Stories from the Edge: Managing Knowledge within Shell
10-Jan-02
This booklet has been compied by Shell International Exploration and Production's Organisational Performance and Learning (OPAL)Team. Its contributions come from Shell EP's network of operating units around the world - the people who make their business.
It talks about the use of storytelling to help manage knowledge, and covers global networks, global consultancy, cebtres of excellence,and distributed teams.
Click here to read the full report. (638 KB)
Details
- Author:
- Helen Baxter
- Publisher:
- KnowledgeBoard
- Date:
- 10-Jan-02
- Categories:
- Technology, Business Processes
- Sections:
- News
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A good example of focusing on the people
What makes the Shell EP (SIEP) case so interesting for other companies is that they do not only show what worked for their particular environment really well, but also why other solutions have failed before.
Everyone that has seen the presentation from Arjan van Unnik or Andy Boyd (the most recent one at KM Europe I think) understands how they got to this model and the lessons learned.
Basically, the core message that they have is: keep it simple and try to grasp the low hanging fruits of collaboration. In their presentation, they say that it does not really matter what product you use for this type of CoP's (in their case they use SiteScape) as long as you focus on the people, and not the technology.
To manage their mega communities of practice, they have an interesting system of Global Coordinators, local focal points (hub coordinators) and other people; not only to get people acquainted with this way of working but also to provide the systematic stimulus for working in a collaborative environment. The wrong approach - from their lessons learned - is to focus on the technology rather than the people.
There are several articles on this story to be found on the web, if you do not get the chance to attend one of their presentations, because I think that the booklet (Stories from the Edge) makes more sense if you capture their whole message.
Attached are some 3rd party articles to get people up to speed with the background of the story:
http://www.computerworld.com/roi/july/0,3277,STO62027,00.html