A Case for Knowledge Management in the A/E Industry

Doris Pulsifer
Associate, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, LLP

Although Knowledge Management (KM) is not a new concept, there are many and timely reasons to make it a focus in today’s A/E practice. Knowledge Management provides A/E organizations a framework to foster, develop, and capitalize on its most valuable assets: Creativity and Invention.

The development and impact of global markets on our practice, the explosion of social technologies within the corporate environment, and the challenges of an increasingly mobile work force urgently support the need for KM in the A/E industry.

Knowledge Management is not New

KM is not new to the A/E community. The elements of KM already exist in most, if not all A/E firms. All A/E firms have invested in programs and/or technologies that support some or all of the elements of KM. The architectural practice, spearheaded by the AIA, has guidelines and regulations aimed to disseminate best practices. Most A/E firms have an enterprise Intranet whose purpose is to promote the standards and preferred practices proven, tested, and refined throughout its many projects. Most A/E firms have CAD libraries and drafting standards. Most firms have a directory structure, with information on who’s who and how to contact an employee. All of these tools represent business and technology components designed to support the key elements of KM.

Even the renewed emphasis on social networks enabled by the advances and possibilities of technologies are not new to us. A/E firms have had versions of social networks for years: brown bags, professional forums, round tables, and so on. Technology today provides great opportunities to sustain these social networks regardless of location and time. It presents opportunities to capture and disseminate knowledge that was earlier confined by space/time as well as role. Although the concept of social networks has been with us for quite some time, newer technology helps us redefine these various types of networks, and to tangibly evaluate their degrees of success in capturing and sharing corporate knowledge.

Taking a Look Back

KM became a common topic by the mid-eighties, but the disciplines and practices that contributed to it, such as TQM (Total Quality Management), business process re-engineering, organizational management, etc., actually emerged in the early 1970’s. Soon after, information management became a focus, and the connection and distinction between information and knowledge raised ideas and concepts that were augmented by the proliferation of the Internet.

Considering significant developments in technology in the early 80’s, including advancements in artificial intelligence, KM was viewed by some solely as a technology effort—with the assumption that technology alone would promote and support the knowledge of an organization. Discussion and articles about knowledge workers and intellectual capital as a valued asset of an organization became more common. This topic continues to be explored and debated today.

On other forums, KM became and continues to be a philosophical debate about the meaning of knowledge and its intrinsic qualities. This debate is extremely relevant to understanding and properly implementing a knowledge management practice. Even more importantly, its understanding is central for any organization to create and maintain a culture of knowledge. The inevitable question is: Can we create knowledge? Can the organization create knowledge, can it teach individuals how to think, how to design, how to invent? For those of us that attended architecture or engineering school, we most likely made the choice based on the feedback of friends, teachers and family. We were told that we were “creative or artistic” or we were always trying to “figure out” how things work, always pulling things apart, and then putting them back together again. These are intrinsic characteristics of artists, architects, and engineers. Can an organization teach its employees how to be creative, how to invent, how to build connections, infer and defer concepts and ideas? Can it somehow impart this curiosity, this ability to create, to observe and to marvel at beauty and function?

KM may not have much to do with the creation of knowledge but with the management of the individuals that create and hold knowledge; identifying, tracking, and monitoring the events and business activities where knowledge is created, shared or consumed; and providing the necessary framework to facilitate the flow of knowledge—capturing and measuring it to support and inform the business strategies. Yet, in order to manage these processes and activities, we must understand knowledge within the context of the organization.

What is Knowledge?

Michael Polanyi, a leading scientist and philosopher who lived from 1891 to 1976, studied the processes and motivators behind creative acts and laid the foundation on which we base much of our discussions and methodologies today.  Polanyi categorized knowledge as intrinsic (tacit) and explicit. Intrinsic knowledge is the result of someone’s “thinking”—a personal act that is influenced by education, cultural backgrounds, and previous personal experience. Tacit knowledge has much to do with intelligence, yet it is more than that. Explicit knowledge is the information analyzed, the knowledge verbalized. It is a byproduct of our tacit knowledge but does not encompass all of an individual’s knowledge. Explicit knowledge is written, spoken, observed, and formalized for others to consume.

