Knowledge management approaches that public administrations are actually using (part 2): Explanations and examples of KM criteria

The first part of this series presents criteria that can define good practices for holistic knowledge management (KM) in public administrations, from a discussion paper¹ published by the Deutsches Forschungsinstitut für öffentliche Verwaltung (National Institute for Public Administration Germany). The criteria were developed from an examination of case studies from around the world, and provide a framework for effective KM implementation.

This second part presents summaries of the explanations and examples for each criteria in the discussion paper. Further information on the KM criteria can be found through searching RealKM Magazine, including exploring the various KM toolkits.

1. Knowledge identification

Knowledge identification is typically the first and fundamental component of a knowledge management system. The stock of skills, information, and experiences can be discovered and recorded through some form of knowledge audit.

1.1 Self-Reflection

Self-reflection refers to the process of reflecting on past experiences to derive actionable insights for the future. One way this can occur is through the recording of “lessons learned.”

• In the Chile Public Defender’s Office (La Defensoría Penal Pública, DPP) Inocente Project, attorneys analyse and review cases of individ­uals who were falsely accused of a crime, deprived of their liberty, and subsequently proven innocent after some time. This “lessons learned” process helps to identify judicial errors, thereby reducing the likelihood of unjust imprisonment in the future.
• German municipal integration offices and health departments that stored lessons learned from the refugee wave in 2015 in an acces­sible manner were found to be better equipped to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public administra­tions also conduct more generalised reviews of existing institutional structures, through which they can avoid redundancies and enhance efficiency through process optimisation.

• In a university in Indonesia, academic content is periodically assessed in terms of market needs and current trends.
• Conversely, in an inappropriate approach to KM, the Healthdesk public agency in Belgium, a project leader and 15 employees identified as experts conducted an in-depth review of various HR pro­cesses, such as payroll and hiring. These processes were subsequently recorded in a database. Employees felt less appreciated and important, as knowledge that they once held ex­clusively was now simplified and reduced to short descriptions availa­ble to everyone. This underscores the need for cultural changes in or­der to successfully implement KM, a point reflected in the criterion “Conducive Culture.”

1.2 Knowledge audit

A knowledge audit refers to the systematic identification and recording of skills and ex­pertise within an organisation.

• The Vienna City Council “Wien mags wissen” (Vienna likes to know) initiative provides a self-evaluation questionnaire and a KM toolbox. Employees complete a knowledge self-check survey regularly to record developments in their knowledge and skill levels.

Instead of asking employees to assess their own expertise, a knowledge audit can also be conducted by an external expert.

• Mannheim City in Germany con­ducts offboarding workshops in which departing staff members and their successors are interviewed. The departing staff member reviews the resulting reports and documents to ensure that the recorded content is accurate and comprehensive, and all participants evaluate the workshop and their learnings to fa­cilitate a smooth transfer of knowledge.

The results of a knowledge audit may be captured and compiled in an expert registry or a knowledge map.

• The Dubai Water & Electricity Authority employs a tool called the “ex­pert locator,” which connects knowledge seekers with knowledge pro­viders.
• On the Ministry of Finance Belgium virtual KM platform, employees or their superiors can list all the technical skills they possess. The software then uses artificial intelligence to sug­gest further training and education based on the internal registry of training opportunities.

2. Knowledge preservation

Knowledge preservation involves documenting and recording identified and critical knowledge. In­formation can be stored and organised virtually through the strategic use of technology, and documented knowledge can be taxonomised using metadata, making it easier to locate. A KM system should consider how tacit knowledge can be preserved, which is especially relevant for many administrations during the off­boarding process of key personnel.

2.1 Information management

Technological solutions are often much more efficient and convenient for knowledge preservation and presentation than physical files and folders, so it is not surprising that IT products almost always feature in discussions of KM.

• The State of Victoria in Australia hosts an online repository for soil and landscape information that is open to the public. The project has also taken initial steps towards business intelligence, whereby data is not merely stored but also analysed. Through the use of visualisations in the form of graphs and maps, users can gain actionable insights.

While the Victorian Resources Online platform primarily provides explicit information, technology can also be used to store implicit information and experiences in a meaningful way.

• The consultants of International Enterprise (IE) Singapore acquire their knowledge through formal training as well as first-hand experience abroad.  These lived experiences should be beneficially shared with other employees and clients, so the intranet includes a knowledge centre where employees can upload reports on business trips and similar activities. During quarterly informal social events, employees are also encour­aged to use storytelling as a method to share implicit knowledge of living or working in another country.
• Following a devastating ice storm in 1998, Hydro-Québec sought to improve its preparedness for sim­ilar events in the future. Consequently, all documents, photos, anecdotes, and similar materials related to the event were analysed and organised into a narrative database. The fo­cus was on storytelling, as narratives tend to have a far greater emo­tional impact than mere facts.

