Cant We Just Use SharePoint?

A Knowledge Managers Guide to Productive Conversations with IT

WHITEPAPER
by Tim Hines, Vice President, Product Management, Consona CRM

SharePoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Cant We Just Use SharePoint? A Knowledge Managers Guide to Productive Conversations with IT

Its the suggestion that people running a knowledge management program fear the most. After presenting requirements for a knowledge management (KM) tool to IT, its almost inevitable that someone at the table looks thoughtful and says, I think you should use our content management system, instead. How can we make the case for our much-needed tool to a skeptical IT audience focused on consolidation? First, lets see what content management is good forand then lets explore why knowledge management isnt one of those things.

Leading Content Management Tools

At most of our customer sites, well find one or more of these CM solutions: Microsoft SharePoint Server IBM FileNet, along with potentially many other associated IBM products Oracle Universal Content Management OpenText ECM Suite Technology companies, in particular, are open to using open-source content management platforms like Drupal, which can be extensively customized. And there are also industry-specific CM solutions for healthcare, insurance, litigation, and the like, but theyre rarely suggested as knowledge management platforms.

Content Management Tools Are Great

(Just Not for Knowledge Management)
Gartner describes enterprise content management tools as an essential part of enterprise information architecture, and enterprise IT departments clearly agree: software license and maintenance revenue for enterprise content management tools reached $3.5 billion dollars in 2009.1 Chances are, if youre a knowledge worker, you have access to one or more content management (CM) systems.

Why Your Organization Probably Already Uses Content Management While the paperless office has not arrived, CM systems have helped enterprises to make great strides in storing, retrieving, sharing, and managing electronic documents.
Teams used to work together by email, sending attached files back and forth. While this seems like an easy way to collaborate, this means that theres no single place to go to find the most up-to-date set of project documents. As a result, team members would often make conflicting edits on different versions of the files. And, when new people joined the team, there was no easy way to get them all the documents they needed to start work. IT storage experts also lamented the redundant files on email servers and in laptop folders all across the network. Today, widely available CM systems solve these problems by providing a single place for teams to store, update, and share content in an organized and efficient manner.

What Content Management Does Content management systems deliver a handful of core features. While different systems implement those capabilities in different ways, these high-level features are common across CM systems.
Contribution. CM systems provide knowledge workers a way to add content. Generally, this content is created using a standard office application that is separate from the CM system, such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat. In more specialized applications, content comes from scanned image files or optical character recognition software. Organization. CM systems allow content to be filed in folders, tagged with metadata, and otherwise made easier to find and manage. They also keep a version history of the document as it evolves. Approval workflows. For documents that need to be carefully controlled, CM systems implement a review process that ensures the right sign-offs by the right individuals or groups. Search. CMs use search engines to find content by matching metadata or keywords in a search string. Retrieval. Content that has been found by browsing or searching can be extracted and opened, typically, using the desktop application associated with its file type: Adobe Acrobat Reader for PDF files, Microsoft PowerPoint for PPTX files, and so on.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Content Management, Toby Bell, Karen Shegda, Mark Gilbert, Kenneth Chin, 16 November 2010.

Cant We Just Use SharePoint? A Knowledge Managers Guide to Productive Conversations with IT

Most general-purpose enterprise content management systems dont really concern themselves with the content, per se. The content is created and viewed in other applications; CM-managed metadata is associated with the file, but not with the content inside the file. The search engine indexes the text inside the file, but without regard to the structure or organization of the document. CM systems treat content the same way that warehouses treat boxes: they put labels on the outside, so they dont have to look inside. The fact that CM systems are content-agnostic is generally a very good thingit means that they can manage content created in any possible tool equally well. This strength turns into a serious liability, however, when we consider using CM tools for knowledge management.

For example, lets assume someone is having a problem with a specific feature in a complex piece of test equipment. She could download the 233-page manual (properly stored and managed in a CM application), and rummage through it to try to find her answer. But isnt it a better experience for her to put a very specific query in a search box, and receive just the information she needs to be successful? Good knowledge is captured in a tool that keeps it structured, concise, and about one thing. Microsoft Word, and other tools used to author content managed by CM systems, are set up for creating documents, not capturing knowledgetheyre not a good fit for knowledge management. KM practitioners must have a simple, efficient workbench for capturing the essence of knowledge needed for a specific purpose.

Whats Different About KM? And Whats Missing in CM?

