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“eHabitat: Our Knowledge Infrastructure in support of our work in Defence and Security”
Defence Science & Technology Agency
Singapore

The Problem

Defence Science & Technology Agency (DSTA) was formed in 2000 with the mission to harness science and technology and thus, provide leading-edge technological solutions for the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) that would enhance Singapore's defence capabilities. Prior to the formation of DSTA, there were different organisations managing respective defence projects under the Defence Technology Group (DTG) within the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), Singapore.

Increasingly, cross-organisation project teams were needed to meet increasing demand for complex and integrated solutions in multi-disciplinary areas ranging from engineering, information technology to biomedical sciences. With different organisation structures, and different IT systems, including different information systems and intranets/repositories, information sharing and work collaboration had been difficult to manage. In addition, DSTA was faced with the following impetuses to change:

a. Changes in the external environment characterised by increasing complexity and uncertainty.

b. Knowledge and knowledge retention were at risk when experienced or key personnel moved on, or left the organization.

c. Shortening of system and knowledge life-cycles requiring our project management teams (PMTs) to learn faster and timely from existing and past project experience.

Solution and Key Benefits

 What is the initiative about? (the solution)
Over the last eight years, DSTA went through a series of organisation re-structuring to create synergy across different competencies with integrated project management team concept. Some of these new units were created to strategise on harnessing our collective knowledge and experience, e.g. a college for ensuring knowledge transfer of our core competencies and another unit for conducting master-planning and system architecting leading to improvement of long-term planning, prudent investment in research and development, and leveraging on right area of external collaboration.

To ensure sustenance of organizational capability and competency, a total of eight competency communities were created.

In addition, an entity called Directorate of Organisation Capability (OCD) was set up in 2006. The OCD consists of eight competency communities (CCs) which are grouped by technical disciplines and competencies. Since then, every staff belongs to a CC for his or her competency development and career management. This arrangement facilitates the build-up of new capabilities and encourages ownership of their learning and competency development. The right information and learning can then be channelled to the right CC and thus enabled better respond to our customers’ business demands by assigning staff to different integrated project management team..

Also, an eHabitat platform to allow an IT-enabled mobile, secured and integrated eWorkplace, was implemented progressively since 2004 to support our integrated project management team (IPMT) in terms of improving access to our shared knowledge repositories; managing our collective information and knowledge better; and collaborating more effectively across DSTA. The key benefits are as follows:

a. A mobile and secured network to connect people-to-people, and people-to-information wherever they are, including overseas locations to share and collaborate on important and critical information.

b. Effective collaboration and information sharing among and across various project teams, and also for better knowledge retention, and project continuity, especially during staff turnover.

c. Experience gained from our involvement in SARS (2003) & Tsunami (2005) disasters, have allowed DSTA to be more ready to respond and support future national-level emergency and operations.

d. Paper-less workplace environment, which greatly contribute to ease of information-flow, search-and-retrieval and long-term archival.

e. Continuous learning and sharing within and across competency communities, and systematic build-up of shared resources.

Actors and Stakeholders

 Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
It has been a journey of transformation and learning for all in DSTA. As a knowledge enterprise, DSTA leverages the use of knowledge for value creation extensively. We need to be effective in creating new knowledge and efficient in using existing information. Therefore, at the formation of DSTA in 2000, the DSTA KM programme was established to champion and facilitate the evolution of KM framework and practices across the organization. Led by Prof Su Guaning, our first Chief Executive, the initial phase of KM journey concentrated on the KM awareness and softer cultural aspects. DSTA’s initial KM infrastructure investment included intranet, people finder and collaboration.

By 2004, under the leadership of Mr Richard Lim, the second Chief Executive of DSTA, we started invested in both mobile notebook with secured connection and KM infrastructure to realise an integrated eWorkplace, called the eHabitat.

Overall, the other key stakeholders who contributed to the implementation of the integrated eWorkplace and our KM framework include DSTA CIO Office, Head and Knowledge Managers from various Competency Communities and Business Entities as well as entities providing shared services such as registry, intranet, and library.

By 2008, the IT infrastructure for integrated eWorkplace, and KM foundation for putting KM into action are in place. As led by Mr Soh Kong Pheng, our new Chief Executive, and Mr Joseph Quek, the Acting Director (Corporate Planning & Development), we spent significant efforts in 2008 to stock-take our various KM initiatives to prepare for the way forward.

(a) Strategies

 Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
 a.      What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
Overall, three key strategies were adopted for positioning DSTA as a knowledge enterprise. The first strategy is to put in place competency communities for sustenance of long-term capabilities. In order to sustain and develop new capability, a total of eight competency communities (CC) was formed; each led by a senior management staff. The community promoted and ensured continual learning and sharing, and building of new competencies and capabilities. Every staff belongs to a CC as their “home base” for competency development and career management, and would be assigned to one or more integrated project management teams.

