Knowledge Management in the Public Sector Knowledge Management in the Public Sector A Blueprint for Innovation in Government David E. McNabb M.E.Sharpe Armonk, New York London, England Copyright © 2007 by M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 80 Business Park Drive, Armonk, New York 10504. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McNabb, David E. Knowledge management in the public sector : a blueprint for innovation in government / by David E. McNabb. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-7656-1727-9 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-7656-1727-7 1. Knowledge management. 2. Organizational learning. 3. Public administration— Information technology—Case studies. 4. Electronic government information—Case studies. I. Title. HD30.2.M398 2006 352.3'8—dc22 2006005776 Printed in the United States of America The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z 39.48-1984. ~ BM (c)10987654321 For Meghan, Michael, and Sara. Contents List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes ix Introduction xi Part 1. Foundations of Knowledge Management 1 1. Historical Foundations of KM 3 2. KM: A Self-Regulating Social System 23 Part 2. Transforming Government with KM 43 3. The Technology and Processes Subsystem 45 4. Knowledge Processes and Policy Directives 64 5. Principles and Processes in Implementing KM 83 6. Building a Collaborative Learning Culture 106 7. KM and Organizational Learning 125 Part 3. KM Systems in the Public Sector 147 8. KM and Innovation in Government 149 9. Knowledge Management in the Public Sector 168 10. The Public-Sector Chief Knowledge Officer 188 Part 4. Stories of Public-Sector KM in Action 207 11. Knowledge Management at NASA Edward Hoffman, Jon Boyle, and Anthony J. Maturo 209 12. KM at the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command Susan L. Nappi 227 13. KM at the Virginia Department of Transportation Maureen L. Hammer 240 vii viii CONTENTS 14. Conclusion: Knowledge Management’s Role in the Drive to Transform Government 257 Glossary 275 Bibliography 291 About the Author 303 About the Invited Contributors 305 Index 307 List of Tables, Figures, and Boxes Tables 1.1 Twentieth-Century Efforts to Reform Government 11 2.1 A Comparison of Tacit and Explicit Knowledge 32 3.1 Five-Model Comparison of Perceived Critical KM Components 47 3.2 Knowledge Management Process and Supporting ICT Tools 51 3.3 Benefit Factors and Their Constituent Components 61 4.1 Four E-Government Collaboration Efforts Reviewed 70 4.2 KM Capabilities to Transform Information into Meaningful Knowledge 75 4.3 Additional Services Model (SRM) Domains and Capabilities with KM 77 5.1 Successful KM Implementation Principles and Practices 90 5.2 Partial Results of 2005 Performance Review on KM and Leadership 92 7.1 Alberta, Canada, Knowledge Management and Learning Organization Framework 133 Figures 1.1 From Data Processing to Full Knowledge Management Systems 9 1.2 Key Components of Early E-Government Systems 13 2.1 Fundamental Mechanisms, Processes, and Payoffs in a Public-Sector Knowledge Management System 26 2.2 How KM Subsystems Interact to Produce Learning and Generative Change 27 4.1 Mechanisms Facilitating Knowledge Management and Agency Collaboration 67 4.2 KM in the Federal Enterprise Architecture Reference Model (FY07) 74 4.3 Service Interface and Integration Service Areas 79 ix x LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND BOXES 4.4 Evolution of Business Models into the President’s Management Agenda (PMA) of 2002 81 6.1 Organizational Factors Affecting the Culture of an Organization 112 7.1 A Model of the Knowledge Management and Organization Learning System 127 7.2 A Model of Single-Loop Learning 131 7.3 The APHIS Organizational Learning Cycle 135 8.1 How Learning and Knowledge Shape an Organizational Learning System 153 14.1 A Model of the Forces Shaping Transformation in Government 258 14.2 KM in the Federal Enterprise Architecture Reference Model (FY07) 262 14.3 A Continuum of Content Delivery Models with Illustrative Pedagogies 272 Boxes 1.1 The Federal Enterprise Architecture Program 12 4.1 Enterprise Architecture at the Department of Defense (DoD) 76 5.1 So What Is a Knowledge Audit? What Will It Investigate and Evaluate? 