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Knowledge Management Strategy 319

Box 9.2
An example: Northrop Grumman

Northrop Grumman faced consolidation and downsizing during the late 1990s. The Air
Combat Systems (ACS) group in particular was in danger of losing the expertise it needed
to support and maintain a complex machine that would be fl ying — carrying precious lives
and cargo — for years to come. So ACS instituted KM procedures designed to capture tacit
knowledge about the B-2 that was locked in its employees ’ heads. But before designing a
program, ACS wanted to fi nd out what barriers, if any, prevented employees from sharing
knowledge with their peers. With a good picture of the knowledge culture attitudes, ACS
would then have a better road map for designing a unit-wide KM program. They conducted
a knowledge audit, surveying employees about their knowledge-sharing habits, polling
nearly fi ve thousand employees with a ninety-seven-question survey (KM2) to determine
their knowledge needs, sharing practices, and prejudices. The survey asked questions such
as, “ From your perspective, to what extent is the knowledge that you and your team
generate reused by other teams? ” This not only highlighted ACS ’ readiness for a formal
KM effort but also pointed out areas where sharing was not happening. The Delphi group
was hired to conduct the audit and derive a baseline pulse of the unit ’ s knowledge-sharing
culture. Participation was voluntary — employees were given a free lunch for giving 30
minutes of their time. The survey response rate was better than 70 percent (typically,
mail-in surveys return a 10 – 30 percent response). Delphi consultants analyzed the prelimi-
nary results and targeted 125 employees for face-to-face follow-up interviews.
ACS had established a ten-person KM team to identify subject matter experts and
capture the content of their expertise. After creating about one hundred knowledge cells
and identifying two hundred subject matter experts within those cells, the KM council
turned their attention to knowledge capture. The team created web sites for each of the
knowledge cells and logged information about the knowledge experts into an expert
locator system called Xref, short for cross-reference. Using Xref, employees can search for
information in any number of ways, including by employee name, program affi liation, or
skill area. If, for example, the B-2 landing gear is locking up, one can fi nd the landing gear
expert through Xref. The knowledge audit helped ensure that this centralized database
would not only be useful but would actually be used.
The results of the knowledge audit confi rmed that employees were eager to share their
knowledge in an automated, centralized system but that challenges, such as integrating
the systems across lines of business, remained. The willingness of employees to participate
in systems intended to minimize the impact of their own eventual layoff is, of course,
highly dubious. Other key fi ndings showed employees recognized the value of their fellow
employees ’ expertise. For example, they spent at least eight frustrating hours each week
looking for information they needed to do their job (costing $150 million annually), only
6 percent of their knowledge was reused by others, and 31 percent believed that ideas
generated by junior staffers were not valued and were likely to get smothered by the ACS
bureaucracy.