Virtual CoP's at Caterpillar

1. Many knowledge management projects have failed to produce promised benefits. Why?

 

One of the main reasons knowledge management projects fail is that the organizational culture has not established the importance of knowledge sharing. For knowledge sharing to become a norm, the firm must communicate the importance of knowledge sharing to its employees. Another reason knowledge management projects have failed is the organization fails to provide a framework for employees to share knowledge, with rules and standards to guide employees. A final reason knowledge management projects fail is the lack of volunteers in the organization to act as managers and experts. This leads to the knowledge management project becoming disorganized and employees lacking confidence in the value of information contained within it.

 

2. What are the characteristics of a community of practice (CoP)? What are the pros and cons of a virtual CoP as contrasted with one that has its members meeting offline?

 

A community of practice is an informal group of individuals that share common areas of interest, professional credentials, or specific shared problems. The pros of a virtual CoP versus a traditional CoP are related to the increased knowledge sharing potential. When virtual CoP’s are used, it gives more individuals access to the knowledge and expertise of others. More access to the knowledge can lead to a larger variety of ideas and solutions to specific problems. This act of sharing information and ideas leads to a greater amount of knowledge contained within the virtual CoP than could otherwise be obtained through more traditional methods. Cons of a virtual CoP are the reluctance of individuals to contribute the same knowledge as they do in a traditional meeting and the ability of non-experts to contribute ideas to solve a specific problem.

 

3. Describe characteristics of Caterpillar's virtual communities of practice (or communities of knowledge sharing).

 

Caterpillar’s virtual communities of practice are contained within the company’s Knowledge Network, which is supported by a group of knowledge management technology experts. The Knowledge Network contains more than 600 online communities with more than 16,000 members worldwide. Most of the communities within the Knowledge Network were started by employees and relate to specific subjects or common professional activities. The typical community in Caterpillar’s Knowledge Network includes a community manager, who is elected by the team due to their experience with the subject. Communities also have one or more delegates, who are responsible for running the community in the absence of the community manager and performing certain community management activities. Experts are also contained within the typical community. They are individuals who have skills and knowledge in specific areas and participate by answering questions, posting knowledge, and reviewing information posted by others. The last element of the typical community is the subscriber. A subscriber is anyone who needs access to the information in a certain community and requests this access to view the knowledge.

 

4. What the a few selected major organizational benefits of Caterpillar's CoPs?

 

The four top organizational benefits identified by the research were: 1) the system helped new people integrate and become productive faster, 2) the system provides geographically dispersed units a place to work together and communicate better, 3) access to best practices, 4) access to a lessons learned database.

 

5. What are the critical success factors?            

 

Three critical success factors were identified in the study. The first is that knowledge sharing is part of Caterpillar’s organizational culture. This culture resulted in the majority interview respondents viewing their knowledge as a public good that belonged to the organization. The second critical success factor is that employees at Caterpillar are willing to share their knowledge based on intrinsic motives. Employees revealed their reasons for sharing knowledge were the need to establish themselves as experts, and the opportunity to mentor new employees and share their expertise. Interview participants also credited their willingness to share knowledge to the culture at Caterpillar. The third critical success factor is the knowledge sharing communities are supported by volunteer community managers and groups of active experts. It was noted that less successful communities did not have experts that actively participated.

 

6. What are major barriers?

 

The two major barriers to employees’ contributing to these communities were the employees’ reluctance to post information and increased security measures resulting in difficulties accessing the system. Employees’ reluctance to share information was not attributed to information hoarding in this study. Employees were more concerned that the information they shared would be viewed as not important, irrelevant, or inaccurate. They feared this could lead to others questioning their posts or competency in a specific area. The security measures that resulted in difficulties accessing the system were from various joint ventures of Caterpillar, contractors working for Caterpillar, and retired Caterpillar employees.

 

7. What lessons can be learned from Caterpillar by other companies?

 

 One of the most important lessons that can be learned by other companies from this study of Caterpillar is that the organization must emphasize the importance of knowledge sharing to its employees and create a framework that enables this knowledge sharing. This has a positive effect on every aspect of the knowledge management system. It will not only facilitate the sharing of knowledge, but make employees more likely to start communities, share information, and use the shared information in a constructive manner to help solve problems and expand the organizations overall knowledge base.