The Knowledge Sharing Challenge
The Triune Group (Triune) has developed and continues to implement a KM methodology and solution-set for the United
States Air Force (USAF). Triune has sustained the Air Force’s Knowledge Now (AFKN) program since 1999. The Air Force’s need to bring together internal enterprise collaboration with external Department of Defense (DoD) stakeholders has grown exponentially: 1,300 members in April, 2002; 16,500 members in April, 2004; and 167,000 members in April, 2007. The AFKN program has been recognized by the Air Force’s CIO office, the American Productivity Quality Center (APQC) and the E-Gov Institute as a KM best practice.
Answering the Challenge
Today’s US Air Force operates in an environment of unconventional challenge and strategic uncertainty. New challenges associated with this environment demand a more comprehensive, agile and integrated means of operating. Competitiveness from today’s marketplace—whether in the form of military tactics or business trends—requires successful delivery of know-how in a context-based, need-driven, virtual environment, available anywhere, anytime. This requirement is compounded by the additional pressures of political, cultural, social and behavioral forces.
In the near future, IT-based operations that previously focused primarily on total cost of ownership will be forced to focus instead on integration, operational imperatives and organizational maturity. The organizations that best manage a comprehensive, full-spectrum integration will attain high performance and the competitive edge.
In 1999, the Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC), which conducts research and development, acquisition management, test and evaluation and warfighter logistics support at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio and around the world, faced an all-too familiar dilemma. In 2000, AFMC’s Workforce Shaping Office conducted a study which revealed that, by 2005, approximately 67% of its workforce was eligible for retirement. How could the organization continue to meet ever-increasing mission objectives with an ever-dwindling knowledgebase? It had to find a solution and stave off the imminent talent drain of its civilian workforce until that solution could be implemented.
The AFMC solution called for a strategy that would provide access to knowledge independent of the organization where
the knowledge originated. The requirement was to make Air Force knowledge assets available to AFMC’s workforce except where rules prohibited access for security or other reasons.
Due to the relatively small KM budget, AFMC’s KM effort initially focused on leveraging existing infrastructure and
capabilities. As the effort evolved, gaps appeared between available IT infrastructure and the required operational end states. The existing IT infrastructure was originally designed to aggregate and
synthesize data and information, not to manage or share knowledge.
As the effort evolved, gaps began to appear around need-driven, context-based usability. Consequently, KM issues faced by other Air Force and DoD organizations outside AFMC also influenced AFMC’s KM need. Knowledge knows no bounds; as a result, the interdependencies of Air Force operations demanded a broader solution-set and design capable of overcoming organizational barriers and storage silos Air Force-wide. AFMC set out to deploy a unique opportunity to reshape the way the Air Force addresses the operational challenges of collaboration and sharing.
To close the aforementioned gaps, Triune and the AFMC addressed end-user usability requirements and provide an IT platform capable of scaling to meet future knowledge-sharing demands. The solution was three-dimensional: employ a new collaborative system based on the virtual community of practice (CoP) concept; include an organizational development methodology to integrate, focus and advance operational performance; and provide a knowledge-solutions support center to identify and address end-user needs. Inevitably, this program evolved from an organizational (AFMC) initiative into an agency-wide (Air Force) initiative. It is now commonly known as AFKN.
The AFKN effort, which combines technology with organizational development services and support, was designated the Air Force’s Center of Excellence for Knowledge Management by the Air Force CIO in February, 2004. At that time, AFKN had 700 virtual CoPs and 14,000 members from across the Air Force and DoD. Any user within DoD’s unclassified portion of the Internet (.mil domain users) is eligible for, and can create, an AFKN account. However, CoP access is multi-level (ranging from open to private) and is executed by community administrators. Personnel from all service branches and DoD agencies—including the Guard and Reserve, civilian service and authorized contractor personnel—participate. The Air Force’s ultimate knowledge-sharing vision—to have the ability to share knowledge assets across any boundary—is becoming reality. On April 1, 2007, the AFKN system exceeded 7,300 virtual CoPs and 163,000 members.
Many solution-sets employed in today’s operating environments are not designed to support the demands of today’s knowledge worker, not to mention supporting the principles of knowledge management. These solution-sets provide capability only to a specific group of users versus the enterprise. Unfortunately, enhancing decision-making, knowledge-sharing and organizational learning is seldom considered in solution design and implementation. As a result, these solutions struggle to enable knowledge workers or affect the demands of today’s agile global organizations.
The KM solution-set requires more than technology. Technology provided within KM solution-sets cannot exist alone; it must be compatible with existing infrastructure and address end-user, operational, organizational and enterprise needs. Technology that might be thought of as “a system” is, actually, only a small part of a wider “organizational system” comprising strategy, mission, objective, process, culture, behavior, people and their intellectual capital. The successful solution-set includes interactions between all of these organizational system components, and satisfactory or high