The second strategy is to leverage DSTA’s Intranet, eHabitat, as our integrated eWorkplace. The eHabitat is positioned as DSTA’s extended workplace platform for learning, collaboration and innovation, embracing the entire ecosystem of people, contents, processes and infrastructure. Its vision is to be “Our Habitat for Learning, Collaboration and Innovation” by connecting people, organization and knowledge, extending our workplace for learning, knowledge sharing and building community culture and values. Every workgroup is connected so that they are able to readily access the relevant people and knowledge for making more informed decisions and thus, deliver quality results to our customers.

The third strategy is to ensure that KM programme and resource teams are the trusted partners of all the business entities in DSTA. By working with various parties in DSTA, we have been able to adopt an integrated approach so as to maximize the flow and use of knowledge across iPMTs. If the staff could not find certain information, they could always click on the `ASK@eHabitat’, a feedback channel at the eHabitat, to provide their feedback and suggestions. The latter has enable project team to continually review and improve our KM framework and knowledge databases.

(b) Implementation

 b.      What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The DSTA Knowledge Management (KM) mandate aims to establish DSTA as a “Knowledge Enterprise” and to empower our knowledge-workers by leveraging the collective wisdom and knowledge so as to sustain and deliver leading edge solutions to MINDEF and the SAF effectively and innovatively.

Phase I (2000 to 2003) focused on the exploration of KM concepts and applications for DSTA needs, where we spent much time studying the implementation of KM in other organisations (IBM, Ernst & Young Associates, CISCO Systems, Microsoft and HP) and KM concepts advocated by gurus (Dave Snowden, Etienne Wenger, Chris Collison, Steve Dennings, Peter Senge, John Seely Brown, Ikujiro Nonaka and Larry Prusak). Rather than invest in off-the-shelf IT solutions, we settled on the more austere path of working with people and communities for collaboration and knowledge sharing activities. We decided that for the initial years, we would concentrate on the softer, cultural aspect and introduced after-action reviews, storytelling and community of practices. We also promoted the use of our intranet as the convenient platform for sharing personal home pages and finding people and expertise. Technology would be harnessed as an enabler and brought in gradually to make the processes more efficient. We took off with this approach to establish ideas which guided our KM journey.

Phase II (2004 to 2007) emphasised on KM/IT Infrastructure and Re-organisation of support services. This involved the implementation of:

i. Corporate Intranet - a common platform for all members in the DSTA community.

ii. Community Portal - a one-stop platform for workplace collaboration, community development, knowledge sharing and document filing.

iii. Integrated Project Workspace (PWS) - for project collaboration and information sharing. For effective work and collaboration with our external and strategic partners, we have the DSTA Extranet.

iv. eRegistry - provided an integration of registry service and online repository for document filing and record management.

v. Knowledge Hub - facilitates the systematic build-up and sharing of knowledge repository in critical domain.

vi. MyHomepage - enhanced personal home page with information on the individual staff and also for the individual to share with other DSTA staff.

vii. eLilbrary - enables staff to access and search online for valuable information and knowledge on the internet.

Phase III (2008 and beyond) will focus on growth and harvesting our knowledge power, continuing our journey as knowledge enterprise. There are at least three areas:

i. Enable quality “project research and accelerated learning” by readily connecting people, and/or to leverage our valuable project resources so as to deliver innovative solutions and make quality decisions.

ii. Create capacity for focused and continuous learning and sharing for tech-watch domains and/or community of practices (CoP).

iii. Further strengthen our integrated project management teams as knowledge networks for effective project collaboration and continuity, i.e. ease of project coordination, tracking of issues and actions, and job hand-over, especially in multiple project role context.

In a nutshell, we aimed to achieve accelerated learning, enhanced capacity and continuous innovation in support of the empowered iPMT to deliver systems/capabilities to our customers.

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

 c.      What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacles encountered were as follows:

i. Mindset change: From an organization used to hard copy filing and collaboration via e-mail, numerous briefing and training workshops were conducted to familiarise the staff prior to the roll-out of the various KM initiatives.

ii. E-Filing of Project documents: Extensive reviews of registry workflow were conducted to ensure systematic eFiling and distribution as official records. This is to ensure documents/records are eFiled.

iii. Business Ownership: Business owners are responsible for their project outcome and continuity. KM Scorecards are designed for business owners and project/programme manager to monitor progression of their respective KM journey.

iv. Knowledge Sharing: The most challenging task is to encourage all staff to share information or knowledge on a voluntary basis, especially if one belongs to a relatively large community. The KM team has to work closely with the CC Heads to gather feedback, review the progress and continually devise the engagement approach which includes the use of various incentive and promotion schemes. As we learnt, it is not a one-time launch of CC Portal, but a continuous process of leadership by example and staff engagement.

