Social Analysis of the Problem of Synergy in Implementing Commonkads System - Assignment Example

Assessment Item 2 Social Analysis Subject Number: ISIT917 Subject Name: Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management Student Number: Student Name: Tutorial Day: Tutorial Time: Tutor: Due Date: Date Submitted: Declaration: I declare that this assignment is original and has not been submitted forassessment elsewhere, and acknowledge that t he assessor of this assignment may, for the purpose of assessing this assignment: Reproduce this assignment/ and provide a copy to another member of faculty; and/or Communicate a copy of this assignment to a plagiarism checking service (which may then retain a copy of this assignment on its database for the purpose of future plagiarism checking” Table of Contents Declaration………...………………………………………….….........………………1 Personal Reflection ………………………………………………….…….......……3 Social Analysis…………………………………………………….…………...........6 Information Politic reading material…………………………….….……….6 Concept of Ba reading material………………………………….…....………..7 Application of reading materials into EMS……………………….………….8-11 References…………………………………………………………………..................……12 Personal Reflection The assignment in the commonkads was very interesting and Very stimulating in thought. My challenge was on the various solutions and also in the integration of all departments by multi-skills training of all staff to change their processes in order to complement the nurse dispatcher’s job of receiving calls and doing triage while bypassing the General practitioner. The problems I faced in this exercise were many ranging from poor communication skills to redundant staff who never wanted to upgrade their skills, resistance to change and unwillingness to change, negative attitude of staff. In addition, unprofessionalism, lack of interest in job, lack of motivation, lazy workers, illiterate drivers, lack of teamwork. This was exacerbated by office politics, bad rumours, lack of integrity and accountability ,no transparency, no clear career growth structures, lack of staff training policy poor human resources policies . I realised my biggest mistake of assuming that all staff will welcome the new changes in work relationships in implementing the commonkads. It is curious to know the staff at EMS was portrayed as angels who make no errors. It is also interesting as we see little socialisation between the drivers and the dispatchers, which means there is many interdepartmental wars or cocoons and units are not interdependent hence there, is the problem of synergy in implementing commonkads system. The knowledge deficit cause at EMS was also very challenging because the structure was not consistent as the dispatchers were the one who did received calls for triage on heart cases n yet the entire main problem was redirected to the General practitioner yet the nurse dispatchers must have participated in the problem solving. They never gave chance to the GP hence given a situation of participatory approach at solving problems the EMS could have arrived at a solution other than eliminating the GP but instead to eliminate the nurse dispatchers as part of the solution among other options. Certainly, the commonkads analysis enabled me to focus in many different viewpoints on the same case yet the various ways of solving the problems were not within the present management of EMS. There was need to start teamwork training for the drivers to socialise with the dispatchers .However this is problematic due to superiority complex of nurse who view drivers as inferior in the organisational hierarchy. A another problem of the system implementation is the office politics where those who feel superior put social class first hence affect the goals of Ems as well as affect staff morale and motivation. The GP should have been involved in designing the new solutions as they were the main callers at EMS then they had a right to be involved as they were the core competent persons even in implementation of commonkads .This shows the GP delays was a symptom to bigger organisational management problem . It shows how commonkads can be blindly misleading tool. It is a means to an end and the end should be well analysed since the dispatchers seems to have problems even after implementation of the commonkads modelling solution .This shows the root cause of the problems at Ems can not be addressed fully by commonkads. How will the commonkads ensure the most urgent cases are known better than in the past instances? Since the same method of using, the telephone is still used. The voices at the phone have no calibration to be adjusted or to adjust to the level of sickens and nurse dispatchers will still rely on hunch or heuristics to decide on where to dispatch ambulance or not. The proposed commonkads focus on callers and dispatchers and information capture from the clients themselves was problematic. It was not easy to know how to differentiate serious caller and a false alarm. It was also not a system to be sure in the case whether the nurse dispatchers did as peer triage questionnaire or guesswork. The dispatcher developed a superiority complex as the focus of the commonkads led to other departments appearing g to be less important to the management as many changes were focused on improving dispatchers where the commonkads tool was focused on providing solution. The nurses could delay to dispatch or take incomplete details and hence this will lead to more deaths, as the client will not be assisted in time. It will affect the ambulance drivers as well as paramedic and the entire EMS. if in case of a nurse dispatcher is biased their will be flawed dispatch as the nurse feels they have all the knowledge to do triage, this is problem of information politics which should be resolved as it will increase more problems of coordination and team work. They feel privileged and in charge of life and death decisions and look upon other employees as inferior In addition, it is hard to know how correct the dispatchers information is and how accurate. How do we ask the dispatcher whether were they tell us the truth or is there a way to know there were no errors or omissions commission or errors of commission or errors of omissions fro heart patient instructions over the phone by dispatchers. In case of any error, there could be more delays and the delay will still be traced to the old problems as scapegoats of the dispatchers also in case of omission there will also be more deaths and the omission will be interpreted as caused by delays. This is because the delays seems to explains all the problems of the heart EMS deaths and with time it become part of the culture of excuse of all mismanagement problems .it usually will always be traced to the GP belays or the patients delay or treatment delay yet its work of the nurse . This assignment has opened my mind to other area of focus beyond the original analysis to areas of other serious problems that are not seen by client but the major realignment of structure and processes in a radical way to make use of resources at EMS . Social Analysis (a) Information Politic reading material This reading summarise the political models that make the most pragmatic sense in organisations of today. According to these models, Information is not innocent and must be used for a particular purpose either for good or for bad and never neutral. These theories show the need to classify knowledge management processes into local versus centralized control of information in the