Given the CM functionality described above, its not surprising that the well-meaning IT analyst would suggest that you use a CM tool for knowledge management (KM). On the surface, it seems like a good match. As traditionally defined, KM functionality includes knowledge capture, structuring, and retrieval. From a high-level functional perspective, this sounds just like the CM capabilities we noted above. So, why dont we just use SharePoint? And how do we convince our IT counterparts who are trying to reduce the number of tools they support that its worth buying yet another technology? The answer is, once you get past the sound bites, KM and CM are not alike. What KM and CM professionals mean when they say words like capture and structure are very different. From our experience with customers who struggled to implement KM with a CM tool, weve identified the five biggest differencesand areas where CM technology isnt the right tool for the KM job.

Structure Matters Knowledge management best practices such as KnowledgeCentered Support (KCSsm) specify that knowledge must be structured for reuse, separating the problem or question being asked, from the environment in which it occurs, from the underlying cause, the actual resolution or answer, and other topics.2 In effect, knowledge capture becomes a case of filling out a form that specifies both whats to be done, and under what conditions to do it.
KM systems also need to support rich mediaimages, useful formatting, attachments, and even video. But they need to start with the structure. The tools that are typically used in an office environment to author documents managed by a CM system arent designed for this kind of structure. Its not practical for busy knowledge workers to open up templates in a word processor and try not to break the formatting: they need an easy, streamlined way to enter the information they need to share, with enough default formatting behavior that they can enter just the bare facts and end up with a professional-looking document. KM practitioners need a simple, structured environment for capturing and improving knowledge.

Nuggets, not novels Knowledge isnt just content. Its actionable information: information needed to make a decision, the resolution to a problem, or the answer to a question. Its a nugget of knowhow. Knowledge objects stored in a KM system are about one thing, and theyre structured to meet a specific need.
Documentsthe focus of enterprise CM systemsarent knowledge. Sure, there may be answers to questions buried inside, but their scope is generally much larger than that. Theyre not designed for a specific purpose.

People dont know the answers theyre looking for Searching inside a CM system is a relatively simple matter. Typically, users know what theyre looking for, and they just need to enter the right parameters to find it. For example, if youre looking for the project plan for your knowledge management initiative, its usually enough to go to your project page or folder and look for a Microsoft Project file with a plausible name. Or, if youre looking for the current manual for the Gizmotron 380, you can look for files of type Documentation tagged to product Gizmotron 380, and quickly get the file you need.

2 The

Consortium for Service Innovation, The KCS Practices Guide, Version 5.0, Melissa George, David Kay, Greg Oxton, David Thorp, 2011, available at http://serviceinnovation.org/included/docs/kcs_practicesguide.pdf

Cant We Just Use SharePoint? A Knowledge Managers Guide to Productive Conversations with IT

Knowledge is different. If someone has a problem, or question, he doesnt yet have the answerthats why hes looking for knowledge. He may not even know what pieces of his question or situation are relevant: which symptoms are important clues, and which are red herrings. He needs help, and other than a vaguely formed question, he doesnt know what to tell the search engine. If he were talking with another, more expert person, they would have a dialog, and by asking the right questions, the expert would quickly hone in on the relevant parts of the situation in order to deliver the right answer. Informed dialogs work; keyword search doesnt. Content management systems also search only the content they manage. But relevant knowledge can be anywhere in the enterprise: in a knowledgebase, in a content management system, or elsewhere. Just searching inside the CM system can overlook important information. Knowledge management must also search not only the knowledge it directly manages, but also information in many forms and places throughout the enterprise. Keyword search is fine for content management, but it doesnt work for knowledge management. If the user knew the keywords to find her solution, she probably wouldnt need to search for it in the first place. Knowledge management systems need to lead users through the process of finding the information they need by guiding them through the search process, suggesting alternative factors and search terms. Like a dialog with an expert, a knowledge management system must elicit information based on the users initial question and the knowledge in the knowledgebase.

Its especially important to capture knowledge in real time, rather than waiting for later, because so often later never comes. And, if you dont integrate knowledge capture into the workflow, its hard to remember both the customers words (our internal editors tend to substitute the words we would have used) and the specific steps we took to resolve the issue. Knowledge management systems must make it easy for staff to capture, reuse, and improve knowledge as they are working on cases. Users should be able to do case documentation and knowledge management at the same time, as theyre helping the customer, without needing to enter the same information twice, and without copy and paste. The KM system should be actively integrated into the other tools (especially CRM or incident management) used by staff members.

