Monetical Thinking - November 19

Knowledge as a Service

Monetical helps organisations and Scrum Teams stay agile with launch of world’s first Agile Knowledge as a Service (KaaS) cloud-based platform

This article highlights the challenges organisations face when seeking and engaging Agile expertise during and beyond their Agile transformation. The following insights are gained from more than a decade of accompanying organisations through Agile transformations where the emergence of cloud-based Knowledge as a Service (KaaS) platforms, such as Monetical, are proving themselves an essential component of successful transformations and Agile organisation.

INTRODUCTION

Leveraging more than a decade of experience accompanying organisations through Agile transformations, Monetical has created the world's first cloud-based Agile Knowledge as a Service (KaaS) platform. The idea for an Agile KaaS originated from the Monetical vision to have all organisations and Scrum Teams improve their agility through upward spirals of knowledge creation and continuous improvement.

Increasing numbers of organisations are adopting Agile methodologies[1] to improve the speed of product innovation, increase customer satisfaction, improve internal efficiency and their market adaptability. As depicted in Figure 1, organisations have a range of internal and external change agent options when seeking to obtain the Agile expertise to support the three key stages of their Agile Transformation (design, adopt and optimise). The options range from simple “Web Search” through to “Hire Full Time” Agile transformation Contractors or Consultants. The Monetical addressable market spans the internal and external change agent spectrum.

 
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Figure 1: Monetical spans the Agile Transformation Knowledge Spectrum

As you move from left to right in the transformational knowledge spectrum (Figure 1), the costs associated with change agents increase. Each change agent has visible direct costs but also a range of hidden costs that Monetical has classified as search, translation, content, scaling, trust and durability (detailed in Table 1).


TRANSACTION COST DEFINITION

Search Costs - Searches of the Web or databases can produce a vast and confusing array of information. There is a cost relating to the time needed to identify the completeness, validity, accuracy, consistency, integrity and timeliness of knowledge.

Transaction Costs - The translation costs refer to the effort to understand the principles and work-out how to apply them to an organisation’s situation.

Content Costs - The cost of acquiring intellectual property (processes, templates, consultant fees, software code, innovations etc.) across the entire scope of the transformation, which typically calls for a range of sources.

Scaling Costs - Costs associated with delivering knowledge to the right audience within an organisation and how these costs increase as the complexity of the organisation or transformation increases.

Trust Costs - Costs arising from trusting knowledge that has poor quality. “Poor quality” refers to knowledge that does not follow best practices; is factually incorrect or incomplete; does not bring intended value; has unclear meaning or applicability and therefore generates extra costs to improve the quality, and so on. Trust costs also include the opportunity cost of successful timely adoption or the reputation risk associated with an inefficient or unsuccessful adoption.

Durability Costs - The shelf-life of knowledge and how it adapts over time in response to internal / external circumstances. Does knowledge regularly evolve to reflect current thinking, best practices or trends.

The extensive library of structured Agile transformation knowledge embedded in Monetical enables early identification of these hidden costs because it grants access to situational knowledge in a transparent and structured manner - Monetical's core value proposition. Monetical aims to play an increasingly important role as a driver of cost efficiencies and as a complementary solution for contractors and consultants in the Agile professional services market.


MONETICAL GUIDES EXTERNAL CHANGE AGENTS TO MAKE BETTER DECISIONS

To support their Agile transformation, many organisations typically engage the support of Contractors and Management Consultants for periods ranging from a few months to a couple of years. These external change agents bring an initial wave of Agile expertise into an organisation and work alongside internal staff like Project Managers and Scrum Masters. Unfortunately, we regularly see organisations repeating the Agile transformation errors made by others, because they fail to identify the hidden costs. They are also often "distracted" because the Agile transformation is tied to implementation of a new system or solution thereby exposing them to a larger spectrum of risks. Monetical has identified that this is in part caused by the limited ability of change agents to draw on past Agile transformation experiences.

Constant access to a repository of best practices is necessary because it helps guide the transformation and highlight risks in advance. To avoid “tunnel vision” and thereby miss seeing hidden risks, this best practice knowledge should be compiled from multiple perspectives. A cloud-based solution enables this constant access to any number of parallel users. Once implemented, this solution should be a “living” resource that is continuously updated with newly identified risks, opportunities and transferrable knowledge. This is where Monetical can help.

