Reinventing internal collaboration with IBM

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Ivan Žugaj, Product Development Specialist, Strategy and Architecture Office, APIS IT

While we at APIS IT are always focused on creating the best possible experience for our clients, we do realize that in order to live and work up to that promise, we need to rely on a “bullet proof” internal collaboration within the organization. Consider the fact that by the year 2018 we may see as many as five generations working side by side in one company. Different styles and culture would for sure affect the organization in terms of how employees communicate and collaborate, how engaged are they and all this will impact company’s overall service and ability to innovate.

That is why almost two years ago we kicked off an internal project known as “Knowledge management”, dedicated to find the best way to generate, preserve and develop our internal company wisdom.

Drawing from our experience, our references and expert participation in numerous projects, we knew that we have very knowledgeable and skilled employees. However, we want to improve the horizontal collaboration among different teams and departments in order to efficient sharing and reuse of the company knowledge and expertise.

Therefore we set the following goals:

• Achieve quality management, sharing and use of knowledge and ideas inside the company
• Achieve better horizontal cooperation and communication between teams and employees
• Achieve better efficiency in carrying out duties and projects

During the first phase of the project we did not consider technologies or vendors at all. First we wanted to identify functional and non-functional requests that our future solution has to fulfill. We also put an emphasis on creating a so-called “Adoption Strategy”, a sort of a list of procedures, techniques and channels that will be used to ‘push’ new concepts into the company and – what is even more important – people for who we knew that will support the project. Therefore we took a special care in building the accompanying team (the so-called ‘Early Adopters’), consisting of people chosen from all core APIS IT business units (development, business analysis, system engineering, project management, strategy). In addition, they would serve as support for colleagues from their teams and further spread the adoption of the knowledge management system. We also identified and described key scenarios for knowledge ingestion – which we later implemented in the tool (Figure 1).

After this initial preparation we turned to selecting the most appropriate technology solution. IBM Connections turned out to be by far the best tool for the job. All elements we analyzed and prototyped during the initial phase were later implemented. In addition to the installation itself (TEST, PROD) and certain architectural adaptations, we customized certain functionalities and appearance of Profiles from the get-go, in a way that we expanded the employee attribute set (Figure 2).

We integrated the system with the HR database and implemented SSO (ActiveDirectory integration). We also implemented multiple scenarios for knowledge ingestion and populated certain Public communities. In parallel, we held a number of presentations for the management and certain employee groups. At the system launch day we held a presentation before the entire company, with accompanying keynote by the CEO. This certainly added to the importance and promotion of the project.

What we achieved?

• IBM Connections became mandatory environment for knowledge sharing between employees and teams
• Some new processes and routines were established for better knowledge harvesting
• Significantly reduced times (30-50%) to obtain needed information or documents (i.e. internal standards, recommendations, guidelines)
• We significantly improved internal collaboration and networking (My Network), visibility of employee data (Profiles), and exchange and sharing of information and knowledge (tacit knowledge)
• We performed a migration of the content database (articles, news, links, documentation, etc.) from the internal portal into the main APIS IT Public community. This community superseded the internal portal.
• Documents exchange, search and versioning inside the ECM component enabled the migration of various types of content (explicit knowledge)
• Several projects are currently testing certain IBM Connection widgets (Activity, Events, Surveys, Forums, Library, etc.), with goal of applying IBM Connections to everyday projects operations. The ultimate goal is to create communities for each project . They would rely on all documentation and collaboration between project members.
• We enabled mobile access to the system using IBM Connections mobile applications (for iPhone and Android). In doing so we also applied additional protection and security checks using custom-generated user access certificates.

In addition to the above mentioned facts we also have further implementation plans:

• Accomplished Proof of Concept for opening up toward external partners (users, partners, outsourcers, etc.)
• Further development of scenarios for knowledge and information sharing in the company
• Application of the system for new employees, HR, marketing
• Innovation encouragement and management

At the start of the project we conducted a survey on knowledge management. We intend to repeat the survey in several months and establish the advancement compared to the initial state. IBM Connections provides additional benefits in making people closer, more connected and better integrated into their particular groups and the company as a whole.
In addition to functionalities IBM Connections provides at the moment, it would be ideal if the system would add support for project planning (Gantt diagrams) and project task tracking. This would round out the support for project-based approach and unify all information into a single platform.

Going forward we plan to open up this platform for further collaboration through multiple channels and external audiences such as clients, partners, affiliates. We will intensify platform’s use to work with new hires, marketing and HR department and eventually we will connect the system with instant messaging and online meetings systems.
In APIS IT we value knowledge and skill and it is wonderful to see our 400 employees with the same mindset, working towards the same goals. Such extensive changes do not happen overnight.