Building Up a Model for Management Information

and Knowledge: The Case-study for a

Brazilian Regulatory Agency

Carlos Alberto Malcher Bastos

, Luiziana S. de Rezende

1,2

, Marco F. Caldas

Anilton S. Garcia

, Sérgio Mecena Filho

, Maria Luiza D. Sanchez

Joel de L. Pereira Castro Jr

and Célia Regina Burmann

Laboratório de Gestão em Tecnologia da Informação e Comunicação (Gteccom),

Universidade Federal Fluminense (UFF), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Departamento de Ciência da Computação, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ)

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Departamento de Informática, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo (UFES)

Vitoria, ES, Brazil

Abstract. This paper aims to present an original approach to build up an

information model to a Brazilian regulation agency. The methodology was

developed based on an integration of five different views focusing at

information and its assets. Its main contribution is to combine the Knowledge

Management (KM) Method and Software Engineering (SW) Method.

1 Introduction

In the actual Brazilian Governmental Structure there is a formal initiation to improve

internal and external proceedings of managing knowledge and information

management. Transparency is the bottonline for the objective of this work. It aims to

build a model that constructs a formal structure for all the knowledge using a specific

methodology. The created model has been implemented for a Brazilian Regulation

Agency.

The work is composed of 5 sections; the second section describes the project itself.

The third section deals with model´s structures and methodology. The fourth section

presents the actual stage of the project. Finally, the fifth section presents the

conclusions of the work.

2 The Proposed Project

This section describes the reasons over which the decision to design and to develop

such project was made, the main benefits, the main phases and the expected results.

Malcher Bastos C., S. de Rezende L., F. Caldas M., S. Garcia A., Mecena Filho S., D. Sanchez M., de L. Pereira Castro Jr J. and Burmann C..

Building Up a Model for Management Information and Knowledge: The Case-study for a Brazilian Regulatory Agency.

DOI: 10.5220/0003695200030011

In Proceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Software Knowledge (SKY-2011), pages 3-11

ISBN: 978-989-8425-82-9

 2011 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

2.1 The Reasons Why

Among the reasons which motivated the development of the project designed to build

up a model to integrate and consolidate all the information and knowledge (tacit and

explicit) can be listed as follow:

1) Several existent information systems are independent among each other creating

incompatibilities and overlapping;

2) Information are redundant;

3) There is a overall lack of information integration among different organizational

units;

4) There is lack of information critical analysis;

5) Knowledge is disperse and difficulty to access;

6) Low information reliability for the decision making process; and,

7) Difficulty to find out new correlations in the information to identify new patterns

among information.

2.2 The Proposed Solution

The proposed solution is to develop a project which is designed to build up

management model of information and knowledge for the Agency. The idea is to

enable the Agency capable to do the elicitation of tacit knowledge into explicit

knowledge which can be formally integrated to assist the decision making process.

There are several advantages to design such model such as:

a) to guarantee information integration, reliability and trustworthy during decision

making;

b) to guarantee information democracy, agility, transparency;

c) the creation of an organizational environment suitable to knowledge production;

d) to make the communication channels among employees stronger at all hierarchical

levels which makes more robust the integration of them;

e) to allow the identification of tendencies, gaps and weakness and;

f) to enable the resources allocation at all organization levels.

Therefore, the model is based upon Nonaka e Takeushi [23] in which information is

considered to be the raw material that passes through a process of reflection /

connection generating individual knowledge (from tacit to explicit) as an output. It

makes possible to lead knowledge to be socialized, combined, externalized and

internalized generating group learning. This group learning process is them

disseminated into the organization which is then able to develop strategies, policies

and action aimed to generate competitive advantaged, as it is discussed in Bastos [3],

Donadel [8], Albuquerque [1] and Oliveira [26].

2.3 The Benefits and Expected Results

There are four main advantages to be expected as a result of the implementation of

this project:

1. to decrease the organization learning curve;

2. to reduce the work redundancy and to avoid the possibility of finding old data as

new one;

3. to increase the ability to increase the Agency's innovative capacity.

As a consequence is possible to find out specialists inside the organization, to identify

common characteristics among employees as well as to develop them, to improve the

exchange of ideas. Consequently, this will allow the organization to guide and to train

employees in a more focus and better way, to reinforce a positive organization

reputation and to build up a healthy environment in which new ideas can be tested.

Finally the combination of the above will make it easier the understanding of the

organizations norms and regulations and to increase the understanding of common

problems.

It also must be added that the Project will allow one to analyze the evolution of the

knowledge from an idea which has its value unknown, its documentation varies quite

a lot and its replication is optional up to a type of knowledge which can be

benchmarking as its value is well recognized, it has a detailed documentation and it

replication is required.

Finally information and knowledge management process supports all organization

services which generate information assets which are accessed by the users.

3 Project's Organization and Methodologies

The project is organized into four phases. The first one aims to evaluate all the

organization assets mainly focused upon the information as it exist in the Agency.