"It's better to leverage Agile transformation knowledge compiled from multiple perspectives"

Organisations that chose to incorporate an Agile Transformation as part of an implementation of a new system or solution expose themselves to higher risks. The need to focus on delivering the new system or solution, results in a highly tailored, narrowed Agile adoption that overlooks broader organisational changes needed for example Human Resources, Customer Services or procurement, to mention a few.


RETAIN AN OPTIMUM LEVEL OF AGILE ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITY

Every market, organisation, solution and service is subject to constant change. Technology trends, innovations, competitive actions, or changing customer requirements are common drivers of change. Every organisation can determine the success of its’ Agile adoption - its’ organisational capability and thereby influence its’ culture of continuous learning. This requires ongoing access to Agile expertise - the application and testing of knowledge to align with the changing business environment. Every organisation adopting Agile is faced with two paths in the optimise phase of an Agile transformation. This path can be upward (constructive) or downward (destructive), as shown in Figure 2. Without significant in-house investment and the prolonged use of a KaaS such as Monetical, the organisation is likely to rapidly reach an optimum level of performance after completing their Agile transformation and then just as rapidly fall back due to a lack of ongoing investment to deal with every-day matters and the changing internal and external landscape.

 
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Figure 2: Two Paths of Agile Organisational Capability

To ensure the organisation is constantly improving its Agile capability during the Optimise phase as indicated by the upward trending dotted line in the Figure, it must establish constant, cost-effective, efficient and relevant access to Agile knowledge. Monetical provides this necessary access throughout the three phases of Agile Transformation (design, adopt and optimise).  Monetical embeds upward spirals of knowledge creation[2] and Agile feedback loops into daily working practices and thereby supports your organisation improve its Agile capability continuously through the Optimise phase.

"The world’s first and largest source of structured Agile knowledge available as-a-Service on one of the world’s top rated and most trusted cloud computing services[3]"

ABOUT MONETICAL

Monetical leverages decades of Agile consulting experience to create the world’s first and largest source of structured Agile knowledge provided on one of the world’s most trusted cloud computing services. Placing the Monetical Knowledge as a Service (KaaS) in the hands of your Agile transformation team empowers them with knowledge from major Agile transformations that have already happened at the National Health Service, recognised FTSE and international organisations.

An Agile transformation KaaS enables your organisation to learn from best practices, internalise its’ knowledge and progress upwards in a spiral of knowledge creation that drives continuous improvement.

Organisations that chose to leverage Monetical throughout their Agile Transformation and beyond:

  • Receive a step by step guide to carrying out the timely best practice changes to their Agile organisation structure.

  • Gain an ability to constantly measure, plan and report on the status of their Agile transformation using a suite of dedicated Agile application management tools and workflows. Transparency is improved.

  • Have the ability to constantly measure their Agile capability using a series of Agile Maturity assessments.

  • Have the ability to constantly improve their Agile capability by gaining access to a database of performance improvement measures. These are drawn from real-life examples.

Today, Monetical delivers Agile expertise to organisations and individual professionals that form part of a global knowledge management market that experts predict will grow to USD 1,232,000 million by 2025[4].

FURTHER INFORMATION & REFERENCES

For a complete free of charge 30 day access to Monetical suite of KaaS offerings visit www.monetical.com and sign-up for an account.

1. Harvard Business Review, May/June 2018

2. The Knowledge-Creating Company: How Japanese Companies Create the Dynamics of Innovation by Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi (284 pages, Oxford University Press, 1995). Also referred to on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SECI_model_of_knowledge_dimensions

3. Microsoft Azure Reviews (TrustRadius, 2019)

https://www.trustradius.com/products/microsoft-azure/reviews

4. Global Knowledge Management Market Will Reach USD 1,232,000 million by 2025 (Zion Market Research, 2018)

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2018/05/11/1501037/0/en/Global-Knowledge-Management-Market-Will-Reach-USD-1-232-000-million-by-2025-Zion-Market-Research.html