Transcript Knowledge Sharing: Some Myths, Ideas, and a little IT Jean E. Engle

Knowledge Sharing:
Some Myths, Ideas,
and a little IT
Jean E. Engle
Chief Knowledge Officer
Johnson Space Center
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Teamwork
– Key to
a Successful
Space Program
A Little
History
of NASA
Teamwork – Key to a Successful Space Program
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… and JSC
• JSC manages the development, testing, production and
delivery of all U.S. human spacecraft and all human
spacecraft-related functions.
• Home of the Astronaut Corps and Mission Control
• Workforce consists of ~3000 civil servants and ~14,000
contractors
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Major Programs – Space Shuttle
• Fly the Shuttle safely until retirement in 2010
• Essential for the core completion of the ISS
• One last Hubble Telescope repair mission
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Major Programs – ISS
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Major Programs – Constellation
• Bring a new Crew Exploration Vehicle into
service in 2015 to replace the Shuttle Program.
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Defining Knowledge Sharing
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A Few Myths
With Acknowledgement to Dr. Ed Rogers – GSFC CKO*
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Culture change can be mandated from the top
Collaboration effort can be “purchased” or “sharing be
rewarded”
KM efforts can be outsourced
Anybody (who isn’t busy) can do KM
KM can be solved by buying the right software
KM can be independent of the business process
Communities of practice can be established by the top
KM is about centralizing knowledge content to use it
more efficiently
KM is really about databases
KM is an IT function and should be given to the CIO
*Some of these myths are adapted from a “Top Ten Mistakes of CoP’s” list produced by John Hickok, director, Defense
Acquisition University (DAU), knowledge management.
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A Different Approach
 Benchmarking (a studied approach)
 Various entities inside/outside Government
and Aerospace industry
 Consortium studies with the American
Productivity and Quality Center (APQC)
 Colleague at other NASA Center
 Center-wide Knowledge Management
maturity assessment
 Provided insight into how much knowledge
sharing was occurring and where
 Identified strengths and gaps/barriers
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A Different Approach
 The following concepts evolved:
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Leadership – modeled behavior
Local Learning – encourage
Codify -- when appropriate
Change management – takes time
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A Few Ideas -- People
 Generational differences (average
age is around 45 years)
 What is on incoming undergrads
minds?
 Learning curve
 Technology Gap
 Engage Younger Employees
 More on their perspective…
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A Few More Ideas -- Technology
 Google – installed but…
 Led to identifying repositories,
beginning with websites
 Which is leading towards identifying
usage of websites
 Which will lead towards document
and content management strategies
 Supported by stronger taxonomies
and metadata structures
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A Few More Ideas – Process
 Social networking
 Pause and Learn
 Integrate Risk Management with
Knowledge Management
 Information lifecycle management
 Tacit knowledge capture
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A Few More Ideas –
People/Technology/Process
 Web-enabled High Performance
Teams
 Knowledge Sharing Forums
 Case Studies – teaching by providing
context to a story
 Web 2.0 technologies – enabler for
infusion, collaboration, and sharing
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www.nasa.gov
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