The second phase consists of the identification of specific methodologies and tools

specific available in the market to assist the modeling process. This phase also

intended to identify and to describe the organizational strategic macro vision. The

third phase encompasses five modules which involve: a) one aimed to make the

elicitation of all business requirements; b) the identification of all processes and the

complete flow of information; c) the structuring of the Pierre´s Levy Knowledge Tree

[18]; d) the definition of ontologies; and e) the development of a training programme

about the management model being developed. The fourth phase is composed of four

sub-phases: a) the definition of the information architecture; b) the consolidation of

organizational units; c) the knowledge model; d) the continuation of the training

programme. Based upon the three last sub-phases in combination of the organization

information assets the Management Model becomes active and alive.

The elicitation of the business assets and requirements

aims to create a

representative model as such. Interviews in depth, application of questionnaires and in

certain cases group dynamics are the three main data elicitation techniques to be used.

The results to be generated are the actors with whom the Agency interacts and the

interfaces which are the information that flow from actors to the Agency and vice-

versa. The organization's functions are also to be modeled as the process of

transforming input information into consolidated and knowledge which is the results

generated by the Agency [16]; [17] and [15].

The identification of all organizational processes and the whole flow of

organization information were designed to draw a map identifying the ways

information are collected, treated, validated, modelled, disseminated and distributed at

all hierarchical levels. As a result the organization map of information flow and the

matrix relating the flow information with the assets of information are determined and

detailed described. Among the benefits of this process it will be possible to produce

standardization of both information and formats; the explicit definition of all decision

making important points and bottlenecks what can contribute to reduce risks at the

decision making level. [4], [28] and [19].

To elaborate the organization model of information and knowledge

aims to do

elicitation of all tacit and explicit information and knowledge needed to all processes

carried out inside the Agency. The identification and mapping of all competences

related to the all organization knowledge and the mapping of all professional

individuals related to those competences. These elicitations are to be done through the

application of questionnaires and interviews in depth, analysis of documents and

records, observation and direct interaction of the different sectors in all organizational

units. As a result it will be possible to define a three dimension matrix relating

knowledge versus competences versus professional individuals of the Agency.

Consequently, it will be possible to identify gaps among the three matrix dimensions

allowing one to design human resources strategies to align the real scenario to the

ideal one [1], [5], [12], [18] and [27].

The ontology phase

aims to decrease the semantic distance between the

information transmitted (conceptualization) and the information interpreted which

happens in languages in general. One of the problems of not generating a proper

information ontology classification is that different terms of different natures can be

categorized as being similar generating quite a problem. This phase aims to build a

complete ontology for each organization sector by defining in a unique semantic form

all concepts and categories existent in the processes and functions that exist in all

organizational units at all hierarchical levels [11] and [13].

The above process allow the re-use of knowledge, the definition of a dictionary of

non ambiguous terms independent of users and contexts, a semantic correct

integration of different models, computational data closer to the reality, the inference

of new knowledge from existent databases and the verification of inconsistencies in

databases.

The elaboration of information assets models related to the agency final activities

will provide support for all other project teams devoted to all above explained phases.

That is, in terms of all data related to the final activities which feed up all

organizational units systems which support the regulation and monitoring process.

This phase will improve the existent models obtained based upon the systems then

it can allow the definition and implementation of better ones which can make part of

the decision making process more automated, helping the daily activities of

monitoring and regulation.

4 The Project Present Stage

At the present stage the project tested its methodology in only one organizational unit

called “the Ouvidoria” which does the ombudsman of the whole organization. This

unit was choice because it is contact with all the other organization's units and sectors

and at the same time it receives all users complains indicating which indicate

bottlenecks in all processes and activities developed in the Agency.

Fig. 1. Attendance Bases. The attendance base indicating the actors, flow of information and

the resources and rules used in the process of attending users in the “Ouvidoria”.

5 Conclusions

This work presents a proposal of building up a model for managing information and

knowledge as well as its application within a Brazilian regulation agency. The

proposed methodology brings to discussion and presents a research contribution by

combining information and knowledge modeling with software engineering.

Fig. 2. Attendance Bases. The attendance bases in terms of the knowledge and competences

required by an attendant in the “Ouvidoria”.

Fig. 3. The model of information assets. the use cases and information architecture in the

“Ouvidoria”. I can be noticed that the information and activities show in Figure 2 and 3 can be

related to this mapping.

In the actual stage, the model methodology was applied to a specific part of the

agency and is still being refined. The main breakthroughs are:

1. Culture development to address the need to redesign and optimize the strategic

information assets of the units,

2. Highlight the information needed to generate the information asset,

3. Establish transparent proceedings to explicit, convert and exchange the knowledge

and its formalization,

4. Motivate the collaboration among the external units at information assets process

optimization,

Fig. 4. Ontologies mapping. The mapping of all concepts used in the “Ouvidoria”.

The next step is to overcome the challenge to ensure the model integration

elaborated by the units into an integrated model that might be applied to the whole

agency. Besides the theoretical model it evolves the development of a management

model and its adoption.

The success on refining the Knowledge and Information Management model will

allow its adoption among public organizations, enhancing transparency and public

power capability to act, as well as well as society evolvement. It generates an amazing

contribution to the development of an emergent nation as Brazil.

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