QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE

BUSINESS PROCESSES

Development of a Maturity Model to Measure the Quality of Knowledge Intensive

Business Processes in Small and Medium Enterprises

Priscilla Heinze

Chair of Business Information Systems and Electronic Government, University Potsdam, Germany

Dennis Geers

Institute for Industrial Science and Process Management

Department of Quality Management,University Kassel, Germany

Keywords: Knowledge management, Quality management, Maturity model, Knowledge intensive business process.

Abstract: Up to now the isolated tools for quality, business process, and knowledge management can be integrated to

develop a suitable structure for SMEs to measure and gradually build up the competence for knowledge

processing. A maturity model is being developed for SMEs to measure and assess the quality of their busi-

ness processes. This enables the companies to determine their existing status, and to take the necessary ac-

tions for the competence development of their business processes, which should contribute to the attainment

of their knowledge management goals.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the European Union, companies with 50 to 250

employees or having the total of up to 50 millions

Euros annual turnover is to be categorized as small

and medium enterprises (European Commission,

2005). Due to the given characteristic, they are

forced to draw profit on top of making ends meet by

spending the least of resources and costs.

Managing knowledge is certainly not only the

necessity of small and medium enterprises since

problems on dealing with knowledge emerge as well

in large companies. For them, however, knowledge,

in whichever form it may exist in the company, is a

fundamental asset that assures the continuity of their

existence.

North (2005) lists some typical problems faced

by small and medium enterprises according to their

type of nature. A family establishment faces the

typical problems of generation changes and

employee retirement as well as resignation. A

company with a mature market with high technical

know-how is often confronted with problems of

deficit of use and safety of specific knowledge. A

rapidly growing company in a fast changing

environment deals with problems of resource

insufficiency, lack of communication between teams

as well as project documentation, capacity

deprivation and the like.

Aiming to attend to this necessity, the Federal

Ministry of Economics and Technology in Germany

has been financing a collaboration project by the

University of Potsdam and the University of Kassel.

This project intends to develop a maturity model and

the associating self-assessment method to evaluate,

analyse and optimize the knowledge intensive

business processes in German’s small and medium

enterprises.

This paper will first address the characteristics of

a knowledge intensive business process. The

following chapter describe the development of its

maturity model. Subsequently, the role of the

maturity model in the quality management of

knowledge intensive business process will be

explained. The last chapter discusses the future

prospect of the project and the planned development

of the self-assessment tool.

276

Heinze P. and Geers D. (2009).

QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE BUSINESS PROCESSES - Development of a Maturity Model to Measure the Quality of

Knowledge Intensive Business Processes in Small and Medium Enterprises.

In Proceedings of the International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing, pages 276-279

DOI: 10.5220/0002294002760279

 SciTePress

2 KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE

BUSINESS PROCESS

2.1 Tacit and Explicit Knowledge

In order to define a knowledge intensive business

process we preliminary need to agree on the

meaning and characteristics of knowledge. Polanyi

(1958) classifies knowledge into two categories.

Tacit knowledge, the first category, is produced by

personal experiences and individual perceptions. It is

difficult to articulate and formalize. Tacit knowledge

is person-oriented.

The second category is called the explicit

knowledge. This type of knowledge is not bound to

person. Explicit knowledge can be effortlessly

transferred using a formal and systematic language

(Schmidt, Kiemele and Berdine, 1996).

Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) define the course

of actions that happen between the two categories as

knowledge conversion. They develop the Socialisa-

tion, Externalisation, Combination and Internalisa-

tion (SECI) Model (See Figure 1) to describe the

four conversions between tacit and explicit knowl-

edge (Froeming, Gronau and Schmid, 2006).

ExternalizationSocialization

Internalization Combination

Explicit KnowledgeTacit Knowledge

Tacit KnowledgeExplicit Knoweldge

Figure 1: SECI Model (Nonaka und Takeuchi, 1995).

2.2 Knowledge Modeling Description

Language (KMDL)

A business process as knowledge intensive if its

value can only be created through fulfillments of the

knowledge requirement by the process participants

(Froeming, Gronau and Schmid, 2006).

The characteristics of a knowledge intensive

business process make it difficult to abstract and to

generalize. Therefore, the University of Potsdam has

been developing a method aiming to enable the

modeling of knowledge-intensive business

processes. This method is called the Knowledge

Modeling Description Language (KMDL) (Gronau

and Weber 2004).

Business process models generated using the

KMDL method can be viewed from two point of

views. The process view describes the course of

tasks and their possible alternative routes. The level

of detail in this view is held low in order to assure a

clear and structured presentation. This view has

process interfaces as crossing points at the beginning

and end of a process.

Not all tasks in a process are knowledge

intensive. Therefore, those who need to be identified

before the activity view was being substracted. The

activity view has a higher level of detail, in which

the single tasks are broken down into activities.

These activities represent the knowledge

conversions within the process.

The KMDL method comprises of 6 phases. In

Phase 0 and Phase 1 the project preparation activi-

ties, the project objectives and its object of modeling

is determined. The object of modeling is the scope

of area to be analyzed within the business process.

In Phase 2 the process view is captured by perform-

ing semi-structured interviews with the process par-

ticipants. The captured result is iteratively validated

and improved.

In Phase 3, the knowledge intensive tasks taking

place in the process view are identified. These tasks

are used as a basis to capture the activity view in

Phase 4. Just like in the process view, the captured

activity view result is iteratively validated and im-

proved.

In Phase 5, the captured process and activities

are analyzed. Within this phase, factors marking the

success as well as failure of the process are identi-

fied, suggested, classified and evaluated. KMDL

features formal methods for analysis based on previ-

ously collected patterns. In addition process analysis

is supported by reports and views (Fröming, Gronau

and Schmid, 2006, Bahrs and Gronau, 2005).

