KPM Conference Program 2009 – Knowledge & Information Professional Association

Conference program schedule (PDF)

Leading the Knowledge Management Process
Aldridge, Dayle L. — Visiting Professor in Organizational Dynamics, OU-Tulsa
Jim Kouzes wrote “Knowledge is the critical success factor for all organizations. ‘Learn or die!’ must be the rallying cry for the creation of a prosperous future”. Leaders in every organization are finding that their organization and all the people in it can only survive by learning, using, sharing and learning again and again. This session uncovers, with the participants, those areas of knowledge, skill and practice successfully exercised by leaders, and how that knowledge, skill and practice can be implemented in their own departments, organizations or corporations. What have leaders done to dramatically enhance knowledge sharing? What skills and practices have been most successful? How can I, as a leader in my organization learn, practice and benefit from developing the skills and implementing knowledge-enhancing practices?

PMP Prep Course Preview
Anderson, Jo Lea — Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group
Are you a certified Project Management Professional (PMP)? Are you a little rusty on the inputs, outputs, tools and techniques of the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK)? This 40 minutes will be filled with the ‘Who, What, Why, When, Where and How’ surrounding the PMP PMBOK Prep course that the Tulsa PMI (Project Management Institute) chapter conducts twice a year at OSU Tulsa. The session will test your PMP knowledge, utilizing sample PMP exam question and provide all the information needed to signup for the upcoming PMP Prep Course. There will also be some interesting facts pertaining to the actual PMP certification and the process to become certified.

Innovation in Oklahoma Roundtable
Brown, Ray — Vice President for Economic & Community Development, Rogers State University
McCharen, Belinda K. — Professor, Oklahoma State University
Thomison, David — Executive Vice President of Enterprise Services, i2E
Please join career educator Dr. Belinda McCharen of Oklahoma State University, Dr. Ray Brown of the Innovation Center at Rogers State University, and executive vice-president of enterprise services David Thomison of i2E in a roundtable discussion about what drives innovation here in Oklahoma: what’s been done, what’s being done, and what else can be done to further encourage entrepreneurship and enterprise within our state.

Facing the Fear of Knowledge Sharing Roundtable
Brunnel, Bradley — Assistant Professor of Industrial/Organizational Psychology, University of Tulsa
Kisamore, Jennifer — Associate Professor of Psychology, OU-Tulsa
Pitagorsky, George — Management Consultant, Pitagorsky Consulting
Truesdell, Chris — CIO of QuikTrip Corporation
Williams, Paul — Tulsa Police Department
One of the most challenging and perplexing issues that accompanies an organization’s desire to capture and share knowledge is fear. This fear comes from employees who believe that sharing their knowledge make them LESS valuable and expendable to the organization. Many national, and even local, examples exist to support those fears. While stories of employee knowledge abuse receive great notoriety, many are finding ways to encourage knowledge transfer AND maintain strong employee relationships.Psychologists Dr. Brad Brummel (University of Tulsa) and Dr. Jennifer Kisamore (University of Oklahoma) will be joined by senior executives Chris Truesdell (CIO of QuikTrip) and Major Paul Williams (Tulsa PD) and consultant George Pitagorsky to discuss this challenge. Chuck Tryon will moderate this engaging and very important highlight of the 2009 KPM Symposium.

Use of Statistically Improbable Phrases to Enhance Semantic Search
Colannino, Joe — John Zink Co.
“Use of Statistically Improbable Phrases to Enhance Semantic Search” is a distillation of Mr. Colannino’s recent graduate research. Compared to keyword searching, on average statistically improbable phrase searching gave twice the confidence of finding a specific text and returned ten times fewer irrelevant documents. In essence, SIP searches were shown to be more semantically relevant than keyword searches and were able to extract seminal meaning from book-length corpora. This paper details Joe’s research in this area over the last several years.

