Page 172 -

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS 161

system is not always seamless based on where we are. For example, one of my
main clients I have worked with almost continuously over the last 5 years and with
whom the management consultancy has worked for over 12 years blocks our VPN
from usage. So, we have alternative connectivity technologies around our portal
software that do allow us to access the KM system, but quite frankly they are less
convenient to use and they do somewhat inhibit the use of the KM system. So, for
example if somebody sent me a link to a particular document in the KM system I
cannot directly access that link going through our portal.
Uploading: Consultants find the process of uploading documents on the KMS highly
cumbersome and complex. The reason behind this was the large amount of metadata
that the system requires to be submitted along with the document. Consultants work
in a highly pressurized environment where they have very little spare time. Coercing
them to fill in lengthy metadata forms for the submission of every single document
saps their incentive to contribute to the system:

So, every time you want to upload anything, you got to put in your name, the day
it was created, the category, and I understand why that information is important,
but it takes a lot of time to upload a document. And people that are in this indus-
try and people that work for the management consulting company are extremely
busy and overloaded that no one is willing to take the time that requires to fill in
all the additional information.
Layout: The problems do not merely plague the access to the system or the upload-
ing process, but also the surfing of the KMS. The layout of the website is perceived by
some as user-unfriendly:
I also find it that sometimes it is not clear how I get back from where I came
from. Sure, hit the back button, but from a structural perspective I wasn’t clear
how I could get back to a similar area to where I was before [. . .] . I wanted to go
back and I wanted to find a logical way to go back, but for most areas the layout
changes quite completely.

Search: Lastly, the searching facility provided by the KMS was perceived to do a bad
job at ranking content:
But one thing we found out is that when we put keywords into the searching sys-
tem, usually the best results do not appear at the top, which means that we have
to flip over different pages and then maybe you find something you want. Some-
times the result is not accurate in reflecting the information you wanted to search
for. I think that is an area that can be improved.

>> KMS USE AND CONSULTANT EXPERIENCE

The KMS is used differently by consultants with under two years of experience – referred
to as less experienced consultants or LECs – and those with more experience (MECs).
LECs tend to undertake what we can term a gap/synthesis analysis – they sift through
the documents to learn how past projects have been undertaken and understand what

6/5/09 7:05:10 AM
9780230_522015_08_cha07.indd 161 6/5/09 7:05:10 AM
9780230_522015_08_cha07.indd 161