Stored knowledge in a database should also be easily retrievable and accessible.

• Several popular KM tools were tested in workshops a large public organisation in Australia. Partici­pants’ feedback on these tools varied from unnecessary to extremely helpful. One of the tools considered most impactful was the taxonomy of stored documents with standardised metadata.

Due to legal restrictions or an inherently more risk-averse workforce, public administrations may be concerned about IT security when embarking on technological initiatives.

• The Federal Office of Administration in Germany offers a preconfigured open-source intranet software solution called OfficeNet, which distinguishes itself from other intranet solutions by guaranteeing compliance with legal security and accessibility standards.

Even when security concerns are alleviated, IT information management solutions may fail due to outdated or incomplete data.  Maintaining databases and similar resources re­ quires a considerable amount of time and effort, which should not be underestimated.

2.2 On- and offboarding strategies

Faced with the retirement of many long-term employees, partic­ularly in leadership positions, administrations seek ways to preserve and pass on the ac­cumulated experience to newcomers
thorough offboarding strategies.

• The city of Karlsruhe in Germany has developed a structured knowledge capture process for retiring employees, which follows six steps.
• The Canadian Treasury Board has been actively addressing how to re­tain the explicit and tacit knowledge of employees who are nearing retirement. Three years before retirement, employees are given 1/3 of their working hours to capture and transfer their knowledge, in the second year 2/3 of their time, and the last year is fully dedicated to these activities.

The counterpart of an offboarding strategy is an onboarding strategy. It may sometimes appear that onboarding merely involves handing over documented knowledge to the new employee and expecting them to read and understand it on their own. However, an onboarding strategy can be much more structured and comprehensive.

• The City of Dortmund in Germany pro­vides new employees with information and guides to read and work through at home in the time between being hired and starting work. On the first day of work, making a positive impression increases the likelihood of the new employee remaining with the or­ganisation, so the city recommends that leadership introduces them­selves in person to the new employee. The city also recognises that it is important for the employee to have a mentor or partner whom they can approach for support or questions.
• Conversely, research looking at how knowledge of corruption is passed on in the Indonesian public sector finds that a systematic approach to KM could as­sist in the intentional forgetting of this tacit knowledge. The researchers claim that the experience and normalisation of corrupt behaviour of­ten begins during apprenticeships.

3. Knowledge acquisition

Knowledge acquisition refers to the learning of new information and skills, as well as the creation of new processes and products.

3.1 Learning opportunities

New skills and information may be acquired from outside the organisation through the hiring of external consultants or developed internally through training and mentoring.  External consultants are more likely to provide genuinely new insights. However, as they are usually employed for a limited period, the organisation faces pressure to ensure that this knowledge is transferred to its own workforce in a timely manner. or it may become dependent on costly external expertise. On the other hand, it important not to train for the sake of training; the content must be relevant and applicable to the employees’ work.

• Consultants can be engaged in a variety of ways. The Irish Office of the Attorney General collaborated with consultancy Pricewater­houseCoopers to develop an information management strat­egy. KM consultancy sciNovis has collaborated with the City of Erlangen in Ger­many as a reference project. Additionally, the German Federal Office of Administration has its own internal consultancy that public administrations can approach for support with KM.
• Conversely, a study of KM in Nigerian public organisations alludes to the possibility that consultants consciously hold back knowledge so that they are hired repeatedly. Further, a study of ten different public institutions in Jordan found that while four of them regularly consult external experts, the institutions lack sys­tematic methods of determining their external knowledge needs, so may waste time and money on consultants they in fact do not need.

In addition to acquiring knowledge from external sources, organisations can develop it internally by learning from past experiences, collaborating with one another, and partici­pating in seminars and other training opportunities.

• An action research study assessed the effec­tiveness of microlearning in a Norwegian public sector company in­volved in construction works. Microlearning refers to short and quick digital lessons. Participation was voluntary, and while the rate of completion dropped each week, nearly 50% of all sampled em­ployees were still engaging with the lessons by the end of the course.
• A review of KM tools in an Australian public sector organisation found that employees were deriving great utility from a mentoring system termed “peer-assist.” Before embarking on a new project, employees would be paired with colleagues who had relevant experience in similar undertakings.
• The General Authority of Customs (GAC) in Qatar has a unit known as the Customs Training Centre, which focuses on the development of its employees’ skills.
• Conversely, while the Planning Commission in Pakistan has an internal training institute similar to the General Authority of Customs in Qatar, employees do not view the institute favourably. Learning opportunities are allocated based on favouritism, as these may involve enjoyable trips. This means that training is not al­ways provided to those who may actually need it, underscoring the need to ensure that learning opportunities are both relevant and reach the appropriate employees.

