Mapping Workflows and Managing Knowledge

The title of this book, by design, is a description of its content. Workflow, process, or business process mapping has been discovered by organizations of all kinds as being a powerful tool to analyze and improve their internal processes. It has attracted major attention from software vendors, including Oracle and IBM, who market systems that are designed to map processes and quantify all aspects of their operations. These systems can be very effective at capturing the formal or explicit knowledge inherent to any workflow; however, a long-term problem with these approaches is that the full ?knowledge base? underlying these processes contains many elements which are ?tacit knowledge.? Despite being outside of the formal knowledge base, tacit knowledge must be addressed when describing the nature and functioning of processes. This book describes a system (the ?Kmetz method,? for want of a better name) that enables users to capture both types of knowledge in a workflow map. The Kmetz Method was developed as part of a multi-year study and process improvement program sponsored jointly by the U.S. Naval Air Systems Command and the Royal Canadian Air Force. Subsequently this method has been applied to many organizations in the years following the completion of the study and has been taught for many years at the author?s school and elsewhere. A key feature of the Kmetz method is that it makes both formal and tacit knowledge explicit in the workflow maps it produces. Much of what has been learned in the years of applying and teaching this method is that software-driven approaches are hobbled by the complications presented by tacit knowledge in workflows. Until both formal and tacit knowledge are understood these software-driven approaches cannot achieve their full potential. Consequently the Kmetz method, by necessity, becomes a method for managing knowledge as well as a method of mapping the flow of materials and information. While it is a basis for process improvement in its own right, it can support development of both software-driven process mapping and the creation of dynamic programs on the basis of accurate understanding of existing workflows, a topic briefly covered in Volume II. The book is targeted toward graduate, executive, and professional audiences.

John L. Kmetz is president of Transition Assistance Associates, a consortium of professionals who work in performance improvement and international development. He specializes in workflow process mapping and dynamic modeling, and provides training in these techniques as well as project management. The company has experience with international development from projects in Panama, Bulgaria and Central Europe, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. John is retired from the faculty of the University of Delaware.