Project Management – Continuous Learning at Williams Midstream
Connelly, John — Director of Technical Services, Williams Midstream
The Midstream business unit at Williams is primarily involved in gathering natural gas from production fields, as well as treating and processing the gas for transport to market points. As part of our growth since 2000, Midstream has invested more than $2 billion in new assets in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico and Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. This effort has required the development of repeatable Project Management capabilities. The presentation outlines the continuous learning required during this project effort by focusing on two of the projects. Included in the presentation is the Project Management Process at Midstream and key points from what we have learned in the course of delivering major projects while maintaining reliable operations.

Clarifying the Organizational Impacts of Knowledge Loss
Crawford, Jeff — Assistant Professor, School of Accounting & Management Information Systems at University of Tulsa
Organizations live and die through their ability to leverage knowledge. According to Jack Welch, “an organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.” In the ideal world, organizational knowledge would certainly increase over time such that success would be predictable and sustainable. However, experience demonstrates that common circumstances such as employee hiring and attrition, corporate mergers and acquisitions, and financial success and failures all interact to guarantee one thing: organizational knowledge fluctuates over time. The changing face of knowledge within the organization has intense and direct impacts on the potential success or failure of a firm.

This presentation will outline my initial observations from 5 years of project data within one organization’s software development group. Data will be presented in order to illustrate some consequences of knowledge fluctuations over time. Points of discussion will include:
– What does knowledge loss look like within an organization?
– How do different types of knowledge loss impact the firm?
– How does knowledge loss impact productivity over time?
– How long does it take a firm to recover from the different types of knowledge loss?

Consistent with the theme of this year’s KPM Symposium, the presentation will be interactive so that attendees will have an opportunity to “take it home” to their own organizations.

Maintaining Project Vision
Duffy, Dr. Daniel — Senior Associate Dean for Academics, OU-Tulsa School of Community Medicine
There are many types of challenges that can pull on a project. Everything from operational needs to staffing to scope to priorities. It is important that the vision for a project be maintained. Dr. Duffy will discuss the lessons learned maintaining vision while implementing the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) patient care model within ambulatory primary care clinics. Lessons will include both local examples within OU Physicians and national examples while implementing such a transformational project.

Utilizing Enterprise 2.0 in KM
Farabough, Michelle — KMRM Consulting, LLC.
Lewis, Ken — KMRM Consulting, LLC.
Organizations are recognizing that they need to be innovative in order to thrive. Enterprise 2.0 (e2) allows organizations to adapt the innovative collaboration technologies of Web 2.0 to connect people with their peers and with critical content and information.

The most valuable information within any business resides in the minds of its workers. This intellectual asset has remained relatively untapped because until now there has not been an effective way to capture this knowledge base, allow it to grow and share it company-wide.

e2 moves the conversation from the lounges and hallways directly to an organization’s secure corporate network. It breaks down hierarchical barriers to innovation and idea exchange while creating an historical knowledgebase of experiences and content that can be easily searched and accessed by anyone with scalable permission. It provides simpler content creation and communication tools and uses the Web to bridge information gaps. Workers will no longer need to spend a significant and costly amount of time each day searching for information or relying on email, conference calls or private meetings to manage projects or stay informed.

This session introduces an innovative concept of knowledge/project management and community-based collaboration, where workers meet, share, network and experience the power of collective knowledge.Innovative entrepreneurs Michelle Farabough and Ken Lewis of KMRM Consulting, LLC, discuss the innovative ways they brought Enterprise 2.0 into a mid-sized, manufacturing organization. They’ll give you tips, tricks and to-do lists to take their innovative ideas home with you. You will learn the steps necessary to implement and get results from your own innovative e2 program.

Applying PM Techniques to Non-Project Needs
Fournet, Bill — President and CEO of The Persimmon Group
We all run projects even though it is often without the title of Project Manager. Whether planning Thanksgiving dinner or formally managing a multi-million dollar project, everyone manages projects on a daily basis. Ask yourself these questions: How do we deliver service? Is our project on time? Is it within budget? Are we meeting customer satisfaction? In this practical presentation, learn to apply project management techniques that are proven to work in delivering huge billion dollar projects to your smaller, more specific projects at work or even in the home.