(d) Use of Resources

 d.      What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
For IT/KM Infrastructure, we invested about S$15 million for mobile network and notebook equipping for 3,000 staff. Another S$10 million was spent on the development of the KM infrastructure which includes KM applications, enterprise content management, intranet and portal and search.

We set up a full-time KM team of five members, led by a senior management staff to champion and facilitate KM implementation across DSTA. We established an entity (called the Organisation and Capability Directorate) working with competency communities, each headed by a senior management staff to promote continual learning and sharing, and building of new competencies and capabilities.

We also set up a Centre for Information Management (CIM) through re-organising the legacy registry teams to provide one-stop end-to-end information services. Lastly, we put in place a network of knowledge managers to spearhead the KM initiatives for their respective business entities and communities.

Sustainability and Transferability

  Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
How the initiative is being sustained (for example in terms of financial, social and economic, cultural, environmental, institutional and regulatory sustainability). Describe whether the initiative is being replicated or disseminated throughout the public service at the national and/or international levels and/or how it could be replicated.

Knowledge Management (KM) in DSTA is a continuous journey of learning and improvement. The DSTA KM team needs to constantly engage the various stakeholders (Senior Management, Deputy Directors/Assistant Directors, project managers, and staff from different departments). KM Account Managers, together with Knowledge Managers, have to find the right approaches when implementing new KM initiatives. DSTA staff embracing and demonstrating good KM practices were also recognized and commended through various awards and incentives.

Over the years, as an early adopter of KM practices, DSTA had been sharing with various statutory boards and government organisations on our KM journey and experience. These include visits by Central Provident Fund Board, Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, Civil Service College, Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau, Defence Science Organisation, Government of Singapore Investment Corporation, Health Promotion Board, Intellectual Property Office of Singapore, JTC Corporation, Ministry of Community Development,, Youth & Sports, Ministry of Information, Communications & the Arts, Ministry of Home Affairs, Ministry of Manpower, National Environment Agency and Supreme Court.

DSTA was recognised with a commendation in the 2007 Intranet Innovation Awards administered by Step 2 Design . More recently, in 2008, DSTA was awarded the Singapore KM Excellence Silver Award by the Information and Knowledge Management Society of Singapore (iKMS) for both the Culture and the Technology & Infrastructure for clear business impact in parts of the organisation.

At the international arena, Mr Ng Kok Chuan, Deputy Director (KM) also made a presentation entitled “eHabitat: Our Integrated eWorkplace” at the KM World held from 23 to 25 2008 at San Jose, California.

Lessons Learned

 What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
The critical success factors are as follows:

i. Engagement and Change Management. Regular dialogues were conducted with Heads of Business Entities and Communities, and constant engagement with the staff at working level to gather their feedback. The feedback provides invaluable inputs to the various current KM initiatives that we have embarked/put in place so that we fine-tune/enhance these implementations. It also provided the project team with ideas for the next phase of implementations.

ii. Integrated As Part of Work. We ensure that implemented KM processes/tools/systems do not always increase the administrative overheads of project team. We always underline KM initiatives as an integral part of the day-to-day work of each DSTA staff to facilitate the staff to work more efficiently and effectively.

iii. Alignment to Business Needs. New initiatives must add value to the organisation, project team or staff. The benefits must be clearly articulated and demonstrated so as to achieve buy-in and support from management.

iv. Leveraging on Information Technology (IT). While KM is not all about IT, technology is still a key enabler for putting KM into practices. Both commercial technology and in-house applications were adopted in order to reap the maximum benefits from these implementations.

v. Learning from others. By sharing with and learning from other organisations, learning from KM gurus and study KM journeys of other organisation, we continue to learn from their lessons and success factors. Overall, there must be a compelling business case for the KM and that the KM journey should start small from the low hanging fruits, and then slowly evolve and transform as we mature as knowledge enterprise.

Contact Information

Institution Name:   Defence Science & Technology Agency
Institution Type:   Government Agency  
Contact Person:   Chee Chiang Chau
Title:   Chief Information Officer (CIO)  
Telephone/ Fax:   65-68732601
Institution's / Project's Website:   65-62735452
E-mail:   ccheechi@dsta.gov.sg  
Address:   71 Science Park Drive
Postal Code:   Singapore 118253
City:  
State/Province:  
Country:   Singapore

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