Ontario's Strategy:
Knowledge is power, sharing knowledge is even more powerful

by Rose Langhout and Heather Hudson

“Knowledge is power and we’re trying to instill a sense that sharing knowledge is even more powerful. Particularly when we’re facing many retirements, it’s important that skills, expertise and efficient methods of doing business are transferred effectively from project to project and person to person,” says Jerry Chan, Knowledge Management Secretariat project manager. “Our main focus is on fostering a culture of sharing knowledge.”

In the next decade close to 40% of the 60,000 employees of the Ontario Public Service (OPS) will be eligible for retirement. Most will have spent decades in their field. Compounding this challenge is the immense amount of data in the modern workplace. With the help of technology, there’s more information and increased productivity. But in the flurry of output, sometimes the information that is produced isn’t managed or shared in an effective way.

Ontario is forging ahead on the road to capturing and making the best use of this information and knowledge. Some might even say it is blazing a trail.

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SECRETARIAT
KM is loosely defined as a management practice that encourages a systematic approach to collecting, using and storing information, as well as a collaborative approach to accessing and sharing knowledge among people. Based on careful research and strategic planning, the Knowledge Management Secretariat was established in early 2003. It is charged with educating and supporting the diverse OPS workforce on managing information and sharing knowledge.

This is no small task. With 24 ministries specializing in every aspect of life – from health to education to the environment – there are protocols for performing just about every kind of duty you can imagine. New employees hired to replace retirees need to start where their predecessors left off… not from scratch. That means everyone’s job today is to leave behind a legacy of knowledge for tomorrow, Chan says.

INNOVATIVE KM TOOLS
Few organizations in the world employ a workforce with such a wide-ranging scope of responsibilities – from crafting a communications plan to conducting environmental tests in a backwater swamp. This diversity means there are huge opportunities for growth and learning within the OPS, but also huge challenges.

“The Ontario government is moving toward becoming a more fluid and horizontal organization, which allows for greater transfer of knowledge and optimizes conditions for creating efficiencies. When we’re strategically connected, we can easily access and reap the benefits of in-house expertise and resources. KM plays an integral part in this transformation,” says Chan.

As Ontario continues to break new ground in this area, it ensures all efforts to share information are in compliance with important privacy principles and requirements.

One of the key KM tools that has caught on across the organization is the Community of Practice (CoP), which is “a group of people who share a concern, set of problems or a passion about a topic and deepen their understanding of this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.”

Many ministries have set up regular meetings, lunches and workshops for staff in the same lines of work to share successes and develop and promote best practices. A 2003 action research project studying four
OPS CoPs reported that benefits included:
• helping people do their jobs better
• fostering individual learning and development
• gaining better understanding of the “big picture” of government
• providing a stable sense of community
• helping avoid re-work or duplication of effort.

The KM Secretariat has its own CoP which meets monthly to allow KM representatives from many ministries to gain support and advice about furthering KM in their areas. Given the geographical distance between many CoP members, the intranet is a popular tool for depositing information and communicating. An internal employee portal called MyOPS offers ways for CoPs to collaborate and keep in touch. It allows them to share information, exchange ideas and have virtual discussions with members.

Other intranet applications allow staff to share information online about past and ongoing projects, initiatives and other business processes. For example, OPS Connects enables staff to learn about projects across the OPS, search out information about these initiatives and get in touch with and learn from the staff that worked on them. Benefits include the ability to reuse ideas to implement projects more quickly and more successfully.

With the support of the KM Secretariat, individual ministries have also started their own initiatives to manage information and share knowledge. The Ministry of the Environment has created e-collaboration forums, including an online forum for managing issues for their water management programs. The forum provides a place for staff to discuss common issues, ask peers questions and review information posted as library resource links.

The Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services has developed a Knowledge Transfer Guide, a manual that encourages and offers assistance for people exiting their jobs to leave behind key information and knowledge. The manual has been so successful that other ministries are now incorporating it into their KM efforts.

“The Guide was written to address corporate memory loss,” says senior information management analyst Claudio Danelon. “It includes templates, questions people should answer and a 10-step checklist to remind them of important information they should document before they leave.”

Other ministry KM units are offering lunch-and-learn sessions on the importance of KM, posting information on lessons learned from developing initiatives and putting together KM strategies for the future.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN THE OPS
Mining people’s minds is just one aspect of KM. Organizing and making sense of the array of raw data that is produced in the OPS is another huge component called information management. Consider the hundreds of thousands of e-mails, drafts, letters, presentations and reports that are used every day in a vast organization. Where do they go when they’re finished? Are they archived where others can reach them?

“Not always,” according to Chan. People often have several versions of work in their folders, not always noting which is the final version. Sometimes these folders are in shared directories where everyone can access them. But frequently, people aren’t even aware they exist. He suggests keeping only the final draft of every document and letting others know how it can be accessed. It is important to note that information management is not just about proper file management. It also encompasses content, data and document management.

“Information management is another reason our priority is to make people aware of how useful it is to share information. When you accomplish something in your work, it’s important to let people know about it so they can learn from it, replicate the success, and not repeat the same mistakes.”

Ideally, once business units complete a project, they will put together a quick review of what they did, how they did it, what they learned and what they’d recommend to others.

FUTURE OF KM
The KM Secretariat believes that KM holds the keys to unlocking and making the best use of the information and knowledge held by thousands of people working diligently to improve life in Ontario. The Secretariat is committed to making that happen. There will be a continued effort to foster a culture of appropriate information sharing across the organization. More tools – such as the MyOPS intranet portal – are continually being developed to enable fast and easy knowledge transfer. Procedures for managing information specific to divisions and individual ministries are also being created.

For example, the KM Secretariat is now embarking on a project to develop a suite of common administrative tools to support ministries in managing business information and to support effective information sharing across the OPS. The first deliverable of this suite will be a tool for managing stakeholder relations. Ontario’s clear KM mandate and vision has set it apart and other jurisdictions are noticing. In the spirit of sharing knowledge, it welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with other governments and the private sector to increase efficiency and spark further innovations.



Rose Langhout is Head, I&IT Strategy, Policy and Planning Branch, Office of the Corporate Chief Information Officer, Management Board Secretariat. Rose previously worked at the Ministries of the Attorney General, Community and Social Services, and Skills Development, and with the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. For more information about Ontario’s KM strategy, contact Rose.Langhout @mbs.gov.on.ca.

Heather Hudson is a Toronto-based freelance writer specializing in government, corporate and plain language writing (heather.hudson@sympatico.ca).