Rather than learning from external consultants or internal training, organisations may also acquire new knowledge by hiring employees who possess the required skills, qualifica­tions, and experience.

• A study of hospitals in the United Kingdom found that ward managers were more likely to facilitate innovation and reform if they had a holistic professional background that encouraged them to look beyond a narrow specialisation.

3.2 Fostering innovation

Innovation refers to the creation of new processes and products. Fostering creativity and innovation can help to reduce the risk of becoming stuck in old ways and clinging onto outdated information. Unfortunately, public administrations rarely embark on becoming more innovative and instead value continuity and stability. An alternative could be to col­laborate with more innovative institutions, such as universities and think tanks.

• Among the significant knowledge risks faced by a Swedish munici­pality are knowledge attrition, competency and knowledge gaps, as well as the presence of incorrect or obsolete knowledge. Another emerging risk is the reluctance to innovate, as seasoned employees are often unwilling to capitalise on the knowledge of younger and newer staff. The work­ force as a whole also prefers to stick to tried-and-tested tools and methods. This attitude exposes the munici­pality to cybercrime and hacking attacks.
• Collaboration with universities and private sector companies is common among innova­tive Portuguese hospitals.
• The Police Force in Hong Kong engages in numerous partnerships with local universities to train their employees and exchange experiences. These efforts have proven successful, as the Hong Kong Police Force regularly receives awards for its innovation performance.

4. Knowledge application

Knowledge application refers to the strategic inclusion of KM within an organisation’s established structures. It constitutes the actual “management” of knowledge within public administration.

4.1 Institutionalisation of KM

KM should be embedded within the overall organisational structure. This entails that administrations develop a KM strategy aligned with the organisation’s broader objectives.

• The management committee of the Ministry of Finance in Belgium met regularly in 2022, at intervals of three to six months, to discuss the implementation and development of their KM strategy.

Responsibility for KM should be assigned to a specific individual or team, who is known to the workforce.

• Because the South African government is mandated to implement knowledge management in its departments, the Department for Public Administration (DPSA) published a guideline in 2019 to assist agencies with this task. Implementa­tion was evaluated in 2022, and con­cluded that KM often fails because leadership does not adequately prioritise it, and many organisations do not define KM in an understandable manner. A 2022 study of 221 KM officials drew the same conclusion, finding that leadership as­signs the role of knowledge manager to someone who has sufficient spare time to comply with the legal mandate, without considering qualifications or skills. Most employees do not fully understand what KM is meant to achieve and do not see its rele­vance. This underscores the importance of both leadership support and a comprehensive KM strategy.
• The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) is a subordinate agency of the Department of Defence responsible for information security and intel­ligence. The ASD offers careers in information and knowledge manage­ment, with dedicated career paths and job titles.

In order to introduce and embed KM in employees’ workflow, an organisation can raise awareness of its significance through marketing initiatives.

• The Department for Education in London introduced a collaborative working platform called the Information Workplace Platform (IWP). To increase adoption, the department launched a large-scale communications campaign. They avoided framing the IWP as a technological solution to mitigate any fear or disinter­est people may have regarding IT. Instead, they promoted the IWP brand through merchandise such as coffee mugs and headphones, and a persona-driven marketing campaign fea­turing staff members on posters and banners. These measures helped to encourage usage of the IWP and enabled employees to gain experience with the technology.

4.2 Integration in organisational structures

A potential difficulty when implementing KM is that it adds to the existing workload of employees. To alleviate such concerns, KM should be integrated into existing work processes as much as possible, rather than being treated as an add-on process, and KM systems should consider any legal and bureaucratic restrictions or mandates that an ad­ministration faces and work within those parameters.

• Isaacus is an online platform that serves as a centralised hub for the collection, coordination, and distribution of Finnish well-being data. It serves as an example where the political and legislative environment is highly supportive of KM in­itiatives, rather than restricting it through bureaucratic regulations.

Furthermore, employees are more likely to use a KM system (KMS) if it is user-friendly and reliable, and if the knowledge shared and stored within it is relevant to their work.