company. The theory explains that organisation are in continuum of growth from worse position to better .This is the line or Continuum of information control where all information’s processes of sharing knowledge can be classed for further processing for different uses. The theory delves into different levels of models of information management. One such model is in the continuum is Information Anarchy caused due to information breakdown in organisations or when executive do not realize importance of common information to survival of the company. (a) summary of Concept of Ba reading material The concept of Ba is defined as shared space or place that serve as a foundation for creation of knowledge. The concept of Ba is a team concept about knowledge creation in form of tacit knowledge and conversion into explicit knowledge. This model describes how organisation knowledge is created and converted into Ba .This Ba is then shared with the company group through a process of knowledge conversion called the SECI Model. This Ba incorporates both the explicit and tacit knowledge. The knowledge thus is the Ba. The Ba in individual is the tacit knowledge while the Ba in the group is the converted into explicit knowledge. This SECI model show how external customer and partners can be made to participate in the Ba of the group hence they share the explicit knowledge, which they then internalise into future conversion into Ba of group knowledge values and management. The SECI simply means socialization, externalisation, combination and internalization of Ba. The SECI is good model for knowledge creation and any organisation can adopt its processes. Application of reading materials into EMS These information politic theories can provide theoretical insight into the Emergency medical services. The different models of information are tools in which we can understand the problems facing EMS in a better light. One such model in the continuum is model of Information Anarchy. Here the Ems has been able seem tom practice anarchy of information is as all processes seem to have broken. This implies that EMS bosses and manager do not know true value of sharing interdepartmental knowledge of common information to survival of the firm. The dispatcher have a detached attitude to the ambulance drivers and paramedics and have gone ahead to show that even the General practitioner is the one responsible for many deaths yet this is just one symptom of information anarchy. They do not have enough information to know the root cause of delays and can only guess the way they do triage calls as well as in the scheduling of dispatch schedules by heuristic and hunch or gut feeling. The Ems has characteristic of anarchistic firms as it has autonomous knowledge workers the nurse dispatchers. It also has a system manager developer, who controls the Nurses take call in work of dispatching ambulance. He EMS bosses need to eradicate this anarchy of bad behaviour and quickly harnessed into more political model for the benefit of the Emergency medical service. By focusing on the nurses dispatchers only at Ems. It is promoting the same behaviour as practised by INTEL Company in this reading which Rewarded manager for autonomous creative actions hence got Anarchy. This is t he direction where Ems is heading if it does not Integrate other functions and treat them as similarly important. The nurse dispatcher have now started feeling that there works The only most serious job at EMs hence all others are not important. Yet all need synergy for best performance ofn the team at EMS. The EMS management must now quickly harnessed the dispatcher energy into an efficient political model including federalism In addition, I recommend the political model information monarchy as Suitable for EMS. The EMS can also benefit from the model concept of Ba as a form of shared space or place the EMS has opportunities to allow General practitioner and specialist doctors to form groups and external Ba teams with the heart patients can be involve in designing problems for the Ems and the concept of BA will be useful. This will be creating the individual Ba and then externalising the values of EMS to the patients group Ba. Inn turn the BA then externalizing again to the patients and potential patients to assume responsibilities for heart awareness and information sharing among the population. The general practitioners can be involved through the concept of Ba model sub units. The units who are part of the Ems function of professional will interact in one way of another with heart patients. This can go along way in removing the barriers of psychological and sociological barriers to heart problems information is sharing and especially emergency information on coronary therapy. The Ba will then that serve Ems as a foundation for creation of knowledge. The Ba is a team concept and EMS can benefit from team building spirit of the SECI model. Even the transcendental qualities are good for reflection on personal and group experiences and can even be therapeutic as they are related to meditation hence lead to serious commitment by the staff of EMS. The Ba in individual is the tacit knowledge while the Ba in the EMS group is the converted into explicit knowledge then this is converted into Ba of the individual staff members at EMS. This Ba of staff members is the tacit knowledge created to assist EMS to survive its challenges. Therefore, EMS will benefit from this theory of the concept of BA and the SECI model to create and also manage information and knowledge. To survive EMS requires creativity at lightening speed and should use information to create a power base and build momentum for change to the better and this will need manager who know political and economic tactics of information management. These models are strategic to Ems on whether to use SECI model of BA or be information Ecologists or technologists, federalist or monarchy. The Models of information politics compare to commonkads in that they provide some means to improve the EMs information management. At EMS Information is not innocent and must be used for a particular purpose, if it not useful that the dispatcher should not capture date from callers who are creates false alarms. The callers at EMS supply critical information about patient’s diseases and it is important for EMS to recognise that it is not innocent in keeping customers information or data as this information can be used by different people information means different things at patient’s premises. This EMS can use this political models theory to classify knowledge management processes into local versus centralized control of information in the company. This will help to put in place a better information management tool. The Ems can use this information politic theory and concept of Ba and idea of a continuum of growth from worse position to better .This is t line or Continuum of information control will assist EMS to create a system where all information’s processes of sharing knowledge can be classed for further processing for different uses. This will help patients and also the staff at EMS to achieve mission and vision of EMS. References Davenport, T. & Prusak, L. (1997), 'Information politics: information is not innocent', in Information Ecology: Mastering the Information and Knowledge Environment, Oxford University Press, New York. p. 67-82. Nonaka, I., Konno, N. (1998), "The concept of ‘Ba’: building foundation for knowledge creation", California Management Review, Vol. 40 No.3, pp.40-54. Read More