Advances In Transportation Agency Knowledge Management

This report summarizes the findings from a scan workshop of Knowledge Management (KM) within transportation agencies and other organizations. The purpose of this scan was to identify and document successful KM practices and identify additional needs to advance KM in transportation agencies. A wide range of KM strategies and programs were discussed, including: Workforce Planning techniques to anticipate and address anticipated gaps in critical expertise; Recognition Programs to reinforce organizational values of knowledge sharing and teamwork; Communities of Practice that bring together groups within specific content or functional areas to share knowledge, support each other, and develop practice improvements; Knowledge Capture Methods to codify, document, and retain valuable lessons learned and other know-how from employees with years of experience and/or highly specialized and unique expertise; Team Learning Techniques to ensure that project teams learn from experience prior to starting work and take the time during the project to document lessons for use in future initiatives; Mentorship Programs to provide on-the-job support to help less experienced staff get up to speed; and Information Management strategies to define common terminology across the organization and ensure that critical information (e.g., policies, procedures, and business processes) is accessible and usable. The report is organized in three major sections. The first presents the scan team’s key findings, with relevant examples from the presentations and background material provided by participants. The second provides a brief summary of KM strategies, based on the scan’s findings, that state departments of transportation (DOTs) can consider. The final section presents strategies and actions the scan team identified for disseminating the scan’s findings and fostering adoption of beneficial KM practices. Appendices provide scan team contact information, scan team biographical sketches, key contacts, desk scan results, amplifying questions, and scan participant responses to amplifying questions.