CHAPTER 5: RESULTS PRESENTATION
5.3 Interview results
5.3.5 Departmental strategic plan
Directors were asked about how important they think the management of knowledge is, considering the Department’s mission and strategy. Three Directors mentioned that KM is important. One director went on further to note that it was critically important. Elaborating on their answers, each of the three Directors provided explanations as follows:
Director 1: Managing knowledge is important as strategic plan achievements need to be captured appropriately so that one can always go back to check if we are still proceeding in accordance with what had been decided.
Director 2: I think irrespective of what the mission is in any organization, the need is great for KM across the organization, especially in Government and our Department, where we have an issue with skills, professionals and a high turnaround of staff.
Therefore, from my point of view, KM can be applied to any department.
Director 3: Our Department is not paying much attention to KM because from the beginning to the end of the project there is no structured system to ensure that the documentation arising from the project is stored properly so that it can be used in the future. When we do another project, it is almost as if we are starting from scratch. It is
108 a gap in our processes, as we do not always look at the interconnection of things, but see them in isolation.
One of the Directors noted as follows:
The Departmental approach to strategic planning is flawed, because if you fail to have an honest appraisal via strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis, then the entire strategic planning ends up not being effective. So how then can we infuse KM in an environment where, when we kick-start a process, we do not follow the strategic planning processes and procedures?
Directors were asked to mention ways in which the Department ensures that knowledge is adequately captured and utilized. All four Directors provided different but similar answers. One Director mentioned that:
The Strategic Planning section is the one that makes sure that it keeps all information from the planning session right through the compilation of a strategic plan and the documents, which would have been approved by the executive authority.
Another Director mentioned that the Department has formal and informal ways of capturing knowledge and that:
One of them is via supervisors who document lessons learned from a project then create a template for that project to avoid reinventing the wheel.
Two Directors had similar views regarding this question, indicating that knowledge capturing and utilization does not exist within the Department. One Director mentioned that:
With the current strategic planning, the brilliant ideas that have been suggested have not been operationalized, timed or allocated and nothing has been done to give credence and value to the whole exercise.
Another Director added that:
109 The fact that knowledge is not adequately captured means that the Department is bound to repeat past mistakes.
Interviewees were asked to give their opinions on how the management of knowledge affects decision making within the organization. Three Directors agreed that how knowledge is managed does affect decision-making. They gave their opinions as follows:
Director 1: I think how knowledge is managed greatly reduces the amount of time and effort needed to be able to make a decision. People in management positions need to have information readily available to be able to make a decision. The speed with which you can locate that information will assist the speed with which you can make a decision that ultimately impacts on the time within which we are able to implement service delivery, as opposed to having an impairment to service delivery.
Director 2: The way in which knowledge is managed does affect decision making, because management makes decisions based on experiences. The way we are structured also does not lend itself to an effective approach to decision making.
Director 3: I think we are weaker for not having KM in place because we end up re- inventing the wheel, as there is no source of information. We are missing out on improving based on previous information and time is wasted in that process, so decision making is therefore affected negatively because we do not have basis to start from.
Out of the four Directors who were interviewed, only one Director provided a different answer as he mentioned that:
Departmental decision-making is based on the knowledge of the Department as prescribed in terms of all the prescripts like the Constitution, resolutions of the Cabinet, the State of the Nation address etc.
The final question on this section asked Directors whether there are procedures available that can ensure that knowledge is efficiently acquired and shared inside the Department. One of the Directors indicated that there are mechanisms in place and stated that:
110 The communication section, which is responsible for ensuring that critical information coming from decisions taken by top management is cascaded down in a form of Departmental circulars, is one example.
Other three Directors outlined their opinions as follows:
Director 2: There is nothing specific that would make a huge impact in making sure information is efficiently acquired and shared inside the organization.
Director 3: The few mechanisms that are there are not used effectively to ensure that we get the best out of them.
Director 4: There need to be forums and different task teams that could focus on a particular subject of interest to generate knowledge.