Process For Corporate Memory Retention
Dr. Santhanam Ravichandran & Mohammed Shareef, SSI Technologies
ABSTRACT:
This paper highlights the experiences of SSI Technologies
on the implementation and quantitative benefits derived using a tool based
process database for Knowledge Management in a project context. Any
product development is a long process, right from its conceptualization; it
takes meticulous planning and implementation on the
part of project developers to create the product according to the requirements.
It is a team effort and requires contribution from the whole team for the
successful execution of the project. Managing the knowledge, harnessed by the
team through the course of the project, is difficult. This is a critical issue that is compounded by turnover over
an extended period. Only effective documentation and retrieval process can
ensure long-term success for any organization
1. Introduction
In an organization, knowledge acquisition goal arises from a variety of sources. It is necessary to capture the knowledge repository for software organizations as each projects carry executed results into some form of improvements and best practices, project information which is used by future projects; fully or partly. Gaining expertise for economic and quality software solutions can be achieved with automated methods and tools to attain and enrich the corporate knowledge base. SEI Software CMMSM and CMMISM [SEI, 1993; SEI, 2002] process areas advocate the necessity of having an organization wide process database for effective knowledge management and information sharing.
2. The Need
· Competency
For a software product to
survive in the market, it must be maintained and upgraded constantly to keep
pace with ever-changing demands. A software organization must respond to
customer requests quickly, to keep the customer satisfied.
· Information Updates
Along with the product enhancements, the documentation of changes is as much a necessary part as is the information outflow to the developers. This not only includes supporting documents but also, we need to update all personnel involved in the development.
· Remove Resource Dependency
The support documents
need to be maintained and upgraded on the basis of knowledge residing with the
personnel.
· Information Transparency
When we are talking about
a knowledge bank, communication is another area that needs to be highlighted.
Poor communication means poor information exchange. People censure each other,
if communication is not clear due to absence of process. The three essential
mantras for information transparency are Communication, Communication and
Communication.
· Loss of Knowledge
Another important factor
is “Information doesn’t get lost with employees”. In any industry, it becomes
essential to share the knowledge and ingenuity of every individual working on
the development of the same product.
To achieve the above-mentioned factors a
standardized channel is required, which automates the process of constant
on-line update of the knowledge bank in some centralized repository that keeps
everyone informed about the change. This maneuver creates the concept of
corporate memory, which maintains a knowledge bank of the product information
for the organization. It is possible to accumulate this knowledge
electronically in a database.
3. General
Industry Practices
Most organizations in the IT industry or otherwise use Word (documents) or
Excel (spreadsheets) for managing project information. These are effective
tools to manage information but certain problems arise in the long run when
these documents become larger in size and increase in number. It becomes
difficult to keep track of information and search for relevant information.
E-mail is another means of communication that has made work very fast for the
industry but introduces new problems. Though a very effective tool, it scatters
information. The core problem has moved from managing information with humans
to documents and further in sub-documents i.e., mails.
4. Bottlenecks
· Distributed Information
The information needed to
build the repository is scattered among various personnel in different formats.
Due to this, the right person is not able to access the right information at
the right time. A common lament one hears is “we don’t know what we know”
[Malhotra, 2001a]. The only way to find out the information is through
interaction with peers, and by hunting for right person to talk to.
· Scarcity and inconsistency of documents
The ideas and innovations
are there but do not exist substantially as documents. Even if documents exist,
they are in varied formats. There should be a repository, which sustains one
format that is easily accessible, and understandable to all users.
· Voluminous Documentation
Problem after
documentation is to have Managed Information. The easy accessibility, speed and
accuracy of the information extracted are important issue.
· Information Sharing
Even big library of
documents cannot overcome the problem of Inter-division information sharing
unless it is communicated and informed all the time of changes.
