Knowledge management

[AmandaG]

Hi all,

I am a Mech Eng student doing my final year thesis on Project Management for FSAE. I have been involved in UQ Racing for 4 years now and one of the things I have found being the biggest problem is Knowledge Management. As with all teams we loose members every year and therefore much of their knowledge and wisdom.

I am interested in finding out what other teams do to keep their knowledge within the team, and what you may have tried that hasn't worked.

At the moment we have a few thesis and books and stuff the team bookshelf as well as CAD ect on the computers but little else. We have a new member pack with info about the comp and the team and a glossary of FSAE/race car terms ect which gets updated fairly regularly. We did have executive handover packs but they got forgotten about, I am trying to revive this now http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Thanks,
Amanda

[AmandaG]

Hi all,

I am a Mech Eng student doing my final year thesis on Project Management for FSAE. I have been involved in UQ Racing for 4 years now and one of the things I have found being the biggest problem is Knowledge Management. As with all teams we loose members every year and therefore much of their knowledge and wisdom.

I am interested in finding out what other teams do to keep their knowledge within the team, and what you may have tried that hasn't worked.

At the moment we have a few thesis and books and stuff the team bookshelf as well as CAD ect on the computers but little else. We have a new member pack with info about the comp and the team and a glossary of FSAE/race car terms ect which gets updated fairly regularly. We did have executive handover packs but they got forgotten about, I am trying to revive this now http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif

Thanks,
Amanda

[screwdriver]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki
more specifically,
http://trac.edgewall.org/

That's what I am using in the electrical team.

The acceptance with the MEs for that is quite low though. What you really want is someting that works with word and excel files.
M$ offers something called "Groove" (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/groove/FX100487641033.aspx) that looks interesting. But I haven't tried it yet.

[Yellow Ranger]

The best thing you can do is continuously recruit members and get them involved! The best way to get newer members educated to get them involved- the worst thing you can do is keep them on the sidelines, where they'll never learn a thing. We have a ˜library' full of SAE papers and great technical resources along with a full documented design report that has design decisions for pretty much every component of the vehicle, but we all know how much more educational actually doing something is rather than reading about it.

I have seen what happens when you lose 85% of the team over a summer, only to be replaced by "rookies"� from the previous year. It's not fun.

[Mike Macie]

We started using Microsoft Groove this year. It keeps the members in touch when they're not in the shop. Plus it's great to share files. Most of our files except for CAD are on groove for everyone to check out. It's something all teams should look into using.

[screwdriver]

Mike: any experiences you can share?
What bugs me is how to organize the documents and how to link between them.

[Dennis Seichter]

A wiki-based tool (e.g. dokuWiki) works fine for our team, however it could be better concerning handling of MS office files and such. If you have e.g. lists that many people need to access, you'd better but them on a ftp-drive.

CAD-wise, the least I would recommend is a CAD environment with a central network storage location. However, this doesn't protect you from the nasty "who saves last wins"-problematic, thus I would recommend a true PDM system. It's a pain to set it up and to introduce everyone into it, but I think it's worth the effort - nothing is more frustrating than parts not fitting due to different underlying CAD models.

Summing up, I'd say that a working IT environment is the required basis for effective knowledge management, but the most important thing is that you create a "knowledge sharing" culture - talking to other persons and introducing new team members personally into their field of work is so many times more efficient than just putting files into some database.

[Chris Lane]

Solidworks has a built in PDM solution, called PDMWorks.

We'll be setting it up for next year here. We'll need to invest in some infrastructure to make it work well, but it'll be worth it when its set up.

[screwdriver]

I've been looking and listening around some and found out that SAP and Oracle offer PDM features as part of their software. They manage what you're looking for but both of them are monsters. They require A LOT of time to set up and maintain. (Although once running, they aren't hard to use)

[AmandaG]

Thanks guys, I have been looking at microsoft groove, it might be a decent option. Just need to get the uni to fork out the cash for it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif

What doed your team do to actualy turn the tacit knowledge (stuff in your head) to explicit(recorded) knowledge? i.e. monthly reports from section heads, design reviews, workbooks etc????

[screwdriver]

Well the idea of a wiki is that you use it as a kind of digital scrap-book instead of a notepad. Most important rule is to get things written down and worry about presentation later.
For most things that works astonishingly well. We also recorded (welll copy-pasted) all of the e-mail communication with sponsors in the Wiki.

Basically you just get things out of your head and think of the Wiki as an extension of your own brain. Remember things by writing them down.

[tool]

Google Documents can be a simple and efficient solution for this purpose.

[vreihen]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by AmandaG:
Thanks guys, I have been looking at microsoft groove, it might be a decent option. Just need to get the uni to fork out the cash for it http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_wink.gif </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You might want to check with the IT department. If your institution signed a campus-wide pact with the great Satan, http://fsae.com/groupee_common/emoticons/icon_smile.gif the license for this software may very well be covered under it (read: free for your use).

While you're asking, you might want to find out if Microsoft Project is covered, since it would be a useful tool for building project trees to let everyone see the big picture of who's doing what and when.....

[Pavs]

AmandaG - I did a pretty large final year thesis project on Project Management of a FSAE team last year for CMT.

If you want some info that I put together please email me at nick.pavy@riotinto.com - im more likely to check my email and reply to it rather than the forums.

- Nick