Re: Corp. Knowledge Repository LO610

AlexiaM@aol.com
Thu, 30 Mar 1995 03:11:33 -0500

Michael in LO555 says:

>>My hope is that someday, after more of these decisions have
been logged and enough time has passed to somehow evaluate the
effectiveness of those decisions, that we can cull the decisions
and move them into some sort of case-based reasoning system.

I'm reminded of a request for proposal I saw a couple of years ago from
EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) requesting a case-based reasoning
system for capturing the decision process for IT. If you are interested,
I'll track down what happened on this proposed effort.

Also, are you aware of Roger Shank's work (Northwestern, I believe) in
case-based reasoning? He has strongly impacted the thinking at Andersen
Consulting.

I'm also reminded of a system developed at Apple three years ago, called
the "Electronic Campus," which essentially captured the organizational
processes of various functions (e.g. how to submit travel requests or
total quality management processes) into a procedural repository. The
system encouraged feedback from users, to the process owners. When this
was the case, the result was a continuous process improvement.

I wonder if in establishing a Design Log if you could encourage feedback
from subsequent users back to the original designers as to the
effectiveness or insights subsequent users get. By doing this, you set up
a reward for entries to the Design Log---I think people love feedback
(praise or constructive criticism or expanding the conversation).

Alexia Martin
Co-Development International
12950 Saratoga Avenue
Saratoga, CA 95070
408 366-0466
408 366-0474 fax
alexiam@aol.com