5. On-Line Corporate Memory
5.1 Concept
Our concept is to have a Process database where
knowledge resides in a centralized database rather than extracted through
interactions with peers[Malhotra, 2001b; Skyrme, 2001]. Introduction of this
process has helped overcome cultural barriers within an organization, which
hinders sharing of knowledge. To automate the process of sharing and make
information available to all, a Corporate Memory knowledge bank (Process
database) is used as referred in Figure 1.0.
In the fast moving world of Information Technology Industry it is imperative
for any organization to keep information integrated and on-hand [Schwartz,
2000]. Even if very critical
resources leave the information/knowledge should not get lost.
Figure 1.0:
On-line Crporate Memory
5.2 The
Process
Various functional units like development, documentation, testing, marketing, etc. effectively use the concept of On-line Corporate Memory. It typically behaves as a knowledge bank for all the functional and engineering units of the organization [Bonner, 2001]. During the development life cycle, we constantly gain enormous amount of information pertaining to programming techniques, best practices, market needs, competitors, etc. All the concerned functional units regularly enter the information in this repository, which may be used by other functional units, as and when required. The data is entered from different physical locations and it is stored in one centralized database. This database collects the entire information in ASCII format, which is universally compatible and occupies less space. To achieve this, an in-house build tool is used. This tool enables the effective implementation of this process.
Phase 1: The process starts with the collection of information
from the requirement analysis phase. This initiates configuration management
process for each requirement entered into the repository. Project Planning
including estimation information is entered into the database for effective and
universal project tracking and monitoring by the concerned management. Project
Manager has rich reference to organizational capability through past project
details, organizational baselines (metrics) and best practices, reference to
risk, defects and tools, for appropriate early planning and decision making for
the project.
Phase 2: Design information is documented in the centralized repository. It serves as a gateway for development as well as for design reviews by design team. Tailored checklist for various design architecture, coding, etc. can be effectively used and the learning curve is reduced.
Phase 3: In the next phase, when development begins the
requirements and design information gives an insight to the development unit to
understand the system better. Most of the time developers are deprived of this
information. During development all technical information is entered in the
database both for new as well as for modified design.
Phase 4: Once the development unit enters the technical
information, it acts as single reference that helps the testing unit to
generate the test plans. It also helps the new personnel to understand the
technical details.
Phase 5: Further, the documentation unit uses the same
information to produce final support documents such as user manuals,
installation guide, etc.
Phase 6: New feature list and change requests are also
incorporated in the same process thus keeping different units informed about
‘what’s in the forthcoming release’. It further helps developers relate the
changed objects with regard to a change implementation. This helps the testing
unit understand what needs to be stressed upon. The centralized feature list helps
documentation unit upgrade their manuals for the new features and changes. This
on-line information is a critical asset for Customer Support unit. The Customer
Satisfaction Index derived from the customer satisfaction survey report is
useful index for benchmark.
Phase
7: Keeping the entire Question at this centralized knowledge bank to
handle customer calls fast and generate request for proposal documents in
lesser time. Keep track of the Leads Database and analyze the metrics on
‘proposal hit ratio’. The
organization wide analysis of audit reports and process compliance index trend in
the projects are also used for continuous process improvements. All the
activities and critical usage is summarized in the Figure 2.0.
Figure 2.0:
Process Implementation and Usage
5.3 Target
Users
Product developments units are the major
beneficiaries of this process where requirements are changing fast and impact
of those requirement changes needs to be tracked. What are the new features
that are added and how are they affecting the design of the system; and need to
be tested by the testing units in greater depth? It also reflects the changes,
which needs to be reflected in the end user documentation. Customer support and
marketing functional units gain so much of information while it’s under development.
Development teams get information about your customers. This framework implies
some interdependencies among functional units.
The implementation of this process drastically
changes the software development life style from sequential approach of development.
In this kind of development information is distributed effectively.
5.4 When
To Use It?
