Reference no: EM13946363

MITRE Taps the Brain Trust of Top U. S. Experts

MITRE Corporation is responsible for managing the Research and Development (R& D) Centers for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, U. S.

Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. MITRE also researches new technologies that may assist in solving its clients' problems.

More than 7,000 scientists, engineers, and support specialists work in labs managed by MITRE, and most have master's or doctoral degrees. Staff members are engaged in hundreds of different projects across the company. Each staff member possesses valuable technical, operational, and domain knowledge that MITRE wants to tap to its full value and potential. When knowledge management (KM) systems came on the scene in the mid- 1990s, MITRE immediately saw the benefit for its researchers and has been tinkering with KM ever since.

With so many research specialists engaged across its labs, the value of tapping each other's knowledge and collaborating on projects is immense. However, it's a challenge to interact efficiently with low overhead while researchers are simultaneously working on hundreds of separate projects. For knowledge management, MITRE takes a gradual learn- while- you- go approach.

MITRE's first step in providing knowledge management was to simply track its research staff. A people locator was developed as part of the larger MITRE Information Infrastructure (MII). The people locator works like an electronic phone book, identifying which employees worked on which assignments over time. The system drew information from the existing project management systems and human resource systems. Using the people locator, staff could find colleagues with useful knowledge based on previous work or the sponsoring organization.

As MITRE researchers used the people finder, developers refined the system based on user feedback. Over time, they introduced additional capabilities. For example, they added an Expertise Finder to help find researchers with expertise in special areas. MITRE also included a library of best practices for systems engineering and project management in the system. MITRE experimented with technology exchange meetings and an annual Innovation Exchange, which allowed researchers to share their successes with colleagues. When they found new technologies and ideas useful, developers added them to the KM system.

More recently, MITRE has experimented with Web 2.0 technologies similar to Facebook and Wikipedia for its KM system. MITRE's approach to KM has been evolutionary. New ideas are piloted, and those proven valuable and viable are kept in the system. The success of MITRE's KM system is in its unique approach to KM as a journey with continuous improvements.

Discussion Questions (300 word)

1. Why is KM extremely valuable in areas of research and development?

2. How do the different components of MITRE's KM system assist in spreading knowledge throughout its labs and in storing knowledge for use in the future?

Critical Thinking Questions (300 word)

1. What unique challenges do research and development labs provide for KM implementation?

2. What is the benefit of MITRE's evolutionary approach to KM?