Template-driven Best Practice Documentation

Abstract

Knowledge Management has become a key instrument for identifying, creating and sharing organizational knowledge assets. An attractive means for sharing knowledge is Best Practices (BPs), which are proven as well as efficient and effective solutions to recurring problems. BPs can offer significant benefits, including improved performance, reduced rework and cost savings. However, the implementation of BPs raises several challenges, one of which is that the low quality of BP documentation can impede the use of BPs. One way to address this challenge is by supporting designers in structuring BP documents so that they become complete, uniform and easy-to-use. This support can take the form of a BP Document Template that prescribes the structure of BP documents by defining relevant attributes for describing BPs. This paper proposes a comprehensive and practical BP Document Template for supporting the creation, use and evaluation of BP documents. The design of this template is an example of design science research including requirements elicitation, artifact development, demonstration, and evaluation. The development is based on a combination of expert interviews and a literature study using Grounded Theory, while the demonstration applies the proposed template in three real-life cases, and the evaluation is based on expert interviews. The proposed BP Document Template consolidates, integrates and extends previous work on BP documentation. It thereby offers an effective tool for BP designers, managers, and users that can support them in the design, evaluation and application of BPs.

Developing SME performance management practices: interventions for improving productivity

“…Farrukh et al (2019) identify the resource implications of these interaction patterns, and stress the need for balance between extensive, lower cost interactions such as a 1-many workshops, versus the number of intensive of 1-1 consultations with individual firms. The use of intensive 1-1 consultations is important because fidelity; the customisation, adaptation and reconfiguration of "standard" best practices or "templates" to the local business context, is critical to successful diffusion and development of practices (Alwazae et al, 2020;Done et al, 2011;McGovern et al, 2017). One common mechanism for achieving this is the use of expert transfer agents (Done et al, 2011;McGovern et al, 2017;Reid et al, 2019), who act in a coaching mode (Vidal-Salazar et al, 2012;Farrukh et al, 2019;Gray et al, 2011).…”

“…(2019) identify the resource implications of these interaction patterns, and stress the need for balance between extensive , lower cost interactions such as a 1-many workshops, versus the number of intensive of 1–1 consultations with individual firms. The use of intensive 1–1 consultations is important because fidelity; the customisation, adaptation and reconfiguration of “standard” best practices or “templates” to the local business context, is critical to successful diffusion and development of practices (Alwazae et al. , 2020; Done et al.…”