. G.; Allen, T. J.: Criteria used by research and development engineers in the selection of an information source. Journal of Applied Psychology 1968, Vol. 52, No. 4, p. 272-279. Hayman, A.; Elliman, T.: Human elements in information system design for knowledge workers. International Journal of Information Management 20 (2000) p. 297-309. Hertzum, M.; Pejtersen, A. M.: The information-seeking practices of engineers: searching for documents as well as for people. Information Processing and Management 36 (2000), p. 761-778. Kühn, O.; Abecker, A.: Corporate memories for knowledge management in industrial practice: Prospects and Challenges. Journal of Computer Science, vol. 3, no. 8 (1997), p. 929-954. Nonaka, I.: The knowledge creating company. Harvard Business Review, November-December 1991, p. 96-104.


Tönshoff, H. K.; Apitz, R.: Ontology-based knowledge management for the product development process. Machine Engineering, Vol.2, No. 1 - 2, 2002, p. 33-39. Tönshoff, H. K; Apitz, R.; Lattner, A. D.; Schlieder, C.: KnowWork – An Approach to Co-ordinate Knowledge within Technical Sales, Design and Process Planning Departments. Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Concurrent Enterprising, Bremen, Germany, 27 – 29th June 2001, p. 231-239.