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PEG JUNE 2011
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
How Good is Your Organizations Corporate Memory?
The great march is underway. Retiring baby boomers are heading out the doors of Albertas
engineering firms in droves, and many of them are taking some of your most important assets
with them their experience and know-how
BY BRYAN LEACH, P.ENG.
PEG Contributor
On Aug. 21, 2009, the Malahide viaduct on the Belfast to Dublin
railway line collapsed and a major disaster was narrowly averted.
In an independent report commissioned by Irish Rail on the collapse,
the ignorance of the state-run rail companys engineers regarding
the structure was deemed to be a contributing factor. Furthermore,
this ignorance was compounded by corporate memory loss
caused by engineers leaving the company.
Corporate memory comprises the collective wisdom, knowl-
edge, hindsight, insight and good judgment of the people in an
organization. It is generated through learning from experience at the
individual, team and organizational levels, and it is the result of the
accumulation of discipline and organization-specific experience.
The most valuable feature of corporate memory is so-called
tacit knowledge, or more simply know-how. Difficult to articulate
in formal language, tacit knowledge involves intangible factors that
cannot be placed in a database.
In contrast is so-called explicit knowledge or know-what. It
can be articulated in formal language, mathematical expressions,
specifications and manuals, and it can be stored in a database.
However, it tends to be less valuable.
Corporate memory influences decision-making and the exercise
of engineering judgment. Not only can good corporate memory avert
disaster it can also be a source of lasting competitive advantage to
an organization.
Because the component of corporate memory with the major
value, tacit knowledge, is embedded in individuals, knowledge
generation through learning from experience needs to be actively
promoted within an organization. This knowledge needs to be
retained by limiting the amount of knowledge that walks out the
door. Organizations accomplish this by managing staff turnover and
succession planning, and by actively promoting knowledge sharing,
thus limiting the potential to develop corporate amnesia.
Given the increasing flexibility in todays workforce, the in-
creasing use of short-term contract workers, and a demographic
shift thats seeing many highly experienced engineers retire from
the workforce, knowledge management should be a high priority for
engineering companies.
Engineering organizations are typically project based, and con-
sequently learning is derived from project experience. This involves
reflecting on the experience (the project) and asking the questions:
What happened? What did we observe? What have we learned? How
can we use it?
WHAT CORPORATE MEMORY LOSS LOOKS LIKE
Boaters survey the damage after the collapse of the Malahide viaduct on the Belfast
to Dublin railway line in 2009. Corporate memory loss was at least partially to
blame, said an independent report.
- photo by Fergus Wheatley
JUNE 2011 PEG
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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
These questions are typically answered through
inter-project reviews (learning from other projects at the
planning stage)
intra-project reviews during the conduct of the project
project post-mortems and lessons learned at the end of
the project.
Unfortunately, each has potential pitfalls.
Inter-project reviews often fail due to the not-invented-here
and our-project-is-different syndromes.
Intra-project reviews often fail due to the unwillingness to
share thats born of corporate and professional cultures and
the information-is-power syndrome.
Project post-mortems invariably fail due to the were-too-
busy-and-dont-have-time syndrome. Engineers have moved
on to the next project, and the project team has quickly
dispersed.
Furthermore, all types of project reviews tend to focus on the
generation of product knowledge (what was achieved), rather than
process knowledge (how it was achieved). Product knowledge
is predominantly explicit knowledge and process knowledge is
more tacit knowledge. Consequently, the opportunity to learn from
experience and expand corporate memory during and after projects
is lost more often than not.
Corporate memory and its key knowledge form the basis for a
companys lasting competitive advantage in the marketplace. These
key knowledge assets are unique and provide high-value-added
services and features to clients. They may comprise
human capital the skills and knowledge held by the
organizations people
structural capital the patents, processes, networks and
databases the organization possesses
customer capital relationships with customers and
suppliers.
Identifying and managing these key knowledge assets presents
some challenges. This is particularly true in light of an increasingly
mobile workforce and professionals natural reluctance to share
their most precious asset their knowledge.
Companies first need to create a culture that recognizes
and rewards the sharing of knowledge. They then need to put the
infrastructure in place to facilitate sharing. This may range from
databases and intranets through networks and communities of
practice, to structured mentoring programs, and the appointment
of knowledge coordinators and managers. This may also involve
determining the role of technology.
The more valuable (tacit) the knowledge to be managed, the
greater the focus needs to be on using technology to connect
people, rather than using technology to build digital junkyards full of
relatively low-value explicit knowledge.
Finally, a measurement system needs to be implemented to
monitor the value to the organization of any knowledge management
initiative.
The great American industrialist Andrew Carnegie said:
The only irreplaceable capital an organization possesses is the
knowledge and ability of its people. The productivity of that capital
depends on how effectively people share their competence with
those who can use it.
Almost 100 years later, in 1998, Harvard academic Ilujiro
Nonaka said: In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty,
the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge.
And yet, few managers understand the true nature of the knowledge-
creating company let alone know how to manage it.
Accordingly, as engineers and geoscientists we should strive
to share our knowledge rather than hoard it, and as managers
of engineering organizations and project teams we should strive
to create cultures and structures where sharing of knowledge
is encouraged, recognized and rewarded. This should lead to
increased employee satisfaction and more competitive companies,
and to projects being completed more cost effectively and profitably
for all parties involved.
It may also have prevented the collapse of the Malahide viaduct!
Bryan Leach, P.Eng., is the principal catalyst with Imparando Consult-
ing Ltd. of Calgary, a company focused on helping organizations learn.
Trained in geology and geotechnical engineering, he has lived and prac-
ticed in the U.K., Hong Kong, Canada and Italy. He has a certificate in adult
in workplace learning and a masters degree in continuing education, both
from the University of Calgary. In 2009 Mr. Leach retired from a career
in engineering that spanned 36 years, and set up Imparando Consulting.
Reach him through the companys website, www.imparando.ca.