An Introduction to KM
Hawamdeh, Suliman — MSKM Professor & Program Coordinator, University of Oklahoma
Knowledge Management is becoming increasingly important as organizations strive to improve productivity and business performance. Organizations that undergo restructuring and outsourcing activities are the most vulnerable to knowledge loss. They need knowledge management practices to help them minimize the impact of restructuring and outsourcing. To remain competitive, organizations should examine their knowledge management practices and have the capacity to develop, organize, retain and utilize their human and knowledge resources. “An Introduction to KM” session approaches the subject from a practical perspective. It defines what knowledge and knowledge management means in the business sense and provides insights into how knowledge management practices can benefit the organization. At the end of the session participants will be able to:

Understand knowledge management concepts and their relevance to the organization.
Have a clear understanding of knowledge management practices and their impact on organizational performance and productivity.
Understand the technologies and the processes involved in capturing, processing, organizing and utilizing information within the organization.
Understand the cultural issues in organizations and their impact on knowledge management practices.

Charters and Diagrams and Artifacts…Oh My!
Johnson, Kim — Manager, OU Physician’s Medical Home Project
The University of Oklahoma College of Community Medicine is working to transform primary care delivery to their patients through the implementation of a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH). This includes redefining clinical policies, procedures, and organizational roles and responsibilities, along with the implementation of clinical information systems. The first major release is planned for the end of 2009. To accomplish this aggressive goal, OU-Tulsa has launched a project with 9 major sub-components. In this presentation, Kim Johnson will explain the OU-Tulsa PCMH project integration strategy.

Ethical Issues in Knowledge Sharing
Kisamore, Jennifer — Associate Professor of Psychology, OU-Tulsa
Knowledge sharing has the capability to greatly enhance organizational effectiveness and is especially critical in light of mass retirements over the next decade. The magnitude and extent of knowledge sharing that occurs in organizations, however, is fundamentally affected by organizational culture. Aspects of organizational culture that are especially relevant to knowledge sharing include the level of respect given to those who provide knowledge, integrity of shared knowledge, and how shared knowledge is utilized. This presentation will examine how organizational leaders can foster and maintain a culture that enhances effectiveness by promoting positive knowledge sharing.

The TCPI Indicator: Transforming Project Performance
Lipke, Walt — Oklahoma City chapter of Project Management Institute
The To Complete Performance Index (TCPI) from Earned Value Management describes the performance efficiency required to achieve a cost objective. This paper discusses the common use of the index, examining and confirming the underlying basis. Beyond its usual application, the TCPI indicator has a significant role in transforming project performance to effect a project recovery. This virtually unknown aspect is discussed and illustrated. A discussion of the To Complete Schedule Performance Index (TSPI) from Earned Schedule is included to describe the parallelism between cost and schedule analysis.

Inventing OnlineMedSource
Lurtz, Agi — President & CEO, OnlineMedSource, LLC.
Mrs. Lurtz conceived the basic protocols for an interactive medical records and history system during a decade of caring for her father. She gave life to her ideas by starting OnlineMedsource.org in 1999. OnlineMedsource, LLC was incorporated in 2003. This presentation will discuss her road to successful information innovation.

Thinking and Rethinking Library 2.0
Neal, Ruth — OU-SLIS graduate student
Hoberecht, Toni — Instruction Librarian, OU-Tulsa Library
The latest trend in teaching information literacy embraces what has come to be known as “Library 2.0.” This involves the use of advanced communication technologies to support library instruction. It is the hope of some library educators that the use of innovations such as blogs, wikis, podcosts, RSS feeds, and social networking tools will enhance the delivery of library content. But will it? Are these social media merely toys and distractions, and not a leap into a futuristic world of tailored library instruction? Does the process eclipse the content? Ruth Neal, OU-SLIS graduate student, and Toni Hoberecht, Instruction Librarian at the OU-Tulsa Library, examine the innovative trends in information sharing and encourage an open discussion on the utility of Library 2.0.

Promap Process Mapping & Redesign
Neil, Julie — Senior Industry Consultant, IBM Global Business Services
This session will introduce the Promap Process Mapping tool and how it can be applied to a process redesign, optimization, or system implementation project. The objective of the presentation is to discuss how process mapping can be used to document many aspects of a project including policies and procedures, roles and responsibilities, and potential areas of concern. Change management and adoption strategies can also be identified through effective process redesign techniques. This session will include a demonstration of the Promap tool.

Project Patterns
Norton, Joe — Consultant and advisor to management consulting firms
Joe Norton will share with us a career’s worth of experience in projects across several industries, and what he has learned about the characteristics of successful projects and their patterns. He will pose questions, surprise us with some of his answers, and challenge us with his explanation of (a) why projects that succeed are designed to succeed, and (b) how the seeds of project failure are sown before a project starts. Anyone who has had the opportunity to listen to Joe present in the past, or to sit in on one of his lectures at Kellogg, will appreciate that “Project Patterns” will be a very engaging presentation.

Thriving in Challenging Times: Managing Change with Zen Open-minded Mindfulness
Pitagorsky, George — Management Consultant, Pitagorsky Consulting
In these challenging times we must manage intentional and unintentional change in the wake of our projects and programs and manage our personal changes and challenges. To bring projects and programs to healthy, successful conclusions and continuously improve our processes we must have insight into the way individuals respond or react to change and a clear, practical and effective approach for managing it organizationally. In this session we explore how being able to see the big picture and question everything while being focused and consciously aware is a foundation for going beyond just managing to survive to actually thriving in the midst of change and the uncertainty it brings. We will provide a personal change management technique and a model for managing organizational change.

Effective Project Management is 80% Art and 20% Science
Sethi, Sunny — President & CEO, FxNexus
Project Managers often get caught up in the rut of what we call the science of project management, further enslaving their teams in a world of WBSs, RAMs, PERTs, EVM, EMV, deadlines, schedules, milestones, action items, issues logs and what not! All of these have a place – a very important place in being effective at project management. But the unfortunate reality is that too many project managers ‘manage’ under the assumption that this all they need to effectively manage a project.
In this introductory session on project management, we attempt to initiate a conversation relating to the all-important science of project management and the much bigger component – the art of attitude: of being able to accomplish more than what the science says is possible.
This argument is also the underlying theme for Univ. of Oklahoma’s Project Management Certification Program, developed in partnership with FxNexus, Inc. The presenter is the Chief Architect of the certification program; and a project management practitioner with about 20 years leading teams in the US, EU & Asia.

Microsoft Project: Scope, Schedule, Cost and Risk
Sethi, Sunny — President & CEO, FxNexus
The title says it all! Rather than merely demonstrate features in Microsoft Project, this 60-minute session demonstrates the right way to use Microsoft Project introducing project managers to best practices in the arena of scope, schedule, cost and risk management, as it relates to Microsoft Project.
The technique used in this presentation mirrors the award-winning Process meets Tool™ instructional technique owned by FxNexus, Inc and used in all Microsoft Project training sessions, as a part of Univ. of Oklahoma’s Project Management Education Program. The presenter is the chief architect of the certification program; and a project management practitioner with about 20 years leading teams in the US, EU & Asia.

Expertise Transfer System: A knowledge capture and transfer capability
Sharda, Ramesh — Director of the Institute for Research in Information Systems (IRIS), Oklahoma State University
Biros, David — Assistant Professor of Management Science and Information Systems, Oklahoma State University
A major problem for organizations implementing knowledge management systems such as lessons-learned capabilities is the lack of success of such systems or poor service of the systems to their intended goal of promoting knowledge reuse and sharing. Lessons-learned systems are part of the broad organizational and knowledge management systems that have been well studied by IS researchers. The objective of lessons-learned systems is to support the capture, codification, presentation and application of expertise in organizations. Lesson-learned systems have been a failure mainly because of two reasons, inadequate representation and the lack of integration into an organizations decision making process.Guided by theories in information systems and other disciplines, and following design science principles, we developed a capability to address the problems mentioned above. The theories inform the development of the various interrelated components and the relationships between them. We call this collection of these components a Knowledge Nugget. The new lessons learned knowledge representation capability is applicable to any organization seeking knowledge transfer. This presentation will describe our proposed framework and include a demonstration of the Knowledge Nugget.

