knowledge management, decision support, and the tpa case brian mennecke
TRANSCRIPT
Knowledge Management, Decision Support, and
the TPA Case
Brian Mennecke
How can IT be used to support decision makers?
• By supporting various individual and team activities and roles:– Communication and team interaction– The assimilation and filtering of data– Assist with problem recognition– Assist with problem solving– Putting together the results into a cohesive package
Data is turned into information, but the decision maker also needs Knowledge to make decisions
• Types of knowledge:– Descriptive Knowledge– Procedural Knowledge– Reasoning Knowledge
• Forms of Knowledge – Tacit Knowledge– Explicit Knowledge
Examples of technologies that can support or enhance the transformation of knowledge
(IBM Systems Journal) Tacit to Tacit Tacit to Explicit
E-meetings Answering questions
Synchronous collaboration (chat) Annotation
Explicit to Tacit Explicit to Explicit
Visualization Text search
Browsable video/audio of presentations
Document categorization
Knowledge Management Tools
• Text and Forms management• Database and Reporting management• Spreadsheet, Solvers and Charts
management• Programming management.• Rules management
Knowledge Management Processes
Source: DENNIS, Alan R. and Iris VESSEY (2005). “Three Knowledge Management Strategies: Knowledge Hierarchies, Knowledge Markets, and Knowledge Communities,” MIS
Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 399-412.
Knowledge Management Strategies
Source: DENNIS, Alan R. and Iris VESSEY (2005). “Three Knowledge Management Strategies: Knowledge Hierarchies, Knowledge Markets, and Knowledge Communities,” MIS
Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 399-412.
Knowledge Delivery Approaches
Source: DENNIS, Alan R. and Iris VESSEY (2005). “Three Knowledge Management Strategies: Knowledge Hierarchies, Knowledge Markets, and Knowledge Communities,” MIS
Quarterly Executive, Vol. 4, No. 4, p. 399-412.
Knowledge Management at TPA
• What are the general characteristics of…– The organizational environment at TPA– The SharePointProject system as a kind of
knowledge management system– The adoption process of SharePointProject
Knowledge Management at TPA
• Where is the initiative for knowledge management coming from? – What impact does this have on the
implementation of the initiative– How was the initiative handled?
Knowledge Management at TPA
• Where is the initiative for knowledge management coming from? – What impact does this have on the
implementation of the initiative– How was the initiative handled?– How would you characterize this strategy?
• How well is IT aligned with this strategy?
Knowledge Management at TPA
• What is wrong with their initiative?– They want to be sharing knowledge… why
isn’t it working?– How would you characterize the organization
in terms of business processes and general IT structure?
Knowledge Management at TPA
• One way to understand their efforts is to think about the stages of IT implementation and architectures– application silo architecture: a number of individual
applications– standardized technology architecture: enterprise wide
TECH standards– rationalized data architecture: enterprise wide DATA
and PROCESS standards– modular architecture: Global standards with loosely
coupled applications, data, and technology, but enabling local customization
Ross’ Model of IT Implementation
Knowledge Management at TPA
• So, where is TPA?– In the end, their IT implementation is misaligned with
the organizations strategy.– But, where is this misalignment coming from?
• IT?• Processes?• Incentives?
Aligning IT
Henderson and Venkatraman’s Strategic Alignment Model
Aligning IT?• The challenge for TPA is that processes
are not aligned with IT– The strategy is defined and feasible– The IT strategy fits the organization’s strategy– The IT implementation and processes are aligned with both
strategies– What about the organizational processes?
What to do?• Activity! Break into your teams and
discuss this problem– Where/What is the problem?
• IT• Elsewhere?
– How do you suggest TPA address this problem?