Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning at Turner Construction Co.

By Emma Skogstad
How does Turner Construction Co., a partner in APQCs Integrating Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning study and the largest commercial builder in the United States with 6,000 employees and offices in almost every major city across the country, ensure its employees have access to the training and tacit knowledge they need to perform their jobs? According to James Mitnick, a senior vice president at Turner, the organization focuses on performance-based learning. Performance, he says, is where learning, knowledge, and collaboration intersect. The Turner knowledge network is the enabler that brings those three components together to drive performance. The philosophy of the Turner knowledge network is: to provide access to learning and knowledge across the company in a consistent and organized format to assist in the development, recruitment, and retention of staff. History of the Turner Knowledge Network In 1999 Turner was acquired by Hochtief AG1, a German-based construction services provider. At the time, Turners new chairman, Tom Leppert, approached Mitnick with a vision for expanding the organization by aligning the learning and business strategies. Leppert believed this alignment was necessary to achieve the growth goals he set out for the organization: to expand by 15 to 20 percent each year--meaning the organization would have to add between 500 to 1,000 new engineers annually to accommodate for retirees, growth, and attrition. These engineers would subsequently need to be trained. Leppert wanted Mitnick to find a way to share information across the organization so that it could transfer the necessary skills and competencies, have them align with the business goals, and have the necessary resources in place to grow. In September 2000, Mitnick laid out the concept of a knowledge network. Within 90 days, the Turner knowledge network was developed. Creating a Streamlined Knowledge Marketplace At the conception of the Turner knowledge network, Mitnick and his team needed to address three key business issues: alignment of learning with the business strategy, performance-driven learning, and change management. Alignment of learning with the business strategy included supporting the growth of the company, training newly acquired employees, and developing consistent, quality content that is easy to access and use. Consistent quality in instructor-led events was also an issue. Performance-driven learning focuses on the intersection of learning, knowledge, and collaboration, which according to Mitnick, drives performance and profitability. Key components include 147 instructor-led and Web-based courses, CDs, books, on-the-job training, access to manuals, forms, checklists and best practices, and the ability to communicate and share information across business units and functional departments. Tools include fully integrated portal technology (with a robust document/content management system and the ability to search across multiple databases), a learning management system and learning content management system, a virtual classroom for collaboration, and communities of interest and practice. Change management was the greatest challenge in 2004, according to Mitnick. With an acceptance rate of only about 50 percent in employees older than 35, this population has had difficulty adapting to the Turner knowledge network. To address this, Turner is piloting several applications, including role-based dashboards, embedded learning in an individuals job, personal search pages, development plans, and communities of practice. The Turner Knowledge Network Concept Part of the Turner knowledge network concept is an integrated learning management system and learning content management system. The integration of the two allows for course development, registration for learning events, tracking and certification, search and browse, learning paths, skill gap analysis, discussion groups, document version control, and calendars. Another aspect of the concept was document management, or the codification of useful information for reuse. Finally, the remaining piece of the concept was knowledge management, which includes collaboration and communities of practice. Mitnick realized the concept had to be as simple as turning on a light switch and integrated into individuals work or the learners would not use it.

Hochtief AG (www.hochtief.de) is now one of the worlds largest construction firms after acquisitions in Canada, the Czech Republic, Australia, and the United States. North American operations account for about half of group sales. (Retrieved from www.hoovers.com on November 13, 2004.)

Mitnick quickly realized that the organizations IT infrastructure would not support the fledgling knowledge network. Consequently, every computer, router, switch, and server in the organization was redesigned and/or replaced to develop a common platform--a considerable investment for nearly 4,000 employees at the time. Leppert has continued to support and champion the Turner knowledge network and its growth by funding its expansion. (Funding for the Turner knowledge network is a corporate expense and is partially offset by income generated from the sale of courses licensed to owners, architects, and subcontractors, and income from the AEC Community e-Store. According to Mitnick, the chairman has yet to turn down any of his requests for funding related to the network.) According to Mitnick, Leppert sees the value of the Turner knowledge network and views it as the foundation for the future growth of the organization. For Turner, the future of learning will be a combination of all types of learning events fully integrated in communities of practice. This will allow the Turner knowledge network team to weave the learning across the entire organization by allowing it to cross vertical and horizontal silos. Making the same mistakes repeatedly is expensive. Being able to share information in a community improves employees time to competency, reduces mistakes, and improves profitability and value to customers.

