White pages - Knowledge Management

White pages

What are white pages?

An organisational “white pages” is a tool to help people to find others in their organisation who have the knowledge and expertise they need for a particular task or project. It is like a staff directory, but rather than simply listing people’s names, job titles, departments and contact details, it includes details about their knowledge, skills, experience and interests.

The “white pages” is electronic rather than paper-based, so that users can search it in a variety of ways, just like they might perform a search on the internet.

“White pages” are often also known as experts directories, expertise directories, skills directories or capabilities catalogues.

What are the benefits?

A “white pages” is particularly beneficial in organisations that are over a certain size or that are spread around in different locations, and so people don’t have the opportunity to get to know each other well. Specific benefits include:

• “white pages” are technologically quite simple to create
• They can be extremely effective in helping organisations to ‘know what they know’
• They allow people to find the tacit knowledge they need, by easily finding the people who have it
• They can underpin all of the organisation’s various initiatives to connect people with people, and to learn from others
• A “white pages” is not necessarily aimed at those embarking on a major project or piece of work; often the greatest value comes from a multitude of simple ten-minute conversations in which people ask each other for a quick word of advice or a steer in the right direction.

By way of an example, can you find an asthma expert who has considerable experience in a specific treatment, has successfully used that treatment with children under five, and is currently in or around the Birmingham area, all in under a minute? A good “white pages” could enable you to do that (assuming of course that such a person exists!).

How do I go about it?

Be clear about your aims
First, be clear about your aims. Using a “white pages” to find people is a means to an end, not an end in itself. How do you intend for people to use it? For what purposes do you envisage them using the system to find people? How will they approach and use the system? It is vital to be clear on this before you begin designing any system. Talk to people in your organisation to find out about their needs and views. Talk to people in other organisations who have already implemented a “white pages” to find out what you can learn from their experiences.

Ownership and onus
Opinions vary about whether to make individuals’ inclusion a “white pages” compulsory or voluntary, and similarly whether to create and manage entries centrally or provide a template for individuals to create and update their own entries. Organisations such as BP-Amoco and Texaco who have implemented successful “white pages” strongly favour the voluntary approach in which individuals create their own entries if they so choose. Their experience would seem to show that ownership needs to be with the people contributing to, and using, the system.

This has a number of advantages. First, it creates a sense of personal responsibility for the system which in turn fosters support; second, it allows people to present their entries in a way that reflects how they want to be known rather than how the organisation sees them; and hence third, it helps to create a ‘living’ system that reflects real personalities and therefore encourages personal relationships.

Balance formal with informal information
While the purpose of a “white pages” is to help people find others with relevant knowledge and expertise, the chances of them actually acting on that information and calling that person will be greatly increased if they feel they ‘know’ them. This sense of ‘knowing’ or familiarity can be created to some extent by including some personal information and a photograph in people’s entries. Allow people to be creative in how they present themselves. For example, at BP people are encouraged up upload photographs of themselves at home or at play – perhaps with their children or enjoying their favourite sport– rather than using a more sterile passport-style photograph.

What to include
Common fields found in a ““white pages” include:

• Name
• Job title
• Department or team
• A brief job description and/or description of what is currently being worked on and what has been worked on in the past
• Relevant professional qualifications
• An uploaded CV
• Areas of knowledge and expertise (selected from a pre-defined list of subjects/terms; people might also rank their knowledge, for example from ‘extensive’ to ‘working knowledge’ to ‘basic’)
• Main areas of interest
• Key contacts – both internal and external
• Membership of communities of practice or other knowledge networks
• Personal profile
• Photograph
• Contact information

Organising entries for ease of loading and retrieval
In order to encourage people to create entries, you will need to make it easy for them. Most organisations use a simple template into which users enter their information. In creating a template, think not only about ease of entry, but also about how users will search the system to retrieve information. You will need a common language or taxonomy to describe information in the essential fields, in particular those relating to knowledge, expertise, areas of work and interests. You might like to create fixed terms and options for these fields that users can select from a menu or a selection of tick-boxes. This could also be supplemented with a box for users to enter free text, perhaps with some suggested terms alongside it to guide their use of language.

In contrast, personal information can of course be relatively unstructured – leave scope for more creativity and free expression here!

Keeping it current
A “white pages” must be maintained and kept up-to-date. People are constantly moving locations, changing jobs, and adding to their knowledge and skills. If your “white pages” is linked with your human resources system, then job details and contact information can be automatically updated. Alternatively if individuals have sole responsibility for their own entries, then you might build a reminder process into your system, whereby an e-mail is sent automatically to remind users who haven’t updated their entries since a certain time period, such as three to six months. Similarly, be sure to build information about the “white pages” into processes for new joiners and leavers, so that new joiners know about the system and are encouraged add their entry, and leavers remember to either delete their entry or delegate it to someone else to ‘own’ (assuming they are happy for people to still contact them after they have left).

Encouraging use
You will need to actively market your “white pages”. Don’t assume that if you create it, people will automatically use it. Your marketing efforts will need to encourage both participation and use; the two are inextricably linked as you need a certain amount of submissions for people to see the “white pages” as being worth using. Possible ideas might include posters, presence at events such as learning fairs, nominating champions to promote the “white pages” in various parts of the organisation, or competitions that give prizes to the first departments in which everyone is uploaded, or for those with the best success stories of how using the “white pages” has helped them in their job. Be sure to focus on the benefits in your marketing efforts – people will want to know ‘what’s in it for me?’.

Are there any other points I should be aware of?

• A “white pages” need not just include individuals – for example you might like to include formal communities of practice, project teams, etc.

• Similarly, a “white pages” need not just cover internal people; you can also have a similar system, or a section, for suppliers of various types (e.g. IT outsourcing, consultancy services, recruitment agencies, etc), and for other organisations with which you work or collaborate, both within and outside the NHS.

• You can add further value to your “white pages” by linking it with other knowledge management tools, such as those available on an intranet. For example you might have collaborative working tools or best practice databases that list relevant contacts – these contact listings can be linked directly into the “white pages” – and vice versa.

• Be careful when using the term ‘expert’ – it can be quite a ‘political’ one and may create hierarchies; if some people are considered as experts, this might make others feel that their knowledge is less valuable so it may discourage their contribution.

• Be aware of issues relating to data protection – check with your legal department to ensure that your “white pages” will comply with relevant requirements, and to create a policy on its correct use.

Resources and references

Books

Clemmons Rumizen Melissie. (2002) The complete idiot’s guide to knowledge management. Madison, WI: CWL Publishing Enterprises.
Chapter 9 - Strategic choices for connecting people to people – includes a few pages on “white pages” and gives examples of good practice from organisations such as BP and Texaco. (This book as a whole is well worth reading – extremely easy to read, very comprehensive and full of sound, practical advice).

Collison, Chris and Parcell Geoff. (2001) Learning to fly: practical lessons from one of the world’s leading knowledge companies. Oxford: Capstone.
Chapter 9: Finding the right people.
Outlines the approach taken at BP in developing and launching its “white pages” system ‘Connect’. (Again, this book is well worth a read – refreshing low on theory and jargon, and high on sound, practical advice based on proven results).

Articles

Cromack, Keith. Needles in a haystack: using a capabilities catalogue to locate knowledge. Knowledge Management, 2001, August, Vol 5 No 1,
Describes the process of developing a capabilities catalogue to make the most of in-house knowledge.