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Knowledge Management and its practice at the Federal Transit AdministrationTuro Dexter@turodexterJanuary 9, 2014

Opinions expressed in this presentation are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent official positions or policies of the U.S. DOT or the Federal Transit Administration.

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conduct your business is too valuable not to manage.

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Knowledge Management

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Knowledge is an asset.• Complex• Scarce

• Costly• Strategic

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What is the value of what you have learned and will learn?Where is your knowledge?What would be the cost if you lost it?Are your people sharing knowledge with one another?How long do you expect to keep your experts?Are you prepared for when people leave?

Consider what your organization knows.

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Manage your knowledge.• What do you know? What don’t you know?• Since nobody knows everything, THAT’S OK.• But are you wasting knowledge and the capacity to do more?

• Knowledge...• Creation and discovery

• Buying and renting

• Giving and receiving

• Organizing

• Remembering

• Deriving

• Leveraging4

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Creation and Discovery

• New knowledge• Creativity• Ideation• Innovation• Intuition• Serendipity

Spark it, facilitate it, socialize it, prototype it.Visualize & articulate goals. Transcend constraints.Combine the unlikely. Ask “Why not?”Inspire an innovation culture. Make failure OK.Acknowledge and reward. 5

Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Buying and Renting

• Consultants• Conferences• Outside training• Contractors working alongside you• Knowledgeable new hires

What happens when it’s over?How much did you keep?Debrief one another after learning events.Include knowledge transfer in contracts.

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Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Giving and Receiving

• Internal training and cross training• Mentoring and job shadowing – up, down, peer• Tacit and explicit knowledge

• Communities of practice• Cross-organization and internal

• Interviews, roundtables and town halls• Social events• Build trust and connection

• Personality inventories, skills banks

Inspire a knowledge sharing culture.Acknowledge and reward. 7

Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Organizing

• Tagging• Facets• Application• Relevance• Context

• Related items

You need to be able to find it when you need it.Organize for browsing – don’t rely on search.Agree on terms and conventions.Folders often defeat knowledge management.Acknowledge and reward great contributions to organization.

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Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Remembering

• Case studies• Keeping and sharing journals• How discoveries were made• How we did that thing• Flew to the moon?

• What worked best (in context)• Persistent discussion boards• FAQs, SOPs and process guides or maps• Media, bookmarks and publication libraries• Share!

Decide what to document. Allow time for it.Some knowledge will stay in people’s heads.

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Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Deriving

• During- and after-action reviews• Case study reviews• Team debriefs

Be mindful of the context of knowledge:Best practices for identical situations.Good practices for similar situations.

Use lessons learned in planning the next action.See Creation and discovery.

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Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Leveraging

The payoff ! You have or are building:• A view of knowledge as an asset• Ways of catalyzing and gathering new ideas• Supportive culture, relationships and trust• Knowledge sharing among and across teams and

organizations• Processes that keep knowledge from being lost• Experts with tacit and undocumented knowledge

identified and mentoring others• Critical explicit knowledge and experience

documented• Knowledge organized so you can find it and know

when to use it• Lessons always being learned and applied

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Creation and discovery

Buying and renting

Giving and receiving

Organizing

Remembering

Deriving

Leveraging

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Knowledge Management atthe FTA

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Nine operating administrations supporting different modes of

transportation

Can you name them?

U.S. DOT

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1. Federal Aviation Administration – FAA (47,500)2. Federal Highway Administration – FHWA (2,850)3. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration – FMCSA (1,100)4. Federal Railroad Administration – FRA (860)5. Maritime Administration – MARAD (700)6. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration – NHTSA (580)7. Federal Transit Administration – FTA (520)8. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration – PHMSA

(450)9. Saint Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation - SLSDC (125)

Office of the Secretary (650), Research & Innovative Technology Admin. (620), Inspector General (420), Surface Transportation Board (130)

U.S. DOT

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*NEW*Establish and enforce a comprehensive framework to

oversee the safety of public transportation throughout the United States (heavy rail, light rail, buses, and streetcars)

FTA’s MissionImproving mass transportation systems for cities and communities nationwide