In our industry, we could equate the act of designing to an implicit act, using purely tacit knowledge. We could then, to a certain extent, understand the act of generating the schematics and CD as explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge is personal, private. Explicit knowledge is collective, public. The ways in which we capture or facilitate the expression from tacit to explicit is by itself a central, pivotal concept to Knowledge Management. To identify and provide the correct environment, tools, and forums for tacit knowledge to be formalized and shared across the enterprise is to capitalize on our most precious assets: creativity and invention.

To validate the case for KM in our industry, we must first define what it is.

First: KM is not…

• A solo effort
• A one-time project
• A static approach
• Just about collaborative environments
• Just about project management
• Just about IM, forums, and wikis
• Just about RSS feds and blogs
• Just about centralized data repositories
• Just about portals and powerful search engines
• Just about taxonomies and controlled vocabularies

KM is about all of this—and more.

Then, KM is…

• An intention
• An expectation
• An aspiration
• A connector
• A platform
• An approach
• A group effort
• A public forum
• A common language
• A set of policies and procedures
• A technology platform
• A point of convergence for the entire organization

KM is about all of the above.

Knowledge Management Defined

KM is a systematic approach that promotes and facilitates the sharing of knowledge in an organization. As a system, it defines and integrates goals, practices, and provides the necessary tools to promote, capture, and disseminate the intellectual capital of an organization. It is the categorization and dissemination of tacit and explicit knowledge within the organization. This encourages synergies and efficiencies in all areas of the A/E firm, from design to support functions such as finance and HR.

KM is a critical practice for any organization in today’s global economy. To manage knowledge is to recognize and focus an organization on its mission and unique business proposition. KM deals with the one, un-substitutable asset of any company—its people. KM is interested in all the elements that allow the individual to create value for the business.

KM must be rooted in a deep understanding of the A/E practice, the interdependencies of our disciplines, and the organization’s business goals. The management of knowledge is multipronged. It is not a solo effort. Nor is it a onetime project. It must engage all limbs of the organization. KM must start as a commitment and as an expectation—a commitment to excellence, to knowledge, to further the practice, and the clearly communicated expectation of all members of the organization to engage on its practice.

A/E Knowledge Managers (AE-KMers) must understand the dependencies among disciplines and the various service groups (HR, Marketing, Legal, Finance, IT, etc.) that are critical to the function of an A/E firm. By understanding the tasks, needs, and goals of each group or discipline, KMers can identify the opportunities for collaboration, prioritize initiatives, and benefit the organization from these synergies. KM must also be constantly aligned with the business goals which guide the strategies that then generate its core activity—the projects.

Applying Knowledge

Because tacit knowledge is often viewed as the engine behind creativity and invention, and we recognized these to be critical in our industry, it is important to understand the activities within our practice where each type of knowledge prevails and the importance of facilitating both types in our practice.

The chart below pairs tacit and explicit knowledge to the core (Design, Project live cycle) and non-core (HR, Marketing, IT, Legal, Finance) functions of an A/E firm. While explicit knowledge accounts for + 80% of the business activities, tacit knowledge-based activities represent the firm’s competitive advantage and unique value proposition. The business cannot survive on one set of activities alone, however; the mechanisms that promote, facilitate, and support each set of activities (tacit and explicit) are very different in nature. For example, an on-line wizard that guides the creation and submission for a new project number request is better suited to supporting and expediting a financial process (an explicit knowledge-based activity), while the creation of an “experts database” that allows a designer to connect with another designer who has experience in certain building type is more suited to supporting a design process (a tacit knowledge based activity). In general, process automations, on-line documentation, and standards tend to be more appropriate mechanisms for supporting explicit-based activities; on the other hand, social networks, non-linear relationship systems, and collaborative environments tend to facilitate tacit-based activities.

The tools and identifiers to capture and facilitate the conversion of tacit-based activities into explicit processes are much more difficult to tackle and cannot be relinquished to technology alone—the success for this transition relies on a “culture of knowledge.” This is an elusive term, a dynamic state that measures how well the organization supports the KM message, how the incentives and recognitions that encourage the individual to share its knowledge are defined, and how well the organization benefits from these efforts.