The On-line Corporate Memory (Process Database) is
designed to record the combination of Software development based knowledge and
process information through all the stages of development. The process is
ideally suited for the Waterfall model of development and other emerging
models. It also increases the efficiency of the evolutionary model of
development. Further, it offers a user-defined approach to organize corporate
best practice in a central repository so that it can be used any time from any
corporate desktop. The different
part of Software Development Life Cycle are stored as part of process
framework. Hence, the information should ideally be stored in the following
stages:
· Requirements Analysis
The data repository is
initiated for the first time when the product essentials have been delineated
and the product goals established. This information would be with the project managers
and hence they should record the information.
· Design
The second stage of any
product development involves the basic design layout of the application by the
design unit. Hence, the product designers should record the information
regarding the design of the product.
· Product Development
The implementation of the
design of the product is also the stage where maximum information is generated
on the product. Information here is distributed over a very wide area of the
developers unit. This alone should be reason enough to ensure that all this
information is recorded meticulously in one central repository. This would not
only ensure the even distribution of information through easy access to the
Corporate Memory but also removes the possibility of ‘Black-Holing’ of
information or on the flip side, scattering of information.
· Product Testing
Although considered the
last stage of development, this is the stage where the concept of centralized
information reaps its maximum benefits. On testing a product, thorough
understanding is essential, which is provided by the On-line Corporate Memory.
· Product Documentation
This stage, albeit
dealing with a different aspect of the product altogether is however similar in
requirements to the Testing stage, in that, both require the respective unit to
access complete information on the product. A constant reference to the
centralized information is an easier way to refer to the information than
gathering it from dispersed sources.
5.5 Significance
·
Modern Approach
The current approach
concentrates on the readability or the easy accessibility of data to all the
developers cutting across all kinds of personnel while simultaneously ensuring
that it does not consume too much of the developer’s time.
·
Easy Access
Being a centralized repository,
the data may be accessed by anyone and at anytime. The general idea is to make
the data transparent to the in-house participants to the project. This helps in
easy access to the information, which in turn reduces the error-rate in the
project, saves on time and finally reduces the workload of everyone involved in
the project.
· Automation of Development Process
By cutting down the time
spent mostly in information search and by standardizing the information, data redundancy
is reduced to a near minimum thus enhancing the process automation.
·
Effective Time and Resource Management
This process reduces the
unnecessary inter-personal interactions to great extent. It also overcomes the
hurdles involved in documentation searching and extracting the required
information, which becomes near insurmountable in the present practice of
Multi-National Organizations. It reduces the need of one testing person per
development person. The required information for testing is documented; thus,
the same testing and documentation resources can effectively be used for more
than one project. The time spent in tracing information, which is spread across
mails and documents, is effectively reduced.
· Standardization
The constant reference to
the Corporate Memory brings consistency in the information available on the
product.
5.6 Tools
Used
Reuse of this software is made to implement this process. The tool captures information like who, what, when and why, preserving the context of IT process and knowledge. Relationships between elements of a process- from requirements, design and coding to integration and testing are easily created and stored as part of a process structure. The best practices are captured and reused throughout the organization delivering substantial quality and productivity improvements.
6. Results
The project team at SSI Technologies has come up
with a suitable process for storing large volume of information and
configuration management for a product development. To enhance and control the
information related to software, they have developed a process, which automates
the gathering of information from development unit and pass this to other
units. A large team of 170 members at different geographic locations uses this
process. The immense need to manage and share the application and technical
information, in an effective and easy way and by all the units at different
physical location, necessitated generation of this concept.
The following charts reflects the usage profile and
pattern of the process database:
Figure 3.0
Figure 4.0
7. Metrics
There are several metrics identified from the process database to improve performance. This includes benchmarking on the following attributes:
· Overall productivity of Knowledge investments
· Service quality
· Customer satisfaction
· Operational level of customer service
· Time to market in relation to other competitor
· Cost, profits and margins distribution
· Relation and relation management
· Usage of quality function deployment tools by evolving quality metrics matrix. (This can fetch good results and suggest improvements for the Knowledge management process.)
