In the summer of 2019, I was hired at the Texas Department of Transportation for an amazing internship. It was a wonderful opportunity that allowed me to gain access and knowledge to an esteemed organization. In short, I learned a lot of useful skills and it helped me discover and develop some new professional tools and techniques. My internship was with the Right of Way Division. This part of TxDOT is responsible for obtaining land that is needed for future road and infrastructure projects, and the section within the ROW division I was assigned to is the Information Management Team.  

Currently, TxDOT is in the process of digitizing their paper records and uploading them to a secure content management system named OnBase. It is a huge undertaking and is a large part of what I was helping with during my internship. They are trying to transition to a paper-lite organization. The goal is to achieve this in two years before they move to a new campus in 2022. It is exciting to witness this process, and I am intrigued to learn how this State institution handles such a large project. However, while I was there I noticed something quite interesting happening. A long-time employee was up for retirement, and the panic that this caused was noticeable. This person was employed at TxDOT for over 20 years and holds vast institutional knowledge. Information that only this person knew, and information that if not captured before their departure might be lost. Witnessing this happening sparked an idea.

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          My proposed objective is to find a way to capture and transfer knowledge from one employee to another. The goal is to implement a process where this happens long before the employee retires and panic settles in. I am looking to develop a knowledge management program that helps retain knowledge and provides easy access to this captured knowledge. 

         

          TxDOT currently has a knowledge capture liaison. I have worked with this liaison while they have conducted exit interviews, and have read the reports they have generated from these interviews. This process is time consuming and I felt it was hard to capture all the information people hold from their professional experience in one or two sit-down interviews. In addition, access to this information once it has been collected seems difficult to find or reuse. It is a great step, but I wanted to elaborate on this process.  

         

          The process I designed for future retirees, and individual employees that hold specialized knowledge, is to conduct three interviews over a longer period of time. Ideally this process would start as soon as it is known the person is leaving, but 6 months seems like a sufficient set of time to complete the interviews. I recognized how these exit interviews were being conducted by TxDOT’s knowledge management liaison. The interviews are often vague, and are not transparent, or are vague and not concise. While observing these exit interviews, I noticed that interviewees felt fatigued and annoyed after these extended interrogation sessions and often provided flat answers to the interviewer. I wanted to alter this process to address these issues. The reason I broke this process up into three parts was to allow the interviewee more time to critically think about their role and experience at TxDOT. To make the whole process transparent I created a SharePoint Wiki page that allows for all of the interview questions to be viewed ahead of time. This Wiki page will also provide a space for all the captured knowledge to reside once it has been processed and collected. Having access to the questions lets the interviewee know exactly what questions will be asked and will give them time to prepare or think about their responses. I also believe this process will greatly reduce the time spent conducting actual interview. The best part about the Wiki is that the entire process, from beginning to end, will be kept in one location that is easy to find and navigate.  

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          Once an individual has been selected the interview process will begin. The first interview is centered around daily tasks and functions. The goal in mind is to capture how this employee successfully completes tasks and what processes and tools they utilize to complete them. To begin, an email is sent to this employee outlining the purpose and expectations of the first interview. Within this email is a one-page questionnaire that will ask basic questions pertaining to tasks and processes. These questions will mirror what will be asked in the actual sit-down interview that will be conducted at a later date. Also attached is a template that can be edited that allows the employee to add the tasks they complete and on what days they usually complete them. If a task is monthly or irregular this is noted as well. They will be able to reflect on this for around a month or longer until the sit-down interview is scheduled. The sit-down interview will take roughly an hour and will, with the permission of the interviewee, be recorded. After the interview is conducted it will be edited and added to the Wiki page, along with the interview transcription and a copy of the document filled out by the interviewee outlining their tasks.  

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          The second interview will be focused on contacts and who the employee interacts with to accomplish projects, tasks, or overcomes obstacles. Usually within an organization there is a list of people to contact when needed, but often these are not the people used when trying to carry out a function or fix a problem. For instance, it says that on the list provided employee X is the person who can provide information on a certain task, but to actually get it done, employee Y is the one to contact. This is important information to capture. The second interview will resemble the first. An email will be sent about a month prior to the sit-down interview explaining the purpose and expectations of the second interview. The interviewee will also be provided with a list of questions and a template asking for contact information from their own list, and purpose for contacting these people. The sit-down interview will follow the same steps as in step one and will end up on the Wiki page once it is processed. 

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          The purpose of the third and final interview is to talk to the interviewee about their personal experiences at TxDOT. These questions will look at what the employee liked and did not like about their time at TxDOT. Did they feel supported during their tenure and if it was lacking how support can be improved. Education and training will also be looked at here. Was training sufficient and available to the employee? Were there any standard operating procedures or job aides that the interviewee felt needed to be created or expanded on to assist their team in their absence? Did TxDOT help meet the employee’s needs to be a successful and productive member of the team, and so on. The format will follow the same as the other two with an initial one-page questionnaire being sent prior to the interview about a month in advance, and once the interview has concluded will be posted and recorded to the Wiki. The final posting of the last interview will complete the program I designed to capture the knowledge of a TxDOT employee.   

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          The Wiki SharePoint site is the catch all of this entire project, I used the Wiki to develop and organize all the data and knowledge that was, and will be, captured, in this program. I wanted to discuss some of the features and areas that are present on this page. One of the best features of a Wiki page is that you can link it to almost anything. This means that from one page a user has access to information that is anywhere on the Internet or stored internally within the agency’s SharePoint site. A Wiki page may also be edited by more than a single person, making it easy to share and update knowledge and information on the page. I also wanted to mention that throughout my experience at the iSchool and while working at TxDOT I have come to understand that everyone learns differently. Some people are auditory learners while others are visual. With this in mind, I set out to provide as many options and versions of the information as I could.  Looking to National Public Radio for inspiration I have grown to love the varied ways that they deliver and impart knowledge. When an interview is conducted often there is a video as well as a transcription available. This way you can read, listen, or watch the interview.  This allows there to be several perspectives and ways to absorb the knowledge. The Wiki allows me to present these in an easy to navigate format, while linking the end-user to all the options and link them to several places for many access points, allowing for greater understanding to occur. Here is how I set up the Wiki page. The first image is of the Knowledge Management Homepage.