Chapter 16 of Carla O'Dell and C. Jackson Grayson, Jr. "If Only We Knew What We Know: the Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice". The Free Press, 1998.
Summarized by: SDTalisayon
World Bank Official Policy: To Become a “Knowledge Bank”
World Bank President James Wolfensohn in a 1996 speech before 175 finance ministers, pronounced knowledge management as the Bank’s strategy:
“The Bank Group’s relationships with governments and institutions all over the world and our unique reservoir of development experience across sectors and countries position us to play a leading role in a new knowledge partnership... To capture this potential we need to invest in the necessary systems that will enhance our ability to gather development information and experience and share it with our clients. We need to become, in effect, the ‘Knowledge Bank’ ”
Objective: to be a clearinghouse for economic development knowledge (“what works and what doesn’ t and the data to prove it”) throughout the world, providing “just-in-time, just-enough” knowledge to internal and external stakeholders.
Anticipated benefits include:
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Higher levels of knowledge reuse
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Reduction or elimination of rework
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Increased quality and quantity of client services through
enhanced access to Bank knowledge
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Strengthened comparative advantage in providing international
best practice
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Stronger capacity building
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A prerequisite for physical decentralization
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Better incentives for excellence
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Long term vision: Knowledge Partnership with external stakeholders.
Present Problem
According to the Program Director of Knowledge Management of the World Bank, Mr. Stehpen Denning
“After fifty years... the Bank Group is a substantial repository of development experience and best practice...[but] this knowledge is not always easily available to those who need it when they need it, or in formats they find useful and accessible.”
Implementation
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Setting up Sector Networks, prototyped by the Education Knowledge Management System (EKMS) – identifies best practices, provides training and advisory services, facilitates knowledge synthesis, stimulate discussion, provides information via an internal website and identify problems and needs for the 25-300 Bank education sector staff worldwide. Sector networks in nutrition, health and population have also been set up. Sector Networks will be formalized versions of the Bank’s informal, international communities of practice.
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Setting up a supportive IT infrastructure – not a single monolithic structure but a mix of existing regional IT systems and tools (e.g. sectoral knowledge communities linked through Lotus Notes and internal portals). Three components in its IT architecture to accomodate both divergent and convergent knowledge processes, in descending order of knowledge intensity:
– Databases for codified knowledge e.g. terms of reference, consultants directory, who knows what, lessons learned, articles, books and reports
– Knowledge Bases via websites or Lotus Notes, containing best practices, sector strategies, tool kits, model outputs, analytical tools, sources of subject-driven information and think pieces
– Help Desks, low-tech but manned by experts for answering compex queries and customizing interventions according to specialized needs.
Resistance Points Observed
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Shifting the culture towards sharing
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Setting and implementing quality standards
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Maintaining the system to avoid knowledge "junkyards"
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Ensuring that the system stays demand-driven
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Balancing new information versus better access to current information
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Resolving external issues, such as confidentiality
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Achieving an integrated approach across the organization