94 5.2 Mission Statement of the KM.gov Taxonomies and Semantics SIG 101 5.3 Some Technologies Used in Running Communities of Practice 102 6.1 Three Examples of a Culture of Collaboration in the Canadian Government 117 6.2 Great Lakes Interagency Task Force Collaborative Actions 120 6.3 Leadership Guidelines for Government CIOs and CKOs 123 7.1 Four Descriptions of Learning Organizations 129 7.2 A California City’s Transformation to a Learning Organization 130 7.3 From Khobar Towers to Pentagon Renovation 139 9.1 Building an Information-Sharing Culture in Europe 185 10.1 Excerpts from a Job Description for a Chief Knowledge Officer at GSA 192 10.2 Excerpts from a CKO Job Description for the FERC 193 10.3 Required Qualifications for a DoD KM Specialist 204 Introduction Knowledge . is inexhaustible. Once produced . knowledge can be used repeatedly—it will not disappear. In fact, it only increases! Digital knowledge can be copied and never missed. It can be given away but still kept. Digital knowledge can be distributed instantly. It is non-linear; it defies the theory of economy of scale. Knowledge is the key element of wealth in the information age. (Fast, William R., 2002, Knowledge Strategies) [Government] organizations are increasingly implementing knowledge management (KM) strategies to maximize the benefits of what they know to help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their business operation. KM is a collaborative and integrative approach to creating, capturing, organizing, accessing, using, and reusing intellectual assets—to get the right information to the right people at the right time to support management and decision-making. (Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Dept. of State, 2003, Knowledge Management at the Department of State, Monthly Activities Report [July]) The term public sector refers to the functioning agencies and units at the federal, state, county, municipal, and local levels of government. The sector includes all agencies, government corporations, the military, and departments, agencies, and miscellaneous units that perform some form of public service. They range in size from the largest federal department down to the smallest special district, such as a mosquito abatement district or a community library district. For this text, the public sector does not include those organizations considered to be nonprofit organizations (NPOs), although many similar man- agement principles apply to both NPOs and government. All business enter- prises, regardless of their form, their structure, or the focus of their activities, constitute the profit-centered portion of the economy, and are part of the private sector. As such, they are not a major concern in this text. Private- and public-sector managers use the same business tools; usually, however, organizational improvement programs and management techniques are first developed, tested, and proved effective in private-sector organizations. xi xii INTRODUCTION Typically, only later are these innovations adopted in government. This text is about how government managers and administrators are adopting the public- sector-developed concepts and practices known as knowledge management. Knowledge management incorporates ideas and processes from many dif- ferent sources and technologies; a wide variety of disciplines, techniques, and processes contribute to the art and science of managing knowledge in organizations. One government observer found references to more than twenty different disciplines and information and communication technologies in this evolving management tool: • Artificial intelligence (AI), • Business process improvement (including process modeling, ABC cost- ing, process simulation, functional economic analysis, etc.), • Change management, • Cognitive science, • Complexity theory, • Computer-supported collaborative work (GroupWare), • Computer science and engineering, • Computer user interface design, • Data administration/standardization, • Data mining, • Decision support systems, • Document management, • Electronic publishing, • Expert systems, • Library and information science, • Organizational science, • Performance support systems and appraisal, • Relational and object databases, • Semantic networks, • Text search and retrieval, • And more. Butler, Feller, Pope, Barry, and Murphy (2003, 83) also described KM as a multidisciplinary domain of interest, with origins in philosophy, economics, organization theory, information systems, marketing, management strategy, innovation research, and organizational learning. Elements of these disciplines have been brought together to result in a management philosophy and set of tools and processes founded on four basic tenets: (1) knowledge is created in the minds of people; (2) knowledge can be captured, put on paper, entered into a computer system, put to work, or simply remembered; (3) following a funda- INTRODUCTION xiii mental characteristic of the human mind, knowledge is classified, combined, modified, and reorganized. Technology makes it easier to recapture knowl- edge by making it possible to search using key words or phrases; and (4)