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Thursday, October 25

Intranet case study: Perkins Eastman

by Toby Ward on Thu 25 Oct 2007 01:19 PM PDT

The fist annual Intranet Innovation awards celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the enhancement and delivery of intranets. Perkins Eastman is the first Gold award winner for communication & collaboration.

Perkins Eastman is a major architectural firm with a clear need to share knowledge between staff located in widely dispersed offices. Practice Area Communities (PAC) were setup on the intranet to share staff expertise, and exchange both explicit and tacit knowledge. This in turn helps drive innovation across the organization as a whole.

Top level structure for a Practice Area Community (PAC), showing the major resources and sections.

The purpose of each Practice Area Community (PAC) is to enable knowledge sharing between individuals; across project teams, studios, offices, and practice areas; and the entire international organization. The knowledge that is transferred at each of these levels enables Perkins Eastman to evolve into an industry leader.

Each PAC contains key information on a key subject such as “Senior Living” (illustrated above) and features information such as:

Design practices
Insights and Lessons Learned
Project Lists
Presentations
Glossary
Strategic Analysis
Planning
Etc.

The PACs are recognized by staff as a key source for information and knowledge. Each PAC is structured to serve as an ongoing educational and learning resource for all staff. The resources provided in each PAC are the sum of the collective wisdom of all staff that contribute and participate – strengthening the firm’s knowledge systems.

Each PAC area is maintained by up to three “Gatekeepers” who have been recognized by the firm as industry and practice area experts with extensive experience and knowledge.

Each Gatekeeper is encouraged to share their knowledge, and to facilitate the sharing of knowledge by other staff. A Knowledge Resource Team (KRT) member serves as a liaison to the Gatekeeper group, and together they ensure each PAC section of ORCHARD (the intranet) undergoes continuous improvement.

The PACs provide a wealth of knowledge, both explicit knowledge that has been codified as well as tacit knowledge exchange in real-time. Providing staff with multiple formats for knowledge sharing and continuous learning, they are provided additional means to innovate and consistently deliver award-winning projects.

Global in nature, the Intranet Innovation Awards have uncovered many innovative ideas. Uniquely, these awards recognize individual intranet improvements, and not intranets as a whole. Fiat, this year's platinum winner, has used their 'Avanti e Veloci' web portal to help turn around the fortunes of their whole business. Other winners include: