Organizational knowledge base, tacit and explicit, around the business issue or the process being addressed should be leveraged throughout an RFID deployment project. Hence, this part is shown separately from the four phases of the framework. It is not uncommon for the knowledge base to exist in several places, including databases, files, or even people's heads, without any clear links between these repositories. However, if leveraged properly, this knowledge can provide precious information about the context of the solution, in addition to the content (needed to develop the solution). Both are critical for the successful development of the solution.
To make sure that the knowledge base is fully identified and leveraged, a knowledge map required to successfully carry out the project should be constructed at the beginning of the project. It should be compared against the inventory of the enterprise knowledge to identify project-specific knowledge gaps. A plan should be created to eliminate them. Top management or sponsors of the project should remain involved in this assessment and subsequent decisions such as determining whether to obtain the required knowledge through organic learning or outside help.
The output of this stage is an enterprise knowledge map, which accurately identifies its capabilities as well as centers of expertise. The last piece of this framework is organizational mobilization. It deals with the "soft" skills of project management, such as motivating and aligning people to get results. It is a very important topic, to which we have dedicated the next chapter. |