Case Study: Week 11

Sampla Industries Knowledge Services Manager

The interview for Manager of Knowledge Services was a strong indication of the
complex interrelationships which would need to be managed at Sampla
Industries, reflected Sarah, as she greeted the panel of 13 around the interview
table. She smiled confidently and shook hands with the CEO, Manager of
Information Technology, Manager of Human Resources, Manager of Research and
Industry, Manager of Innovation and Commercialisation, Manager of Decision
Support, two heads of operational units, two union representatives (one for
professional staff and one for researchers), a leading researcher, and two staff who
would be moving to the Knowledge Services section once the manager was
appointed.

The interview progressed in rather a strange fashion. Whenever Sarah was asked
to respond to a question, the debate would start to rage as to what knowledge
management was, and how it should be supported in Sampla. Sarah wondered who
had developed the job description — it appeared that many of the concepts were
quite new to those at the interview. Take the first question, for example: The CEO
provided some background cont ext by outlining how important knowledge
management was going to be to the organ isation, and how he had chosen to
appoint a Manager of Knowledge Services rather than a CKO because he knew it
would need some intensive work to start with. He asked Sarah to present her
philosophy for the service, and listened carefully as she outlined the need for
widespread consultation and involvement of the 40 operational units which need to
be supported.

As she paused to take a breath, the Manager of Innovation and Commerc ialisation
interjected: 'Surely you don't need to bother people with all that claptrap? Just set
the thing up and get it organised. And did I hear you say that you needed to meet
with us regularly? Why we need to do that? This is just like a library or the IT service
really. Just do it — we don't have time to spend chatting to you all the time. And
don't use the term "knowledge management" if you can help it — we don't really
like things that haven't been properly tested or validated. It's really just glorified
records management when all is said and done.' He glared around the table and
sat back in his chair, arms folded.

'Whooee,' thought Sarah, 'that's going to be a challenging one to win over.' As she
took another breath to respond, the Manager of Human Resources interjected:
'Marc, it really is important to have this role work closely with us. We know how
challenging it is to introduce organisational change, and this is quite a big change
for Sampla. You don't re-educate 4000 staff overnight. And I, for one, would be
very unhappy if I wasn't part of the planning process. We have to be involved.'

'We would certainly expect to see what was planned,' agreed the two union
members. 'In fact, we would want to take it back to our people to get approval
before anything happens.'

‘There's another issue,' interjected the Manager of Information Technology. ‘This

really has to link to our systems, and I would want to see how we are being
represented. I have a lot of staff involved with training everyone in using the new
system.'

'You might think we're being trained, but you really need to look again,' suggested
the younger union representative. 'Your people haven't got a clue how to get us set
up — they keep coming in and doing it for us instead. We have no problem with
them doing the work for us, but we have to learn sometime. So they need to learn
how to work with us to build our skills, and we would really like them to listen
about how we want the systems set up to work with our other processes.'

Sampla case study (Adapted from Debrowski, 2006) Page 1

‘These are important issues,' agreed the young researcher, 'but let's get focused
again. This position is supposed to help us see how we can work more effectively
across all departments and groups. I was talking to my research team the other
day, and we really do want to get more organised with our networks. But we just
don't get time. I didn't even read my email for 5 days while my last experiment
ran, let alone have time to chat with anybody. So we need some real help to build a
community of practice, especially with half of the firm located in Brisbane and the
rest of us here in Melbourne. So we need to hear what Sarah would suggest.'

Sampla case study (Adapted from Debrowski, 2006) Page 2

Sarah thankfully picked up the thread again, offering what she hoped was a
reasonably complete view of how she would provide a comprehensive and
integrated Knowledge Services capability that will support the entire organisation.
She could already see, however, that this was going to be a tough assignment.
And she wanted it — what fun to turn all of these people into her knowledge
champions and stewards. This was going to be an inter esting role! She kept her
fingers crossed as she delicately negotiated with each of the stakeholders
through the rest of the interview and was becoming excited about this challenging
opportunity.

Q u e s tio n s

1 If you were appointed as Sampla’s Manager of Knowledge Services, what

would be your first priorities?
List 5 key priorities for both short and long term.

2 The knowledge service needs to work in a coordinated manner with

information technology, human resources and other service areas. How should
Sarah develop the relationships with these and between them to enhance
social capital?

3 What steps would you advise for initiating support for communities of
practice? Given that this is new, and employees would largely be unaware of
what might be provided through the service, how should it be promoted and
publicized?

Sampla case study (Adapted from Debrowski, 2006) Page 3