Professional Documents
Culture Documents
James Williams
Introduction
Several factors exist that impact the success or failure of organizations in the
contemporary business world. These include the rapidly changing business environment and
and collaboration, and the increased mobility and dispersement of the workforce. All these
factors force organizations into creating a work environment that integrates the technical,
political, and cultural systems of an organization in a manner that makes the their workers as
productive and effective as possible. The issues revolving around these factors include the
technological infrastructure, the timely and appropriate distribution of power, resources and
awards, and the integration of the workforce and corporate purpose, mission, and values through
a shared cultural environment (Tichy & Cohen, 2003, pp. 4 - 28). Organizations have made
immense advancements in building the technical infrastructure of its businesses and have made
much progress in collecting, processing, and dispersing its internal information. But the world
keeps changing and as it does new frontiers of effort are needed. According to Davenport and
Prusak (2000), leaders must now deal with the management of the knowledge that is inherent
In an article on C/NET, Tim Leberecht (2007) argues that the next challenge in
increasing organizational performance is raising the productivity of those employees whose jobs
cannot be automated. According to Davenport & Prusak (2000), these jobs belong to what has
become known as knowledge workers who gather information and process it into knowledge
within their own minds through a combination of technical background, personal experiences,
system in meeting the needs of an organization and that captures the individual worker’s
knowledge during normal business process. The paper’s second objective is to present an
argument for a system that is conducive and transparent to workers performing their daily tasks.
System Criteria
The first thing that needs to be determined before selecting an appropriate system for a
knowledge team is to define the criteria that the system needs to incorporate. Since this system is
to support a knowledge team the criteria must meet the specific needs of a group of knowledge
workers. The two fundamental needs of all knowledge workers are communications and
collaboration. Davenport and Prusak (2000) state that “managing knowledge needs to be
everybody’s business” (p. 108). As such, team-oriented knowledge management systems need to
Communications
Maxwell (2001) posits that effective communications between all members of the team is
essential for team success and that effective teams have team members who are in constant
communications with each other (p. 197). The ability for team members to communicate as
needed is essential to knowledge work. Therefore, a wide range of communication channels need
to be available to all team members. Each team member needs to be connected by a wide variety
Team members must also be able to collaborate with other individual team members,
with the entire group, and with outside advisors as needed. Fradette and Michaud (1998) argue
that highly successful organizations need to establish a means that facilitates collaboration within
its workforce and enable the transfer of knowledge. According to these researchers, such a
system needs to be capable of capturing, refining, and distributing knowledge throughout the
entire enterprise.
Recommended System
The system that best fits the criteria of communications and collaboration would be based
on solid, proven technology in order for it to be both capable and reliable. This would mean that
the selected technology would need to be proven, off-the-shelf equipment which the vast
majority of the workforce would be familiar with and capable of using. At the same time the
web-based system must provide secure, seamless, and unrestricted connectivity between
Cisco Systems offers three technologies that can be easily integrated into a web-based
team performance system. The first system is TelePresence which delivers a virtual in-the-flesh
sensation for meetings without the costs associated with travel and employee absences. Such a
system can be used by dispersed team members to conduct meetings with much of the same
excellent platform for collaboration. This system merges all means of business communications
into a single integrated system that facilitates collaboration between all members within an
organization. This is accomplished by the system’s ability to create adaptive workspaces and
effective use of highly integrated communications features. Unified Communications also allows
the organization to adapt industry standard applications such as office suites and databases into
the system for real-time interaction between users scattered over a wide geographical area.
The third technology offered by Cisco Systems is called Cisco Motion. This technology
offers a solution to the issues associated with a mobile workforce. Motion provides real-time
collaboration between users using the company’s preferences in voice, video, instant messaging,
email, or other application. Motion also enforces security and company policies and can track
This paper has examined the criteria for a team performance tool by defining the major
needs of a knowledge team then described the technologies the author felt was most appropriate
for developing a strong, well-founded performance tool favorable to the needs of a highly
The best solution for developing a web-based knowledge team performance tool is a
with a sophisticated database capable of handling the demands of knowledge management and a
web portal that allows team members access to the data through the use of these technologies.
This combination of technologies would provide a safe, secure, and viable environment for the
transfer of knowledge between team members. The combined technologies feature the necessary
ad hoc ability for face-to-face communications through TelePresence. The merging of these
technologies also delivers the needed diversity in communications that allow team members to
express themselves and assist in helping others understand what they know through Unified
Communications. Finally, the use of Cisco Mobile allows connectivity for a mobile workforce.
All these technologies in concert provide all the tools needed for enhancing the performance and
Davenport, T. H. and Prusak, L. (2000). Working knowledge: How organizations manage what
Fradette, M. and Michaud, S. (1998). The power of corporate kinetics: Create the self-adapting,
Maxwell, J. C. (2001). The 17 indisputable laws of teamwork. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson,
Inc.
Tichy, N. M. and Cohen, E. (2003). Why are leaders important? In Jossey-Bass Reader: