Facilitated Transfer of Best Practices – APQC

I have been reviewing the new APQC report, Facilitated Transfer of Best Practices, released on October 14, 2004. (An earlier study, Measuring the Impact of Knowledge Management, had found that transferring best practices was the primary source of positive financial results from knowledge management and, at the same time, this opportunity was being under used. The study looked at 29 large scale organizations across a number of industries to determine best practices for transferring best practices. Participants include CEMEX (a world leader in building materials from Mexico), Ford, and Service Master (homeowner services provider)

Here is a summary of the five key steps for Transferring Best Practices from their findings.

1. Identify or create practices and processes to be transferred. Make this effort explicit and supported. Some organizations create communities to develop, evaluate, and propagate newly found best practices.

2. Document and validate the practices. It is critical to make the practices accessible and to continue to test and refine them.

3. Share and communicate the best practices. Pick the methods that work in your firm. Some organizations use workshops, replication teams, and structured “information maps.”

4. Create a clear adoption policy as to whether the best practices are voluntary or mandatory. Even if they are voluntary it is important to publicize successes to encourage others to pick them up.

5. Measure and report results. All those successful in the transfer process had a measurement and reporting system.

The study goes into useful detail and offers six detailed case studies on participant organizations. I have done work for two of them, Ford and CEMEX and was impressed with each as leaders in their markets. Ford is well known for quality. CEMEX, located in Monterey, Mexico, is the largest producer of cement in the Americas with the highest profit margins in the industry. They accomplish these results primarily through innovation and new technology.

I recommend getting a copy of Facilitated Transfer of Best Practices for anyone who wants to realize significant and sustained returns from their knowledge management and best practices transfer efforts.

Comments

[Alex]

Hi Bill,
Thank you for the review. Do you know how I can get a copy at a very low cost. As a PhD student I cannot afford to buy this very interesting study...I would be interested to compare the CEMEX experience with the one of Lafarge (the world's leader in building materials).

Thanks.