Roles and Partnerships In addition to a team of 10 staff members (described below) that assists with Turner knowledge network deployment and delivery, Mitnick works with a Turner knowledge network board of executives. This board exists separately from the corporate Turner board and is comprised of two members from the corporate board (one outside the director), the organizations chairman, the head of HR, Turners chief information officer, three general managers, and one operations manager. According to Mitnick, this group represents a solid cross-section of the organization. The general managers on the board are rotated every two years to get more people involved in the Turner knowledge network. Mitnick has also designated a network champion in each operating unit. This person may have from three to 15 years of experience with the company and is responsible for understanding everything about Turner knowledge network. Working directly with Mitnick is his team of 10 staff members, all of whom are remote employees: 1. an administrator who oversees everything related to OSHA (which impacts 10,000 subcontractors, owners, and architects); 2. an assistant who oversees all administrators; 3. a Livelink administrator; 4. a marketing manager who is responsible for all graphics, artwork, the course catalog, the AEC Community eStore, external communications, and works closely with the corporate marketing group; 5. an instructional designer; 6. a portal manager who takes care of all HTML coding; 7. a person who interfaces with IT (but works with Mitnick full time); 8. a part-time employee who deals with integration issues; 9. a deputy who oversees all content development; and 10. a person who acts as a project manager for developing new content. Mitnick will also add a full-time graphic artist in 2005. In addition, the network is supported by a team of technical and learning specialists from Intellinex who are integrated with the network team. The team also works with subject matter experts and content managers (rotated every two years). The subject matter experts, who do this as a part-time role, help the team develop course content Gatekeepers are responsible for managing documents and serving as experts for courses. According to Mitnick, they are highly respected individuals in the organization and determine permissions, best practices, etc. In 2005 Mitnick plans to add one person in every office whose sole purpose is leadership and development. This person will become the Turner knowledge network champion in the business unit and will sit at the business table with the senior team of that business unit. He or she will represent the individual development and focus on knowledge transfer in the organization. This will enable the board to add leadership and development plans, learning, and the transfer of knowledge to the organizations agenda and drive it down into the business units.