Grant programs to plan, build, and operate transit systems

Financial, technical and planning assistanceBusesRail vehiclesCommuter ferryboatsTrolleysInclined railwaysSubwaysPeople movers

Traffic reductionEconomic developmentAccess to employment @

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• Approximately $9 billion per year in financial assistance to public transit agencies across the country – $17.3 million per FTA employee• FTA’s administrative budget is about 1% of that.• Hurricane Sandy relief doubled FTA’s grant

outlays with only minimal additional staff• Federal funding covers a small portion of local

transit costs (e.g., D.C.’s WMATA gets $150 million from FTA for a 2013 operating budget of $1.6 billion)

Budget

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Dispersed WorkforceAlmost half of FTA’s 520 employees work out of one of 10 regional offices where they perform direct oversight of transit construction and operations around the country.

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FTA’s CKO is a peer with the Director of IT and Director of HR

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Evolution of the Learning andKnowledge Management Group

CKO Hired 2007

First staffer 2010

Gained L&D

Team 2012

Contract support

2012

L&D+ KM-------LKM

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1. FTA Encourages a Culture of Knowledge and Experience Sharing

2. FTA Employs Efficient and Effective Business Processes

3. FTA Leverages its Knowledge and Experience for Decision Making and Strategic Planning

LKM Group activities are tied to the organizational excellence objectives of the DOT Strategic Plan.

KM Goals

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The mission of the FTA Learning and Knowledge Management (LKM) Group is to enhance individual, team and organizational effectiveness by providing tools, procedures and activities that:• Connect FTA’s people with what and whom they

need to know• Facilitate learning and collaboration across the

Agency• Promote professional and personal development

Mission Statement

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• Enthusiastic marketing of LKM services• Achieve employee learning and development goals• Assistance through KM to make FTA’s work easier and

more effective• Try to never say no to a request• Reputation of responsive service and a place to go for

solutions• Relationships• Strong executive support

Succeed – if you Just Say Yes !

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• Knowledge Management• Learning & Development• Developing an integrated LKM Strategic Plan

It seems easier for people to understand what knowledge management is when it is discussed alongside learning and development activities.

Synergy with Learning & Dev’t

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• Leadership• Strategy• Management• Good political sense• Logistics and

implementation• Design

• Information management and IT• Communications• Org. development• Entrepreneurism• Can-do attitude• Customer focus

LKM Group Skills

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• Learning needs assessments

• Curriculum development and maintenance

• Centralized course procurement and delivery

• Procurement and travel for training: Coordinating and advising

• Learning management system: Managing and improving

• Mandatory training: Improving quality and management

• FTA’s job rotation program: Coordinating

• Multifaceted mentoring program: Developing and coordinating

• Knowledge cafés for group learning

• Onboarding processes: Increasing involvement

L&D Activities

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• Communities of Practice: Forming, facilitating and supporting

• After-Action Reviews

• Business process improvement activities

• SharePoint-based TransPort portal development and work with offices to employ it strategically

• Intranet content management (future)

• Legacy Capture sessions with video recording of private interviews, roundtables with peers, or town hall meetings with coworkers

• DOT-wide IdeaHub program: FTA’s liaison

• Web conferencing: Supporting and evangelizing FTA’s use

KM Activities

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• Knowledge vs. Information/Content Management• LKM Group’s strengths• Process analysis• Consultative approach• Communications and change management

• Office of IT’s strengths• Depth of technical expertise• Responsive orientation• Capacity

• Ongoing effort to develop smooth, effective collaboration

Division of Responsibility : IT

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• 2009 audit focused on identifying capabilities, capacities and perceived problems rather than stores of knowledge itself• Business process and office function work will

help to identify some structures of knowledge• Legacy capture activities, speaker programs in

knowledge cafés, and mentoring programs also shine light on key human stores of knowledge

Identifying Knowledge

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• Evangelism and word of mouth• FTA’s intranet functions will be rolled into

TransPort over the coming six months• We will highlight the functions that illuminate

and expose business processes, connect people to one another, and disseminate documented knowledge so people discover them when using the Intranet

