Creating Strategic AlignmentAcross a Large, Complex Enterprise

Lala Mamedov, Intuit

David Kay, DB Kay & Associates

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AGENDA

• The business context and challenge• The KM community of practice• What we did, how we did it, and what we learned• Outcome• Next Steps

BUSINESS CONTEXT

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Who is Intuit? America’s most trusted name in tax software #1 best selling tax software year after year More federal returns e-filed with TurboTax than all other consumer tax software combined

#1 rated by the Wall Street Journal

>85% U.S. retail segment share 7 million U.S. small businesses use QuickBooks #1 payroll service

#2 best selling software in the U.S. after TurboTax More than 14 million users Over 75% U.S. retail segment share Over 70% brand awareness in households with PCs

How Intuit Develops Products

• Deeply understand people’s real behavior and real pain points• Watch people and then build tools that work the way they work • Create solutions that help them make better decisions and feel

more confident • Launch & learn then revise based on observing users’ behavior

Customer Driven Innovation

Find The Important Customer Problem Today

That We Can Solve Well

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Intuit Ecosystem Approach

• Nine Business Units focusing on specific "Me" • Customer experience optimized for users of the

product – not for users across the company

• Portfolios of services: need to present One Intuit 

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KM Challenge at Intuit

• Shared vision that KM was strategically important...

• Each group was solving the KM challenge in a very creative and innovative way – but its own way

• Little in common Customer experiences Agent competencies Processes Technologies Measurement frameworks

Photo credit: nerovivo (Creative Commons)

THE KM COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE

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Burning Platform?

• Increase customer delight

• Prepare for the new models of support

• Improve the bottom line

“Better answers faster”

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The Solution: KM CoP

What:Cross-Business Community of Practice sponsored by a

senior leader

Mission:

Build social architecture supported by performance and reward system to enable the creation, communication and application of knowledge to achieve business goals

Photo credit: ewiemann (Creative Commons)

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Measurable Outcomes for CoP

1. Identified critical competencies, capabilities, and mindsets

2. Established common framework of people, process, and tools

3. Defined performance metrics, performance standards, and terminology

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Why Our Work Was Cut Out For Us

BU1

BU2

BU3

BU4

We had at least three failed

attempts at KM in the past five

years…Our incidents are all unique

We are world-class in designing innovative

online support experience…but no

KB

We do everything

exactly right – but

the other

members of our

ecosystem don’t

WHAT WE DID

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1. Engaged Executives

• Individual meetings• Open-ended discussion guide

– Business goals– Hopes for KM– Pain points– Concerns– Coaching

• Used to align; dispel myths

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Outcome: positive anticipation; commitment of staff

We need a clear strategy: people,

process, technology

Different business units are in very different places

The nature of our work is changing

We need to become One Intuit

We have a sense of urgency and a bias

towards action

2. Built on Proven Practices

• Extensive questionnaire• Each group completed,

in detail• Analysis

– Readiness– Innovations

to reuse

• Group readout

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Outcome: people knew we were open to their ideas (no “NIH”). We harvested some really great ideas!

Leadership

Store, Deliver, &

Reuse

Contribute / Maintain

Customer Engagement

Analytics / Measures

Operational Profile

About Your Business

Technology

Compe-tencies

PPD

3. Organized Around Deliverables

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Outcome: Clear visibility to the finish line;logically structured, manageable chunks of work

How should agents use and create knowledge?

Knowledge Capture, Reuse, and Improvement

How will customers benefit from knowledge? Customer Engagement

How do we drive change and inspire participation? Leadership

How do we measure success and continually improve? Measurement

Do I need a new KM tool? Infrastructure Requirements

What skills do I need? Do I need a dedicated team? Competencies

4. Distributed Leadership; Self-Organized

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Outcome: People worked on what was interesting and urgent; had opportunities for leadership, visibility

• Six total activities– Two parallel tracks– Approximately 3 weeks per deliverable

• Leaders volunteered– Role / expertise, or interest / desire to help

• Team members volunteered– Often, they needed to implement the practice– Managers: this is your day job

5. Used a Face to Face Kickoff• Hard, hard, HARD!

…but worth it• Official agenda

– Scope– Work planning– PPD readout– Controversies

• Unofficial agenda:create a team

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Outcome: Quickly dealt with rat-hole issues. More “us,” less “them.” Common vision. Accountability.

Photo credit: Office Now (Creative Commons)

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What Would We Do Differently?

1. Better near-term follow-through– Self-assessment

and planning tool: don’t just offer it, facilitate the use of itBe more explicit:“do this next.”

2. Use teleconferencingcapability more

3. Create an executivesummary deliverableas we went

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Self-Assessment and Planning Tool

-1 0 1 2 3 40

1

2

3

4

5

0.766666666666667

0.85

0.225

0.10.1

0.475

0.10.1

0.10.475

2.1

0.850.475

Self-Assessment

Prio

rity

OUTCOMES

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Shared Guiding Principles1. Knowledge management is the core

job of support– Capturing and creating– Improving and updating– Sharing and reusing

2. Knowledge is created and captured at every level, including the frontline

3. People are rewarded based on their contribution to the shared knowledge system

4. The Intuit KM Framework is built on the foundation of Knowledge Centered Support (KCS), an industry best practice for KM

Photo credit: dans le grand bleu (Creative Commons)

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Tangible Deliverables

Compiled requirements for enterprise-wide KM tool and completed vendor selection process

INTUIT KM

FRAMEWORK

Intuit KM Framework – a detailed playbook of six core elements

Redefined support agent competencies, published new job descriptions with knowledge creation requirement for each level

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 Intangible Deliverables

• Sense of community• Regular CoP meetings to share challenges and

successes• Available KM Mentors – people who worked on

each section can share best practices with other teams

• KM CoP is recognized as a success story and will be used as a blueprint for future cross-BU initiatives

 WHAT'S NEXT

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 Next Steps for KM and Intuit 

• Applying the Framework to two initial groups• KM tool implementation based on the

Framework• Other groups are already lining up • Sustain community as members cycle in and out• Evolve the Framework with new learnings• Take it beyond Support

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Lessons Learned: Change Management

• Establish common understanding with key leaders: what success will look like

• Answer simple question: what it all boils down to• Define specific outcomes early• Find out what already wors (PPD)• Self-organized team: people with passion or pain

(or both) – then negotiate to make this part of their day job

• Break out massive project into small chunks, have small groups work in parallel