Managing Knowledge in Projects
Srikantaiah, Taverekere (Kanti) — Director & Professor, Center for Knowledge Management at Dominican University
Every year, hundreds and thousands of projects are conducted all over the world both in public sectors and in private sectors. All these projects have one thing in common: knowledge. In any project environment, knowledge is power—but only if it is readily accessible, organized, analyzed, and disseminated to meet the project needs. Knowledge in projects, focuses on the proper access and delivery methods for explicit knowledge on the desktop and also concentrates on tacit knowledge unknown and unavailable to most people in projects. Recently, organizations are beginning to realize that capitalizing on projects and project knowledge is an effective way to meet their goals and objectives. Every project is unique with start and end dates, detailed project plan, budget, schedule, human resources, and deliverables and all these areas have a high volume of rich knowledge. Knowledge is created and flows through all nine project knowledge areas identified by PMBOK Guide of PMI (namely: Project Integration Management; Project Scope Management; Project Time Management; Project Cost Management; Project Quality Management; Project Human Resources Management; Project Communications Management; Project Risk Management; and Project Procurement Management). Knowledge gained from failures or successes of the project is vital for the long term sustainability of organizations to compete in the business environment. Managing knowledge effectively in projects will help in addressing issues on quality, deliverables, schedule, and cost control. The benefits of knowledge management in projects also extends to reducing waste and duplication, providing strategic advantage (planning), sharing of best practices, improving productivity and performance, promoting innovation, and retaining knowledge of experienced employees. Therefore, knowledge management has become an invaluable tool and a fundamental necessity for the success of projects and sustainability/growth of organizations.

Managing Organizational Knowledge: Practical Knowledge Management
Tryon, Chuck — Founded Tryon & Associates
Organizations of all types and sizes are struggling to address the widening gap between what they must know to thrive and an unprecedented loss of organizational knowledge. New market opportunities and improved technologies create a growing demand for new knowledge. At the same time, seasoned workers are retiring at rates never seen in modern business and finding adequate replacements is becoming more difficult.

A new management discipline, Knowledge Management, has recently emerged with the goal to help organizations recognize, retain and share organizational knowledge. Knowledge Management is dominating discussions in executive suites around the world. Yet for many, this topic remains conceptual and intangible.

Part of this breakdown is the KM focus on global or encyclopedic knowledge, something most organizations assume. This presentation focuses on the three elements of knowledge that must be discovered, refined, retained and used by modern organizations. This Organizational Knowledge should be the driver for a Knowledge Management Strategy.

In this fresh and innovative presentation, noted speaker, author and seminar leader, Chuck Tryon of Tryon and Associates, examines the differences between global and organizational knowledge. He also explains the elements proving successful in his work with major clients. Lastly, Mr. Tryon offers a number of very tangible steps to consider when implementing a Knowledge Management strategy.These concepts are the result of over twenty-five years of research by Mr. Tryon into implications of the Knowledge Age and a more recent collaboration with Dr. Suliman Hawamdeh, the program director of the Masters of Science in Knowledge Management program at the University of Oklahoma.

From Ideas to Projects: The Ontology of Project Management
Tuttle, Danny — Founder of Nexcor LLC
“All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas – not money.”¹ This session will teach project managers to develop innovative solutions for complex real-life situations. At the end of this session, each participant will have a deeper understanding of the ontology of project management and will take home practical techniques to create successful projects. Participants will learn and practice simple and effective methods to generate and document ideas from their inception. Researched data will be presented in a way that will challenge managers to see projects with a fresh management outlook at each milestone. If you are ready to learn some mind rattling concepts or if you just want to learn a new way to develop and communicate your ideas into successful projects you will not want to miss this session.
¹Quote by Robert Collier

7 Habits of Highly Effective project Managers
Winters, Larry — Project Management (PM) Practice Leader for The Persimmon Group
Consistent and effective project management hinges on critical success factors. However, consistent application of project management skills continues to be a challenge for many. Discover the “I” in “Habits” and how to identify stress reactions to projects and how to mitigate. Accessible, thought provoking and practical, this program leaves participants with a number of epiphanies as well as a new-found focus in how they can more effectively and efficiently lead projects.