· Use of processes for optimizing productivity, defect reduction, maintainability and reliability
· Usage of Knowledge Management Database and decisions made.
The following representation gives an insight on a few project benefits as listed, which was collected, after a span of 18 months from implementation;
· Project Planning and Management Effort savings
· Increased Productivity due to component reuse
· Defect Density reduction using Defect Database
8. Critical
Success Factors
·
Top Management Support
Such a concept is successfully
implemented only after the management realized the benefits and need of such a
concept, investment, and commitment to the process for the improvements.
·
Ownership
The success of any
project in an organization depends on the wide spread acceptance it gets and
this is possible only through a
“grass roots” approach to implement the process. This would mean that
the management should back the project and implement it across all units.
·
Managing Change
Once this process gained
the required support, the successful execution of the plan was in well thought
out protocols for its development and Implementation.
·
Training
Implementing a new
process requires a substantial change in the day-to-day activities of the
project personnel. To get the users involved in the process, presentations were
conducted to explain the need for the change and be convinced of its benefits.
Without competent individuals, productivity, innovations and responsiveness,
the implementation was difficult to achieve.
·
Adoption Process
According to Technology
Adoption life cycle, any organization has different categories of personnel -
Early Adapters (or Visionaries), Early majority (or Pragmatists), later
majority (or Conservatives) and laggards. Technology, in this case was the Change
Process for improvement. For a better implementation we categorized the
personnel and chose the visionaries who were going to adopt it first. We also
required getting hold of the Pragmatists, by understanding their needs and
helping them realize the way to achieve it. They followed it once they realized
that visionaries have followed it successfully. We should not loose our focus
from visionaries who are going to be large in number for success in
implementation.
·
Managing Process
Third step in the implementation
was placing these in the key activities of the line staff, to ensure this is
getting followed. This would act as counter control.
·
QA Assurance
Further QA unit reviews
the completeness of the available information. Checklists and review-documents
help in tracking.
9. Summary
Using this process not only facilitates
information management but also it helps in better project management,
corporate management and continuous process improvement. Besides, it covers
configuration management issues and effectively saves time of resources for
managing documents, taking backups and passing documents back and forth. Focus
on the goal with one solution for all Information Managing Issues.
All the documentation is electronically available off-the-shelf
to all the units. The database management is much more lucrative than managing
the documents. One process database file replaces all documentation needs.
This concept is not only applicable for IT
industry projects, but it is also capable of providing information management
solutions to other knowledge-based industries wherever there is a need to
maintain accurate information. A few examples would be the Pharmaceutical
industry, Manufacturing industry, Research centers, etc.
10. Acknowledgments
The authors wish to record their sincere thanks to
Mr. K.Shriniwas, CEO, SSI Technologies and Mr. K.S.Suresh, Chairman, SSI
Limited, for their support and encouragement for carrying out the above work.
We also acknowledge the support of our colleagues from Quality Assurance
department.
11. References
Bonner, D., In Action: Leading Knowledge
Management and Learning, ASTD, USA, 2001
Malhotra, Y., Knowledge Management and Virtual
Organization, Idea
Group Publishing, Hershey PA, USA, http://www.lead-group.com,
2001a
Malhotra, Y., Knowledge Management and Business
Model Innovation, Idea
Group Publishing, Hershey PA, USA, http://www.lead-group.com,
2001b
Schwartz, D.G., Divitini, M., Brasethvik, T., Internet-Based Organizational Memory and Knowledge Management, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey PA, USA, http://www.lead-group.com, 2000
SEI Software CMMSM, 1993, Ver. 1.1, Software Engineering Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University, USA, http://sei.cmu.edu/
SEI CMMISM SW/SE, 2002, Ver. 1.1, Software Engineering Institute,
Carnegie Mellon University, USA, http://sei.cmu.edu/
Skyrme, D.J., Knowledge Networking: Creating the
Collaborative Enterprise, Butterworth Heinemann, New Delhi, 2001