Magazine Summer 1996 Research Feature

Improving Knowledge Work Processes

Thomas Davenport, Sirkka Jarvenpaa and Michael Beers Reading Time: 35 min 

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A firm decided to redesign its research and development process. Because the effort was critical to its success, the firm applied two parallel approaches to the process. One was a classical reengineering effort in which a small group of managers and consultants designed a radically different way to do research. In the other approach, a small team of researchers began to collect the organization’s knowledge about the entire R&D process, regulatory approvals, and international variations. The knowledge was embedded in a series of documents and in a Weblike hypertext computer system. The company also hired several “corporate anthropologists” to study how researchers used the knowledge.

A year after the two efforts began, the reengineering effort was stalled. The new process vision was viewed as too ambitious at a time when many other aspects of the company were changing. Scientists muttered that no one could force them to practice “bad science.” The more subtle knowledge collection effort, however, seemed to be succeeding. Many researchers had reviewed the documents and suggested changes or additions to the knowledge base. A greater sense of cross-functional understanding seemed to prevail; regulators, for example, reported that scientists were more willing to supply them with early research information. Specific improvement levels, however, were difficult to measure with confidence.

This example illustrates how the classical top-down reengineering approach for improving administrative or operational work is often insufficiently participative or flexible for improving work by autonomous knowledge workers. In a study of knowledge work improvement projects in thirty organizations, we have found that although there are substantial benefits from viewing knowledge work from a process perspective, there are significant differences in how process concepts and methods are applied to knowledge work versus operational or administrative work.

In 1978, Peter Drucker wrote, “To make knowledge work productive will be the great management task of this century, just as to make manual work productive was the great management task of the last century.”1 By 2004, professionals and managers are projected to account for 25 percent of all U.S. jobs.2 More of an organization’s core competencies will center around managing knowledge and knowledge workers. Industrial growth and productivity gains will depend heavily on improvements in knowledge work.

Traditionally, organizations have tended either to ignore knowledge work improvement or to manage it in a hands-off manner.

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About the Authors

Thomas Davenport is Curtis Mathes Fellowship Professor and director of the Information Management Program at the University of Texas Graduate School of Business. Sirkka Jarvenpaa is associate professor of management science and information systems at the University of Texas Graduate School of Business. Michael Beers is a manager in Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation in Boston.

References (44)

1. P.F. Drucker, The Age of Discontinuity (New York: Harper & Row, 1978).

2. U.S. Department of Labor Report, 1991.

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Acknowledgments

This research project was supported by the Ernst & Young Center for Business Innovation and by the sponsors of the “Mastering the Information Environment” research program. We are grateful for their financial assistance and for their willingness to serve as research sites.

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