Knowledge Management for Design Firms

Home
Newsletter
Architecture
Consulting
Seminars
Book
Research
Imaging
Praise
Contact

Jonathan Cohen

Client area

The principal asset of any design firm is the accumulated knowledge and
experience of its staff. But how widely and efficiently is that knowledge
shared within the organization? Unfortunately, most design firms have
no systematic way of compiling, storing, and reusing their knowledge
assets. How much time are employees spending searching for
information that is within the firms knowledge base but not available
when neededin other words, reinventing the wheel? Does your firm
have a culture of knowledge sharing or knowledge hoarding? Are staff
aware of the experts within the organization or do they rely on informal
word-of-mouth networks? When key employees leave the firm, how
much of the firms knowledge investment leaves with them?
Knowledge management (KM) seeks to capture what the firm knows and
make that knowledge accessible throughout the organization. The
firms ability to harness its own knowledge assets is seen by clients as
a key indicator of its organizational savvy and by design firm
marketers as a way to separate from the competition.
A systematic plan for knowledge management is essential in both large
firms and small, single office and multi-office, although the tools in use
may range from simple and cheap to very sophisticated. But for design
firms of any size, one of the best tools for KM is an intranet, or internal,
private Web site.
Case Study: ADD Inc.
Jill Rothenberg is Chief Technology Officer with ADD Inc., a 150 person
multidisciplinary design firm with offices in Cambridge, MA, San
Francisco, and Miami. The firm recently launched version 3.0 of its
intranet, an evolution that began with version 1 in 1996. It is a unified,
Web-based portal to many containers of internal firm information.
ADD Inc. staff enter the site on a today page that links to the shared
Microsoft Outlook calendar. This page has office events, news,
announcements and serves to reduce the clutter of interoffice email.
From there, employees can navigate to information about firm standards
for project management, file-naming conventions, the HR manual,
libraries of photos and CAD details, and templates for meeting notes,
proposal letters, and contracts. From within the intranet, staff can
schedule resources conference rooms, A/V, catering, and then use the
calendar function to invite colleagues to meetings. The shared calendar
knows who is on vacation or away from the office on business.
The intranet understands that departments and individuals in the firm
own their own information and it is designed to support this
independence by giving employees the tools they need to manage and

share their data.

The intranet brought unexpected social benefits as well. Offices are
social places, says Rothenberg, and employees are free to illustrate
their personal pages with family photos and news items they wish to
share with co-workers. During the late 1990s the firm was growing so
rapidly that people didnt know where to turn for help with projects.
When problems arose, people didnt know whom to consult, so the
intranet has a list of go-to experts within the firm. Rothenberg
feels the firms sophistication about technology appeals to clients and
serves to differentiate ADD Inc. from the competition. Its made us
look very good in interviews, she said.
ADD Inc.'s intranet

Case Study: Ove Arup and Partners

Arup is a far-flung engineering consultancy with five thousand
employees in sixty offices and forty countries. Their intranet began as an
attempt to create a road map to the knowledge within the firm,
according to Phillip Crompton of Arups Los Angeles office. The firm was
so large that it was difficult to keep track of all the expertise it
possessed. Originally Arup had an overguide, a directory to all the
engineers and their experience, and a skills network. Whatever
engineering problem you were trying to solve, someone in the firm had
probably solved it already. The real problem was finding that person,
explained Crompton. We were reinventing the wheel and sometimes

even working at cross purposes. Knowledge of the firms resources

was based largely on word of mouth. What Arup needed was a central
repository of the firms expertise, and that need led to the development
of an intranet.
Pages from Arup's extensive intranet
for knowledge management

At first, each office developed its own intranet, and the central office did
not try to exert much control. This ad hoc approach allowed the firm to
experiment widely. After evaluation, firm managers found a common
ground where engineering expertise could be indexed by skill sets and
by branch office. Now Arup is developing a second-generation intranet
that will be more structured, with a recognizable firm-wide interface. The
Arup intranet includes specifications in Word and PDF formats, details as
CAD files, and a database that tracks how details have been
implemented in firm projects. Engineers can annotate details and specs
with notes about how well they worked in one instance or how they
failed in another, maintaining a record of their use in real projects.
Crompton calls this invaluable information. The effort that went into

development of a detail is preserved, along with the firms experience

with it. The feedback loop between design and implementation is
captured, providing a sterling example of the way that IT can be brought
to the service of design. And by capturing its own knowledge, the firm
distinguishes itself in the marketplace.
Back to IT Consulting

Home | Consulting | Research | Book | Architecture | Contact

Page updated: April 6, 2004
2004 Jonathan Cohen and Associates
Webmaster