Encouraging Adoption

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• Satisfaction of office leadership with improvements in access to the information and expertise needed to make decisions• Easier communication• Smooth successions• Understanding and continuing improvement of FTA

business processes• Faster employee development• Employee job satisfaction• Gauged by surveys and direct feedback

Measures of Success

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• Much LKM Group effort into the design of new supervisor training• Training on KM, motivation, innovation and

engagement will advance FTA’s culture• The ability to design training is yet another

significant benefit of FTA’s having integrated its learning and development with KM functions

Supervisor Training

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• FTA Administrator’s Awards & DOT Secretary’s Awards• Informal peer-to-peer recognition motivates

employees to collaborate and contribute• Strong employee contributions to the IdeaHub

program are self-evident through peer ranking• Contributions to IdeaHub that are accepted for

implementation are brought to the attention of executives• Cash for awards is limited or nonexistent

Awards and Recognition

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• LKM Group initiates and facilitates some communities itself; for others it offers KM support and a site on TransPort

• Special interest groups for users of specific technologies, or people performing the same function in different offices

• Participants in a class together, like new supervisors• Any level from analysts to Associate Administrators• Heavy workloads impact participation• Distributed workforce creates additional needs for peer interactions• Communities can be lifelines for information and mentoring along

with friendship and even emotional support during difficult periods

Communities

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• Principal content repositories are shared network drives• Individual offices manage their own file organization, and the

quality of organization varies• TransPort is built on SharePoint, with document management

functions that are beginning to be adopted• Offices are being given the option of whether and how to

implement metadata• For many, starting with simple folder structures in a fashion

similar to what they were used to with shared drives has eased adoption

• We risk disorganization like on the shared drives if folders are allowed to proliferate in an unmanaged fashion.

Content Management

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• Branded implementation of SharePoint 2010• Some standardized governance and structure• Offices designate a single POC for TransPort implementation,

plus:• Content managers• Security managers• Approvers

• Consistent web-like interface• Sections for private and shared content• Office input into SharePoint features enabled for their use• Offices receive demonstrations and basic training from the

LKM Group on content and document management

TransPort

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• TransPort includes a personal profile page for each user• Professional bio• Short self-reported list of special skills• Projects for which people are POCs• Photo

• TransPort’s search engine will include profile entries in search results where keywords match those used in profiles

Expertise Location

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• Limited time of both LKM staff and the staff of offices who may wish to adopt TransPort or to better organize their files on shared drives• Difficulty enforcing governance• Familiarity and learning curve for a new platform• Bandwidth limitations between HQ and regional

offices

Content Managemt Challenges

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• LKM Group facilitates After-Action Reviews for FTA offices• They may rely on LKM or learn to facilitate their

own• Offices manage the results of their reviews

themselves• LKM has successfully conducted AARs with

remote participants using interactive web conference technology, with a virtual flipchart to record participant input

After Action Reviews

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• Some FTA offices have mature process documentation• FTA’s internal Grants A to Z database contains

extensive information on grant application, review and oversight processes• The Office of IT continuously refines a set of

Standard Operating Procedures documents on using technology tools

Process Documentation

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• New LKM priority to help offices document, add visibility to, and improve their processes• TransPort’s standard office home page layouts

will be modified to include lists of office functions with links to more information about each function• This will improve access but also cast valuable

light on the processes themselves and facilitate thinking about how they can be improved

Process Improvement

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• FTA is not yet mature in broad adoption of KM• Culture varies quite a bit from office to office• KM adoption seems proportional to employee

engagement and inversely proportional to workload• Direct leadership advocacy for KM, where it is

forthcoming, has a positive effect

Maturity

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• Heavy day-to-day workloads are the principal barriers to greater knowledge sharing at FTA.• Initiatives to improve performance on grant

review, project oversight and establishing the safety office take precedence over planning for knowledge transfer.

Challenges

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• L&D integration is paying big dividends• Relationships and service are key• People and process focus• Employee workloads are challenging• Small, busy and growing

KM at the FTA

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