Based on the analysis, a to-be concept is devel-

oped in Phase 6. The implementation of the concept

follows in Phase 7 and the evaluation in Phase 8.

The KMDL method also includes formalized analy-

sis concepts, which is irrelevant in the implementa-

tion of this project framework, but have proven to be

reliable in the past projects.

In this project the KMDL method is used to

collect the initial data, which will be used as a basis

for the maturity level analysis. Apart from that, the

compilation of the gained experiences and analysis

results from the former projects will be used in this

project to develop a reference business process

serving as the exemplary best practice.

QUALITY MANAGEMENT IN KNOWLEDGE INTENSIVE BUSINESS PROCESSES - Development of a Maturity

Model to Measure the Quality of Knowledge Intensive Business Processes in Small and Medium Enterprises

277

3 MATURITY OF KNOWLEDGE

INTENSIVE BUSINESS

PROCESSES

Different approaches have been suggested to deter-

mine the knowledge management maturity level

(Ehms and Langen, 2000).

However, since these models are mostly specific

to the evaluation of the entire knowledge manage-

ment activities of an organization, there exists no

connection to single business processes. A direct

assessment of processes is thus not possible. Signifi-

cant process improvement potentials in SMEs re-

main hidden because neither the information about

the improvement opportunities in the processes are

fully recognized and collected nor the quality of

design is improved.

Identification of the level of maturity serves as a

basis to uncover those potentials in SMEs. After the

maturity level has been identified and the actual

situation recognized, only then can SMEs set a start-

ing point for process optimization and goal

achievement (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: The central position of process assessments

(ISO/IEC 15504-01, 2004).

According to Mackie (2007) implementing sus-

tainable improvement requires people to recognise

opportunities for improvement. A process assess-

ment affords an internal benchmarking, which serves

to guide employees to adopt preferred similar ap-

proaches for appropriate knowledge intensive busi-

ness processes. The possibility to compare local

knowledge intensive business processes with those

of other market actors allow strengths to be consoli-

dated and weaknesses focused (benchmarking capa-

bility).

Process assessment also increases motivation for

change. It encourages employees to start implement-

ing possible improvements. By systematically ana-

lysing a process with using process assessment it is

possible to pinpoint potential improvements.

A periodically performed assessment forecasts

trend information. The improvement analysis dis-

closes indirect information on which improvements

provide an impact and conclusively, the level of

such impact. It also helps to explore needs. The inte-

grated reference processes could be used to build

new approaches and match new ventures.

The project evaluation model in development

based on the maturity level criteria can be used to

evaluate and analyze the business processes at the

outset. Based on this, an iterative development of the

performance ability takes place (see Figure 3). The

maturity level measurement provides a benchmark

as well as a reference value for the quality of knowl-

edge-intensive business processes. This measure-

ment is based on well-researched and classified

critical success factors that are to be transformed

into a knowledge intensive reference pattern at later

stages.

A specific questionnaire based on the formerly

gathered success factors and their particular indica-

tors enables a detailed data collection. Based on this

questionnaire and the maturity model an interactive

self-diagnostic tool will be developed in the later

project phases. SMEs should then be able to deter-

mine the maturity level of their knowledge-intensive

business processes without the need of any special

data, systems or advanced required skills.

4 DEVELOPMENT OF THE

MATURITY MODEL

The development of the maturity model begins with

the investigation of actual processes in the cooperat-

ing companies. As prototypes for further develop-

ment we decided to examine the customer relation-

ship management and innovation as well as product

development processes.

Ahlemann, Schroeder and Teuteberg (2005) de-

fine maturity model as an instrument that character-

izes different maturity levels using a specific compe-

tence model, in which it assesses the certain level of

requirement the competence object has fulfilled as

defined for the particular class. The suitability of the

maturity level model is constituted by taking into

consideration the requirements of objectivity, reli-

ability and validity, whereas consistency, replicabil-

ity and efficiency are the additional requirements to

be consider.

Firstly, the information obtained from interviews

will be codified and generalized in form of a process

model, which is repeatedly validated by the process

KMIS 2009 - International Conference on Knowledge Management and Information Sharing

278

participants. The models serve as the prototype for

further analysis.

Then a complete range of factors are collected as

the results of expert interviews and by considering

the best practice models in selected firms from dif-

ferent application domains. The process of determin-

ing the success factors is validated through a two-

stage validating process by an interdisciplinary pro-

ject committee.

Subsequently, indicators are developed and de-

fined in order to confirm the success factors. They

should be measurable qualitatively and quantita-

tively. On this basis, a questionnaire to validate the

factors’ acceptance level is designed. The question-

naire includes not only knowledge-intensive busi-

ness processes success factors in general, but also

specifically those in customer relationship manage-

ment as well as for the product innovation process

domain. In turn, the maturity level model will be

deduced from existing established approaches. The

maturity levels will then be assigned to the success

factors and the factors to the indicators in order to

derive a classification of the maturity level.

Figure 3: Maturity Level Model.

The result of the maturity level determination en-

ables a simple derivation of measures for skills de-

velopment in relation to the handling of knowledge

and the design quality-oriented processes.

5 CONCLUSIONS

AND OUTLOOK

As part of the future advancement on the project, an

interactive self-assessment tool will be developed,

which aims is to facilitate the companies to evaluate

and determine the maturity level and the quality of

their knowledge-intensive business processes.

The tool will have an advantage over the pure

design method because it will allow the end

user/operator of the process to implement it at his

own. It ensures personalized solutions. Resistance of

change is expected to be considerably low compared

to the case where an external consultant was in-

volved.

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Model to Measure the Quality of Knowledge Intensive Business Processes in Small and Medium Enterprises

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