In summary, KM is the act of identifying, monitoring, sharing, and classifying the intellectual capital and information assets of a firm. In our architectural and engineering practices, this commitment to knowledge is reinforced by many regulatory institutions. Licensed architects and engineers are required to stay abreast of professional practices and technologies. The individual, professional commitment to learning is a basic building block of KM. The practice of KM is, however, much broader. It reaches all aspect of the organization of which the individual is key.

Elements of Knowledge Management

The key elements of KM are to identify, connect, share, promote, capture, standardize, and measure.

As you can see, the key elements of KM are verbs. KM is an act, a dynamic practice. It requires the participation of the entire organization, and constant actions that server as reminders of its goals and benefits. Knowledge is not static; the rules and regulations of our practice are not static. Businesses are living organisms operating within complex, changing environments. To properly apply the elements of KM, the members of the organization must engage in dialogue, collaboration, and analysis.

KM shares and benefits from many other practices’ basic concepts. KM is not a foreign idea—its methodology shares principles with other disciplines that are already operative in any A/E organization. A successful KM practice requires a strong project, risk, and a change management foundation. Understanding these similarities is important in strengthening the case for KM. It also must reference and include the strategies for IT, document management, and the organizational structure. KM is a support system for any A/E practice.

What is Missing?

What are A/E firms missing that prevents them from capitalizing on their most valuable assets? Quite simply: a framework.

This framework is a combination of goals, procedures, and technology. This framework must define KM in the organization, identify its goals, state a clear message, identify the components, address the cost, measure its accuracy and success, and constantly promote and publicize its accomplishments. It must provide every group the understanding, purpose, and tools to foster, capture, and disseminate their knowledge and accomplishments within their department as well as throughout the entire organization. Each group/discipline should operate on this framework to support its own tasks and needs.

This framework guarantees that new hires will quickly learn and begin applying their firm’s best practices, enabling them to focus much sooner on contributing their unique ideas and talent to the business. It also guarantees that the knowledge of the most senior, experienced architects and engineers, the HR manager, or CAD gurus remains within the organization, and is available even when that specific employee is busy on more pressing tasks, traveling or in a different time zone, and once the employee retires.

The framework facilitates the flow of information and knowledge among departments and groups, helps to eliminate duplicate efforts, and reduces errors resulting in a lower quality of trade. It also allows the business to centrally gather, measure, and analyze the success of their efforts. With this information, the leadership of an organization can shape and support its business strategy.

Implementing Knowledge Management

There are three key aspects to implementing KM, which will be discussed below.

The Purpose: As mentioned earlier, KM is not a solo effort. For it to be successful, it must be understood, disseminated, fostered, expected and compensated; implemented, aligned with business objectives, measured, and constantly renewed.

Thus, the first step in implementing KM initiatives is to clearly define and communicate its meaning and goals within the organization. A clear definition of KM establishes a starting, gathering point for the organization. Through this dialogue, disciplines and departments can begin identifying shared needs and goals, and to define strategies that will benefit the organization as a whole. A clearly communicated idea of KM creates the necessary awareness and sense of urgency among the different groups and disciplines, promoting their participation and collaboration. It also emphasizes the role and value of each individual in contributing to the success of the firm.

Architecture is a profession with a lot of past and history. We tend to move very slowly in some areas, despite the fact that we can accomplish the most marvelous, progressive creations. It is human nature to resist change. Almost every individual, group, discipline, and organization will resist change if it is easier to do so. Resistance to change is rooted in familiarity. This resistance does not mean that the initiatives are wrong, but the resistance itself does require understanding and attention to overcome. KMers must state the benefits to the individual, the department/ discipline, and also to the organization. KM must identify and manage the obstacles for progress, and focus on the organization’s goals.

The Message: Knowledge management must have the support of the leaders of the organization. A unified message from the leadership groups stating the imperative of KM is required; this message must be an ongoing background song that must be played and replayed throughout the organization.