• During the implementation of a KMS in a public sec­ondary school in Hong Kong, middle management expressed concerns that overhauling the current system could confuse teachers or diminish their motivation to learn how to use new software. Consequently, the leadership found a way to integrate the digital archive module into the existing electronic system, ensuring that the archive was interoperable with the current IT infrastructure.
• An IT KM solution for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) focuses on usability and interoperability.

4.3 Developing KM competencies

Employees should possess the necessary skills for successful KM. They should, for instance, be able to critically evaluate information and understand trust­worthy sources. Additionally, employees need to know how to document their knowledge in a manner appropriate for their target audience. IT skills are also essential as part of KM competence, as is the ability to work effec­tively in a team.

• The UK government has defined a relevant set of skills that knowledge and information management professionals should develop. The skill framework is notable for the breadth of KM competencies identified.

Crucial competencies can also be developed by identifying best practices and following the lead of other organisations.

• The Natural Resources Centre in Canada conducted a benchmarking exercise as part of the development of its KM strategy, researching KM practices in comparable US and Canadian authorities. The Centre learned from best practices in these other public institutions and enhanced its KM competencies by following real world examples in their KM implementation.

5. Knowledge distribution

The process of knowledge distribution, or knowledge sharing, is an important factor in transforming an organisation from isolated knowledge silos into an integrated learning organisation. This is especially true for tacit knowledge, which is often conveyed through informal conversations. Con­sequently, there is a need to foster collabora­tion by creating more opportunities for social exchanges. The relationship be­tween employees and the organisation itself is also important. This relationship is shaped by the organisa­tional culture, which is one of the most challenging KM criteria to manage and influence, yet some might argue it is the most important.

5.1 Fostering collaboration

In order for staff members to share knowledge and information, they require opportunities to socialise and the necessary trust that encourages open commu­nication. Strong social ties take time to develop, but seem to be crucial in order for tacit knowledge to be exchanged readily.

• The State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) in Switzerland oper­ates a web portal called regiosuisse.  Decision-makers can explore financial and project databases and find inspiration for their own initiatives, and the platform also provides access to training. Most importantly, it serves as a networking platform.
• However, participation in a com­munity of practice does not guarantee successful inter-organisational collaboration. The United States Intelligence Community (USIC) is a network of executive agencies responsible for the security of the United States, but a lack of trust and a history of working in iso­lation significantly undermine USIC’s effectiveness.
• The imperative role of trust and a harmonious social structure is fur­ther emphasised by the U.S. Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey. It finds that knowledge sharing has a positive impact on job satisfaction, particu­larly when job-relevant information is scarce, and thus underscore the need for frequent meetings, coffee chats, and workshops. It also highlights that teams working digitally should seek ways to socialise in­formally, whether through video conferences, chats, forums, or wikis.

5.2 Conducive culture

Opportunities for socialising can help create an open and harmonious culture that is conducive to KM and knowledge sharing. Such a culture is characterised by a motivated workforce that feels a sense of attachment to the organisation. This contributes to a culture where employees can be creative and are not afraid to make mis­takes, thereby fostering innovation.

• The Environmental Health Network within a public administration in Europe is geo­graphically distributed, with numerous local offices. This dispersion prompted the creation of a community that transcends geographical boundaries.  The involve­ment of employees in the development of the KMS from the outset was one of the critical success factors. However, this should not imply that leadership should refrain from such endeavours.

The incentives to which employees are exposed should also be considered. These may be material in nature, such as financial rewards, or psychological, such as the satisfaction derived from altruistic behaviour. It is im­portant to also consider the costs employees incur, as knowledge sharing requires time and effort and may even involve relinquishing a significant competitive advantage. Such neg­ative considerations should be outweighed by the potential benefits that employees experience when they choose to share their expertise.

• In several public ad­ministrations in Singapore that had implemented KM initiatives, participation was volun­tary. This likely alleviated employees’ concerns about losing power through knowledge sharing, as they retained control over how much they contributed. Additionally, employees were motivated by a range of material and immaterial rewards. However, these rewards, even financial ones, were most effective when employees felt a sense of attachment to the organisa­tion and its objectives.
• Providing material incentives to encourage participation in a KMS may not be feasible for many admin­istrations due to legal or financial constraints.  Ex­ploration of an alternative form of incentive in the study of PhD scholars at a public sector university revealed that by structuring teams in a way that fosters cooperative goal interdependence, organisations can create an incentive structure that does not rely on monetary or other material rewards.

Previous part (part 1): A framework of KM criteria .

Header image source: RDNE Stock project on Pexels.

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