The bank's Knowledge Management Center of Competency--housedwithin its Information and Technology division and formed inclose partnership with its Human Resources division--was setup two years ago to support its objective of becoming a moreeffective organisation through better use ofinformation. "We define KM as tools and processes that cancontribute to fulfilling the organisation's strategicbusiness goals, through using information and turning itinto something of value," says Livesley.

With only a two-year history, the bank's formal KM push istherefore relatively young. Before it set up the Center ofCompetency, however, it had already recognised the value ofinformation and dabbled in KM initiatives, albeitinformally.

On hindsight, the bank's decision to set up a central KMdepartment has turned its KM push from just existing tobeing effective. "Having a centralised department has beenstrategic to our KM push. Although we were doing KM whetheror not we had a department, we weren't doing itimpactfully. For KM to be impactful, a group of highlytrained and skilled people focused on the components of KMthat are important to the organisation, and whose skills canbe leveraged across the bank, cannot afford to bedecentralised as they are too specialised," Livesleyexplains.

The team of eight people at the Center comes from diversebackgrounds, ranging from KM and Human Resources to IT andprocess improvement. "Half of them are from social sciencebackgrounds and half are technical people. And 50 percentwere bankers and 50 percent were hired for the role," saysLivesley.

Livesley and his team made an early decision to start small,adding small bits of KM into work processes that bank staffhave to perform anyway. "Our strategy is not to put in ahuge, best-practice KM system from scratch, or make a bigdifference to what people already do, but to take what theyalready do and introduce an incremental change."