Knowledge Management

IST 430

Team Project (200 points)

To be Presented after November 28, 2006

This project gives the student the opportunity to apply the knowledge management concepts learned in class. Select a real-world organization and prepare a critique of its knowledge management resources. The following areas should be covered in your report:

Organization Description: This description should include information about the organization such as its size (number of employees), annual revenues, the type of business it's in, its position within the market (i.e. market leader). Include any other information that defines the organization.

Opportunity: Describe an opportunity within the organization that is or could be realized using knowledge management initiatives. Define the knowledge areas that are significant for the selected business perspective.

Mention any constraints that limit the selection of the solution. Examples would be lack of funds, technical expertise, or absence of a telecommunciations infrastructure.

Recommendation: Describe how the organization should use a knowledge management initiative. Identify the corresponding critical performance indicators and the current and future impact of the knowledge areas on the key performance indicator.Discuss your proposed knowledge management (KM) initiative. Use the following questions as guidelines:

• What are the knowledge goals that should be set up before starting the process?
• What is the time frame and metrics that will be used to measure the success of the proposed system?
• What kind of KM system will lyou implement (personal vs codification) and why?
• How can the costs of the KM system be justified? Explore the KM solutions provided by a few vendors and choose the one that best fits the needs of the organization. Provide an estimate of the various costs involved in devloping the proposed system and the expected ROI.
• What kind of knowledge will be gathered from whom?
• What KM gathering techniques will be used and why?
• What additional factors will be considered before implementing the KM system? Discuss issues such as organizational culture, motivation and incentives, top management support, technological challenges, etc.

Conclusion: Summarize the organization, the proposed KM initiative and any caveats you have unveiled.

Pages 24 to 35 in the KM Case Book provide a more detailed description of some of the project requirements. Ideas for this assignment can be found in popular business magazines such as Business Week, Business 2.0, and Information Week. I have numerous copies of Information Week you can use for ideas.

The term paper must fulfil the following requirments:

• Must exhibit good writing. Attention must be paid to:
• spelling
• grammar
• excessive verbage
• well-expressed thoughts
• flow between sentences and paragraphs
• Must provide adequate content
  • complete descriptions
  • appropriate graphics such as charts, figures, etc.
  • sufficient analysis of the problem and solution
• Must include:
  • Title Page
  • Executive Summary
  • Table of Contents
  • Appendix
  • References (if appropriate)
• Must be professionally presented
  • clean, white paper (it is not necessary to use a high quality bond paper)
  • pages must be typed (12 pt. Times Roman font) and lines double-spaced
  • must be visually attractive
  • diagrams must be neatly drawn and labeled
  • turned in on time
  • should be placed in some kind of a cover
  • should be of sufficient length to answer all the questions (20 pages would not be unreasonable)

Peer Evaluation of Individual Performance

At the conclusion of the project, team members must evaluate other members of their team in the following areas:

• Quality of work performed by the student
• Level of effort
• Participation in group meetings
  

Evaluations will be done on a rating scale, ranging from 1 to 10, where 1 is worthless and 10 is invaluable. A score of 6 is considered average. It would be possible for a student to do outstanding work on a small part of the project (a 10 for quality but a 1 on effort) and receive a low overall grade due to effort level. As an additional measure students will rank their peers in each area from most valuable to least valuable. 

Project deadlines

• Proposal
• 4 pages - double spaced, 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins
• state the organization you will analyze and how you plan to proceed
• Due September 26th, 2006
• Final Project
• Due December 7, 2006

Project Presentation

• Your team will be assigned a presentation time on November 30, December 5 or December 7.
• The presentation should be 25 - 30 minutes in length. You can use any method you prefer, however, strive to make it interesting. Most presentations should be done in Power Point unless you think something else would be more effective. The presentation should contain an introduction, body and conclusion.
• Prepare at least 5 open-ended questions (no "yes/no" questions) for class discussion.

Attendance is mandatory during all team presentations. Attendance will be taken on all three class periods.