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CCCA_V2No3_Knowledge-FIN.qxd:CCCA_V1No1_DriversSeat-FIN.qxd 9/18/08 1:54 PM Page 27 Feature Don’t wait for people to share their knowledge and “You’re trying to replicate the way the human mind manage their information properly, advises Jaar. “Put a gathers and collects and distributes, which is not an system in place and subtly force everyone into it — easy thing to do,” says Wright. “And if you’re creating a you’re going to realize that knowledge management is system that is so totally against the culture of the organ- viable, so that when one person starts using it, they’re ization and the people, I just don’t think they’re going going to bring in three other people, who in turn are to use it. And I don’t think you’re going to sell it to going to bring three other people in. And after a while, somebody, either.” everyone is going to be using your knowledge manage- Wright suggests choosing three things to implement ment tool, because they will see the inherent benefits.” first, such as a list of experts, precedents that are con- stantly being used, and areas of legal research that Tips for implementing KM lawyers often go back to. “Identify what those docu- In addition to finding ways to store and share copious ments are, and get some criteria for why you would amounts of legal and business information, KM can include them in what used to be your credenza file. involve finding a variety of ways to make employees Now you’re going to want to share them.” Then design more operationally efficient. the plan: create a precedent document repository, cre- For one thing, KM can help employees cope more ate an agreement or contract, and make it searchable. productively with e-mail. Bell brought in consultants to help lawyers manage their in-boxes and deal with hun- Start now dreds, often thousands of e-mails. “I’m looking for Every journey begins with a single step, big or small. things that will actually help people do their jobs better,” Knowledge management, after all, is really about he says. “And if that means helping them with their e- expanding upon something that everyone already mail as opposed to helping them find the latest Supreme does to some extent. “Start quickly, start now,” Court of Canada decision, so be it.” advises Wright. “It really does make life so When associate general counsel Jolie Lin joined Vale much easier.” Inco, the first thing she did was take stock of the needs Find the best technology available. “At of her department by asking the incumbent employ- this stage, there is no out-of-the-box ees what they thought was important. She gathered solution,” says Jaar. All the software facts and conducted research with the group, then put needs to be customized to some extent together ideas of what could be shared, including to create the best ways for people to something as simple as sharing contact information. want to use it. “It’s a lot easier to cus- “Everybody held their own contact list,” she recalls. tomize software than to re-engineer “It wasn’t being shared and it wasn’t something that the the way a person has been working group could manage easily. So we developed a way for the last ten years.” using the tools that we had.” They created a common And avoid becoming immersed methodology for naming documents, so that everyone in building a huge database that could create, then access, that information. will be locked away for a cou- After identifying problem areas and implementing ple of years and end up being solutions, the biggest challenge is to continually moni- tor and maintain a KM system, says Linda Wright, research counsel/library manager at CIBC Legal Division, who adds that many systems are underutilized. Don’t build a system that’s so large it can’t be main- tained easily, she advises, citing the example of imple- menting an RSS feed for several different groups within the company. “If I didn’t have time to maintain it, it would become so out of date so quickly that it would just be more noise. People would just lose interest. And the gen- eral counsel would say, ‘Well, it’s a nice toy for you, but Linda Wright what’s it doing for us?’” Research Counsel/Library Manager Receiving regular feedback from users is crucial. CIBC Legal Division, Toronto AUTOMNE 2008 CCCA Canadian Corporate Counsel Association 27