Motivating people is an ongoing effort (Measures) People deploying CM systems dont tend to need to think very much about adoption or culture change. The logic for using CM is fairly clear, and its possible to adopt CM one workgroup at a timeCM isnt an all-or-nothing proposition.
Theres not much to measure or manage about CM. Certainly, there are technical details about disk space and performance that IT professionals need to consider, but mostly CM is a utility: its there if people choose to use it. Sometimes theres some effort to standardize taxonomies cross-enterprise, but its rare that significant attention is given to change management. For knowledge management, the primary obstacle to success is getting a critical mass of people to use it consistently throughout their workday. Unless knowledge is consistently used, it wont be improved by its users, and people will be reluctant to take the time to contribute knowledge. With insufficient or outdated knowledge, people will lose confidence and will be less likely to use the knowledge. So unless people are actively using the system, its easy for the whole initiative to go off the rails. Measures are a key enabler of change. They provide feedback to the workers, so they can know how theyre doing relative to colleagues and relative to expectations. Coaches and managers can also see who needs extra help and encouragement, and managers get the data they need to include knowledge management in annual performance reviewsan essential step to making sure that the team knows that knowledge is part of the job.

Knowledge must be integrated into the workflow A CM system is a little bit like a filing cabinet: you take files out of it, use them for a while, then put them back so you can get to them later if needed. It enables the work to get done, but its not part of doing the work.
Knowledge management, in contrast, is the work. As the KCS Practices Guide says, Knowledge management isnt something we do in addition to solving problems it becomes the way we solve problems. Accordingly, KM systems need to be tied in to the workflow of our hands-on jobs.

Cant We Just Use SharePoint? A Knowledge Managers Guide to Productive Conversations with IT

Content management tools are not set up to deliver the measures that the KM program manager needs: create rates, reuse rates, create:reuse ratios, knowledge lifecycle, participation rates, citations, estimated contact deflection, and others defined in the KCS Practices Guide and other knowledge management best practices. Without integration with CRM or incident management, CM packages simply cannot deliver the measures needed to assess and improve team member performance: they dont have access to the data. In short, CM and KM are different tools for different jobs, despite superficial similarities, and attempting to implement KM with a CM tool is doomed to failure.

And, once the system is built, it has to be maintained. As operating systems, browsers, databases, CRM applications, single sign-on systems, and other pieces of the IT infrastructure change, so too must the KM application. Will engineering still have resources to devote to keeping it up-to-date? Do you want to bet your organizations infrastructure on an IT departments willingness to support you intensively, three years from now, after priorities have all shifted? Weve seen too many homegrown systems that have become increasingly ineffective over time because there was no budget or appetite to maintain then, even though they were (in theory) mission critical. Dont let this happen to you! The best way to help both yourself and your IT counterpart if this issue comes up is to make sure he or she understands what it really takes to deploy an integrated knowledge management system. In addition to this paper, sources that list critical KM requirements are the KCS Verified SelfAssessment3 and Collective Wisdom4.

A Final Note: Dont Take This Tempting Offer from IT

Our content management platform is really customizable. We can make it do any of the things youre asking for over time.
This is the most insidious move that IT can make: if you agree to use their CM platform, theyll agree to make it do what you need. How could you say no to such a generous offer? By the way, theyre right: with sufficient software development resources and deep KM process expertise, an IT organization can, in effect, build an effective KM application on top of a CM platform. But are they really likely to do so? And if they were to do so, could they maintain it? As you can see from the discussion in this paper so far, the gap between CM and KM is widefar wider than the IT person making this well-intentioned offer likely appreciates. At Consona, we know what it takes to build an industrial strength KM applicationIT had better have doubledigits of software engineers and some very gifted business analysts who know KM best practices available for the project.

Conclusion
CM is superficially similar to KM, and since every enterprise has CM systems available, its understandable and reasonable that IT would recommend using the existing tool rather than buying and maintaining another one. Were hopeful that this paper gives you the talking points you need to convince IT that CM wont work for a KM initiative, andas with any taskshow them why its important to invest in the right tool for the job.

3 4

Available at http://serviceinnovation.org/included/docs/kcs_verified_v4_self_assessment_worksheets.xls.zip Collective Wisdom: Transforming Support with Knowledge, Francoise Tourniaire and David Kay, HDI 2006

About Tim Hines, Vice President, Product Management, Consona CRM

Tim Hines joined Consona in 2006 and serves as vice president of product management for Consona CRM. In this role, Hines guides the product roadmap and functionality across all of Consona CRMs product lines. Hines has been involved in the CRM industry since 1995. He began his career at AOL as a tech support representative. He was a user and eventually manager of Vantive, Witness and TCS. Hines also worked in Andersen Consultings CRM internal practice, where he focused on Remedy. After leading implementation efforts with marketing automation vendors, he joined the Onyx product management team in 2002. Hines holds a bachelors of business administration in information technology from the University of Phoenix and a Master of Science degree in information technology from American Intercontinental University (AIU). He is currently working on a Ph.D. in information technology.

About Consona
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