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?