Ministry of Education

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Ministry of Education has been combined with and separated from the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities several times over the past 15 years. The shifts in organization structure have caused significant changes to reporting relationships and job descriptions of employees. Due to the changes, many informal relationships have remained and staff has relied on these relationships to complete daily work. The relied on source of information is tacit knowledge transfer. When questioned, employees refer to who not where they go to for information

It is proposed to implement a knowledge management system that will shift the culture of the Ministry from tacit knowledge transfer to a more explicit knowledge base. This will allow the Ministry to develop team building and foster trust. Trust will allow for the transfer of knowledge to flow more freely.

The implementation of a knowledge management system that controls documentation will lessen computer resources by providing a central repository and less time will be wasted locating information. This will drastically reduce costs while increasing efficiency and customer satisfaction. The system will improve security by providing control over sensitive documents. This will lower the risk and employee fear of sharing confidential documents external to the Ministry. Once the fear is lessened the level of knowledge sharing will increase.

When Phase I and II implementations are complete, information location will be quicker and less frustrating; sharing of information will have increased; employees will be more networked; and customer satisfaction will have increased.

Key Assumption: Cost to store one electronic document is $1 per year. 

ISSUE IDENTIFICATION

The Ministry of Education (EDU) has concerns with the lack of information sharing and that this lack of sharing is impacting the delivery of education. The culture of the knowledge transfer within the organization is tacit. Employees rely on who to get information from not where. There is also a lack of documentation control as it appears that there is not a knowledge management system in place.

ENVIRONMENTAL & ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS

QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Currently the knowledge management system is tacit consisting largely of informal networks. This is risky for an organization under constant change through attrition and structural reorganizations.

EDU manages over $8 million in education funding for over one million students and employs over 130,000 in Ontario. EDU has strong informal networks with specialized tacit knowledge and strong research skills. Informal new employee networking, planning forums, staff meetings, and lunch and learns are examples of knowledge sharing