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Knowledge Application 199

Box 6.1
An example: Hughes Space and Communications

Hughes Space and Communications (formerly part of Hughes Electronics Corporation, a
subsidiary of General Motors, now part of the Boeing Company). HSC has six thousand
employees who develop, produce, and launch state-of-the-art space and communications
systems for military, commercial, and scientifi c uses. It is the world ’ s largest producer of
commercial communication satellites. At HSC, KM is not viewed in terms of traditional
departmental boundaries. It is not a process, a function, or an organization. It is a skill
that is part of managing a business and should be one of the tools that every manager
possesses in his or her repertoire. Traditional management tends to take a “ top down ”
approach to implementation. In KM, it is better to lead not by direction but by service,
providing people with the necessary assistance to enable them to better do what they are
already doing.
For example, a lessons learned system can be described as a closed loop learning system.
People experience something in their work, either through analysis, discovery, or dialogue.
There are both good and bad discoveries, but in either event, something is learned. The
key is in extracting what was learned, and providing a connection between what was
learned and what is practiced. Lessons need to be documented and disseminated to the
masses in a form that is easily accessible to all. Feedback is then collected and incorporated
back into the documentation process. The challenge is continuously inserting these into
what is happening on the job.
HSC also has a coordinated business intelligence-gathering effort that includes a system
that pulls information from over sixty online sources, a process for analyzing it, and
ongoing dialoguing and sharing among HSC and other Hughes marketing people. This
began as a joint project of a few marketing people and the corporate library. It received a
boost when it was featured at a knowledge fair that showcased existing knowledge man-
agement activities to people from throughout HSC.
HSC does have an intranet that they did not simply install on everyone ’ s desktop and
then expected them to start using it effectively to do their jobs. Instead, they implemented
the intranet gradually, selectively deploying in pilot areas that focused on supporting a
high value business need such as lessons learned, gated processes, yellow pages, or a
common user interface to existing systems. Using one-on-one tutorials, each person was
trained on how to use the intranet and Internet to do their specifi c job. When pilots proved
successful, they were then deployed into enterprise-wide business applications.