The Australian Government Information Management Office Archive

Australian Public Service Knowledge Management Case Studies

February 2004

Overview

Over the past few years, there has been continued interest in the issue of knowledge management (KM) within the Australian Public Service (APS). Many agencies and departments have embarked on KM initiatives, some have called their initiatives knowledge management programs, others have purposely labelled them differently.  

Publications such as Transforming Government: Achievements in E-Government and Transforming Government: Enhancing Productivity have case studies that show APS agencies and departments use technology to transform their processes, information provision and transactional environments.  Just as the APS is at the forefront of global e-government practice, so it is one of the leading administrations in knowledge management practices within the public sector. 

There are many case studies published on successful implementations of knowledge management but few of these cover the public sector.  There is even less published material available on public sector initiatives within Australia.  This lack of material causes frustration and confusion for public sector knowledge management practitioners who find it difficult to gain comparative information that would be useful to developing their own knowledge strategies and implementing KM initiatives.  

This series of case studies is designed to fill that knowledge gap.  It will provide knowledge management practitioners with a guide to how other agencies are tackling their KM challenges and it may provide possible pathways for approaching their own particular situation.  

Case Studies

Each of the following case studies was published in February 2004.

Australian Bureau of Statistics - Enabling Knowledge Management @ the ABS - provides an overview of the development of knowledge management at the ABS, including the promotion of a supporting culture and information behaviours, the technological framework for knowledge sharing in workgroup databases, as well as plans for the near-term future.

Centrelink - Data Shop KM Products - details the various  knowledge management products that have been developed including an organisation-wide thesaurus, standardised network of off-site file storage centres, performance management systems and regional micro-simulation modelling for spatial analysis.  Some of these products won 2003 actKM awards.

Centrelink - KM Principles and Lessons Learned- outlines Centrelink's philosophical and strategic development of KM principles.  The case study includes some of KM's challenges and what KM means to Centrelink.

Insolvency and Trustee Service Australia - Knowledge Management Strategy Development at ITSA - describes ITSA's approach to develop a knowledge management strategy including its objectives and outcomes, business drivers and details of programs to be implemented.

Discussion of Case Studies

These case studies demonstrate a wide range of knowledge management applications within the Australian Public Service. They also reflect different stages of progress in conducting KM initiatives within agencies from the recent completion of a comprehensive KM strategy to ones that have already embarked on long knowledge management journeys.   

These case studies show how APS agencies are using KM to tackle their strategic challenges.  For example, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has used KM to underpin its working environment.  Workgroup-based databases are used to facilitate group information storage and exchange.  In addition, certain behavioural traits are encouraged to promote an organisational culture that values sharing of information.  These behaviours and technologies are used to help the staff of the ABS collate, analyse and publish large amounts of statistical information.

Another example of the clever use of technology is by Centrelink.  Their large data holdings now use advanced KM products that are employed to map common terms and phrases, monitor the performance of the entire organisation and modelling systems to simulate trends to display data graphically on a small geographic area.

Technological solutions are important but KM is more about just technology.  The ITSA case study demonstrates how KM can be used to develop strategy that integrates across a range of functions including organisational development, HR, workflow and information management.  For large-scale projects like this, a staged approach is required and this case study can provide useful suggestions to others about how such a journey can be taken. 

By no means can this small number of case studies do justice to cover the full range of KM applications and knowledge strategies that exist within the APS.  However, they do provide a general indication of some of the different ways that the intricacies of KM are tackled and some of the key tools and techniques that have been applied.  The case studies demonstrate the critical importance of information and knowledge to APS organisations and how can technology can be used to support, but not drive, agency performance.

Contact Us

Contact details for each of the organisations represented in the case studies are included.

Additional case studies are always welcome.

Contact the AGIMO Better Practice Team