Aspects of the Turner Knowledge Network In Turner knowledge network, there is a separate tab and space for document management. This space is tightly controlled by gatekeepers who review and edit all documents available to Turner staff. These 11,000 documents include manuals, forms, best practices, and other information that is relevant to the staff, including: Business Unit Intranet Sites that look and feel just like the Turner knowledge network portal but are specific to a business unit. The business units add content and maintain all news articles and documents; Turner News which is available from employees home pages as a live tab. Turner News is co-owned by corporate marketing and the Turner knowledge network. They post something new on this page every day; Turner Tools are accessed through the portal, an online dashboard that connects employees to corporate employee resources such as information on benefits, job postings, and archived news; Turner University is focused on measurement, development, learning, and collaboration. The university lives on another database, but it is branded to look similar to the portal. To the average employee, the integration between the two appears seamless. In Turner University, three different views for learners, administrators, and managers exist, with access determined by an employees role; AEC Community e-Store is a virtual store that offers branded goods and safety-related equipment for Turner projects. Revenue from the store supports the development of learning in the organization. Currently the store is available only to Turner employees, but Turner plans to make it available to the rest of the world soon; and Knowledge and Learning Objects live in Turner knowledge network and can be accessed through a URL in any form including video, audio, PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and PDFs. This allows Turner to codify tacit knowledge and make it reusable and searchable by all staff. Measuring the Results According to Mitnick, the Turner knowledge network team will always have to measure the impact of learning on the organization because when something is not measured, attention is not paid to it. However, measuring is not easy to do. Mitnick admits to being good at Kirkpatricks2 Levels 1 and 2 measures but believes that the team is not where it should be with regard to Levels 3 and 4 measures. The team is just starting to measure the impact, or change, in the organization from the implementation of Turner knowledge network. There are plans in place for a pilot to measure for Level 4. This will entail taking 20 of the most profitable projects in the company, determining who was (or is) assigned to those projects, and measuring the learning impact of those individuals. The next step will be to do the same for the 20 least profitable jobs. Criteria including schedule and earnings will be used to determine the best and worst jobs. Then Mitnick will attempt to determine whether any correlations can be drawn between the successful projects and the unsuccessful ones based on those individuals, how long they have been with the company, which job family they are a part of, and whether they consider themselves to be learners. Another Level 4 pilot will look across the company at a particular function (e.g., purchasing managers) and force rank them. Mitnick wants to look at the top third and bottom third performers in a particular functional area and determine whether any correlations to learning can be made based on their performance. Other metrics collected by the Turner knowledge network team include the number of hours of Web-based learning, the number of registered and completed courses, annual registrations and completions, the number of unique users, the top 20 courses, new courses under development, and Turner knowledge network enhancements. Leveraging the Competency Model and Skill Gap Analysis The Turner knowledge network team and Turners business managers can identify skill gaps across levels in a target audience. Using a red/yellow/white legend, the Turner knowledge network team (or Turner managers) can easily identify skill gaps. Any areas in yellow or red indicate a significant skill gap. This means that leadership now knows which people to focus its training efforts on. The competency model and skill analysis tool are changing the entire organization, according to Mitnick, because it ties into all the learning. Mitnicks team uses these tools to help determine what content to focus on and what courses to develop and push out. Although it has taken a few years for Turners employees to get accustomed to the system and the university, the results are positive. The scorecard shows that Turner went from 30,000 course registrations in 2003 to more than 62,000 in 2004.

A four-level approach that Donald Kirkpatrick first published in 1959 to help trainers assess their effectiveness.

Lessons Learned and Future Plans Mitnick shared the following critical success factors, lessons learned, and plans for the future of Turner knowledge network. Critical Success Factors Champions in the business units who act as the mouthpiece for Turner knowledge network A board of senior leaders who are respected in the organization and are strong Turner knowledge network supporters and proponents. They talk about Turner knowledge network across the county. With their support, Turner knowledge network is on the agenda of every meeting Strong relationships with internal partners such as IT and HR A quality product Learning embedded into the workplace Useful content that is relevant and timely Lessons Learned Do not underestimate the importance of change management. You will need to tell the story many times and in different ways before you have universal acceptance in your organization. Do not assume that everyone is comfortable with using technology or that your infrastructure will work under all conditions. Over-communicate your message to staff and senior leadership. Make sure you have strategically aligned your learning strategy with your business strategy. Never get frustrated. Change is sometimes slow. Keep pushing, and always remain focused on your objectives Keep senior managers engaged. Demonstrate how you can add value to the organization that can differentiate you from your competition. Make sure your system is fully integrated and simple for the end user. Future Plans Turner intends to develop role-based dashboards that present to the user all the relevant information needed to perform a job. This dashboard will be dynamic and will change depending on ones role, organization, and current assignment. This will involve embedding learning into everyones workspace to improve individual skills and value to customers, and use both pull and push technology. Turner also wants all staff to have access to learning and knowledge regardless of where they are. This means wireless and secured access anywhere on a building project or community anywhere in the world.

A full report of best practices at Turner and the other partners of APQCs Integrating Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning study, including Accenture, IBM, and others, will be released in April 2005 for purchase at www.apqc.org/pubs.

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