KM should not be approached as a fad or a onetime effort. At the end of each day, the most critical, relevant action of the organization is the successful completion of its projects. KM must not stand in the way of this task, but should support, enhance, expedite and facilitate it. When defining KM in an A/E organization, the goals of the practice must be supported and the benefits of KM understood and communicated by its leaders.

The Approach:The A/E KM approach is composed of components which help identify and define initiatives; a technology framework that guarantees efficiencies and continuity; a cost that foresees and informs the business needs; and a measurement and analysis practice that supports the business intelligence. All of these are discussed in more detail in the next section.

The A/E Knowledge Management Approach

The Components:The components of KM in an A/E organization must be identified, understood, and monitored to define and prioritize the initiatives and projects that will help implement and support a KM practice. As stated earlier, a deep understanding of our practice is required to identify these components. They include:

• Key activities or tasks within the project lifecycle that represent knowledge creation or knowledge collection points.
• Repeatable business processes and activities that require and benefit from knowledge consumption.
• Existing or potential groups that assess, validate, and promote best practices and standards within the organization.
• Existing or potential information systems and technologies that hold and promote the capturing, categorization, translation, and dissemination of knowledge.

Technology Framework:There are multitudes of software applications for the A/E market. An A/E firm can control and dictate the use and type of technologies only to a certain extent. A/E is a collaborative practice by nature. Therefore, it is common to host different and various processes, technologies and electronic formats. Since the technology continues to evolve, a common challenge includes managing legacy data and incompatible, outdated formats.

A technology framework must articulate a sustainable strategy to capture, collect, disseminate, and maintain the flow of knowledge through the organization. The framework must include and understand the applications and software tools used by the organization; the necessary access layers, including security constraints; the engines that will translate, locate, repurpose, and measure information; and the various repositories where information is collected. The strategy must focus on the mechanism, conventions, structures, and security that will allow the “right” information generated by the “right” group, process, or task to be accessed, repurposed, and made available for consumption by other groups in a non-proprietary mode, organized in a significant manner and at the “right” time.

Thus, in addition to collection and repurposing strategies, it is also important to define the nomenclature or taxonomy of the business, a common data model, and security and confidentiality levels, and to understand how these parameters may change through the life of a project. It is equally important to identify the events and timelines required for the revision and/or decommission of information. This framework must be presented as guidelines and best practices to allow for the adoption and evolution of multiple and new technology platforms.

At SOM, the definition of this framework has been a fundamental step in the development and implementation of our strategy.  In addition to the commercial suites in use at most A/E firms, we also generate and collect information from proprietary information systems.  We are currently evaluating commercial and open source wikis as well as a commercial portal. To bridge through this hybrid environment, we defined and continue to develop an XML structure that facilitates the exchange of information among all applications and systems.  Our permission layer sits on top of and integrates with both Active Directory and HR databases. It is a proprietary system that allows a more granular control based on roles and applications. Last year, we implemented Google for enterprise search and continue to work towards its integration in our applications. One of the benefits of this enterprise search is the ability to virtually segregate information and knowledge based on four silos of information:  Legal/Finance, Project Information, Resources, and Imagery. These silos expedite access and use. As of today, we rely on a series of reporting tools including Crystal, SQL, and Access.

The technology framework allows us to evaluate and integrate multiple and newer technologies and maintain their alignment with the parameters we have defined. 

The Cost: KM does not have to be a costly proposition. The cost of capturing and disseminating knowledge has diminished considerably due to advances in technology. Since KM is meant to be a multipronged, underground, and supporting platform, it can be built gradually. It can tackle initiatives sequentially, first with no-cost initiatives, and then progress gradually towards building the technology infrastructure to further elevate and promote KM. Whether an organization chooses a gradual approach or a more immediate implementation of KM practice, there is, nevertheless, some cost associated to KM. The definition of a KM budget must be addressed and considered and must figure among all of the other organization’s expenses.

Measurements and Analysis: A measurement and analysis practice allows the business to stay lean and efficient in its data management practice, to improve the effectiveness of its systems and procedures, and to define and identify business assets and opportunities for growth and profit. At a more granular level, measurement practices inform management groups how and where to focus their efforts to provide the most positive and immediate benefits to their staff and help support their departmental goals. Although the efforts of measuring are usually seen as an after-the-fact task or post-mortem approach, KM initiatives and practices require frequent measurement. The business must define the measurement criteria, not only to benchmark successful implementations but to correct efforts in a timely manner and to capture relevant statistics and facts. Once analyzed, that information will constitute business intelligence. The ability to capture, report on, cross-reference, and analyze success factors through all departments and at an enterprise level is an untapped, extremely valuable asset for any A/E firm.

Measurement and analysis is really about understanding and documenting an organization’s history and learning from it.

Why is Knowledge Management Relevant to our Industry?

The rate and value of innovations in the Architecture and Engineering Industry continue to rise. Most businesses compete on knowledge.  That is, the competitive advantage among A/E firms is based on tacit and explicit knowledge, in conjunction with skill. Reputation follows and builds from these strategic factors.

A global economy requires businesses to diversify their economic strategy. Companies tackling new locations for business or expanding/developing new areas of expertise must seek fast, efficient methods to disseminate new knowledge across the organization and seek faster profits due to productivity gains.

The expanded markets have created an increasingly mobile force that challenges traditional business models and communication approaches. Emerging platforms such as cloud computing, social networks and open source software, and IT modernization provide viable options to support the required mobility of workers. The management of knowledge from and to these new platforms requires an effective KM strategy.

Organizations are required to redefine their operational and strategic models in order to transcend and compete across geographies, languages, and regulations. KM brings an organizational awareness that is relevant and applicable to all departments, disciplines, and groups in an A/E firm. KM is not the focus of an organization’s strategy and success. Rather, KM is an enabler, an augmenter that supports the unique values and assets of all architecture and engineering practices, individually as well as in synergistically working with other teams or disciplines, both within and outside of the firm.

Conclusion

Knowledge Management enables employees to leverage their own and their firm’s intellectual capital to compete and seize opportunities quickly whenever and wherever these may arise.  Importantly, it does so synergistically at reduced costs, that is, the economic cost of lost opportunities—elimination of redundancies, inaccurate and stagnant processes, and so forth. If an A/E firm wants to become and remain competitive globally or locally, it needs to embrace and implement KM.

About the Author

Doris Pulsifer leads the Knowledge Management Department at Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, LLP (SOM). During her 10+ years with the firm, she continues to be directly involved in the ongoing firm wide development of KM strategies, and the development of applications and information systems including web collaboration and social technologies. The KM Group focuses on the research, development, and implementation of knowledge strategies, business processes and technology solutions that enhance and support SOM as a business.

Prior to creating and managing SOM’s KM Group, Ms. Pulsifer served as SOM Chicago’s Application Manager and IT Director. Her other past work experience includes Department Chair for a local college; corporate and academic consultant in the use of CAD technologies; and eight years of architectural experience. She earned a M.S. in Architecture from the Illinois Institute of Technology and a B.S. in Environmental Design from the University of Puerto Rico.  

Ms. Pulsifer holds a certification in Knowledge Management from the Knowledge Management Institute, and a certification in Project Management from the University of Wisconsin. She can be reached at: doris.pulsifer@som.com.

About SOM

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) is one of the leading architecture, urban design and planning, engineering, and interior architecture firms in the United States. The firm’s sophistication in building technology applications and commitment to design quality has resulted in a portfolio that features some of the most important architectural accomplishments of modern times.

Since its founding in 1936, SOM has completed more than 10,000 architecture, interior architecture, and planning projects located in more than 50 countries around the world. The firm has had an international reputation for design excellence for over 70 years. SOM received the first Firm Award in 1961 from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the AIA’s highest honor for design excellence in a collaborative practice, is the only firm to be so honored twice, winning again in 1996, and over the years has received nearly 860 design awards, more than any other American design firm. Currently, the firm maintains offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, London, Hong Kong, Brussels and Shanghai.

Note: The views expressed in Viewpoint articles are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of AECbytes.

Viewpoints > Issue #41 > Printer-friendly format