Building Knowledge From Organizational Experience: Approaches

and Lessons Learned From US Army Base Camp Workshops

Timothy E. Trainor, United States Military Academy at West Point
Donna M. Brazil, United States Military Academy at West Point
Travis Lindberg, United States Military Academy at West Point

Abstract: Capturing, transferring, and building upon

knowledge in an organization is a difcult but necessary
function to ensure the organization continues to learn and
grow. This article discusses how a large organization with
disparate operating elements can learn from experience. This
is illustrated through a case study of the US Army enhancing
learning for its organizations involved in developing base camps
to support military forces worldwide. This was done through
a series of workshops that led to the creation of a knowledge
management system. Knowledge management provides useful
methods and tools to improve learning in organizations,
which can help facilitate change. The engineering manager
can use this article and the lessons learned from our base
camp experience as a framework to enhance learning in an
organization whose functional elements are varied in terms of
mission and location.
Keywords:
Organizational
Learning,
Management, Military Base Camps

Knowledge

EMJ Focus Areas: Building Knowledge for and About Change

reating knowledge in an organization is fundamental to

continued success in a changing world. Management guru
Peter Drucker says, knowledge represents the key concept
to explain the increasing velocity of the transformation of social
life in general and the way businesses and social institutions
work in particular (Drucker, 1994). However, building and
transferring this knowledge within a large organization whose
operating elements are disparate in terms of mission and
geographic location is a challenge. This is complicated even
further when the organization is at that is when there exists a
very limited hierarchy to connect the operating elements. Despite
these challenges organizations which create ways to enhance
their learning can respond to change and posture themselves
for success.
Sharing knowledge in organizations has long been recognized
as a challenge. S.L.A. Marshall, a preeminent military historian,
noted in his book Men Against Fire about World War II that, a
good company idea in tactics is likely to remain conned to one
company indenitely, even though it would be of benet to the
whole military establishment (Marshall, 1947). The challenges
at this time were exacerbated by limited technology; discussion
and writing with little reproduction and distribution capability
were the main ways to share knowledge. Information technology

today provides exponentially expanded opportunities to share

and build knowledge in organizations; however perhaps the most
signicant challenge today is to recognize that there is a need
for and benet from sharing and building knowledge within
the organization.
The concept of linking knowledge creation or management
and organizational learning is not new. As the United States
went through the early periods of industrialization, the ideas of
experienced-based learning in production, that a bureaucracy
can learn from experience and that benets are derived from
the sharing of good ideas, are catalogued in literature; however
a formal theory linking organizational learning with knowledge
creation or management can rst be attributed to Richard Cyert
and James March of the Carnegie School around 1963 (Argote,
2003). Today the explosion of knowledge management systems
attests to the understanding of this fundamental linkage.
An organization can build knowledge in several ways.
Capturing information by storing documents for future reference
provides one avenue for elementary knowledge sharing. An
organization moves past simple storage and toward building
knowledge when it develops a formalized process for capturing
lessons learned. Learning is enhanced when the organization
incorporates after-action reviews with external facilitators in
their institutional processes. Sharing the results from after action
reviews across the organization through documents, meetings,
and workshops extends the learning to other components of the
organization. Knowledge management (KM) systems allow an
organization to provide continuous access to documented lessons
learned. Perhaps more important, knowledge management
systems provide access to experienced individuals who can be
identied as experts in a particular area. KM systems provide
a forum then for interactive exchange of knowledge between
these experts and other components of the organization thereby
facilitating knowledge building.
The US Army is committed to sharing and building
knowledge because not doing so can have deadly consequences.
Chief of Staff of the Army General Peter Schoomaker stated
that, The Armys core competencies are: 1) train and equip
Soldiers and grow leaders; and 2) provide relevant and ready
land power capability to the Combatant Commanders as
part of the Joint Team (2004). We train our Soldiers and
remain relevant and ready by insuring that the Army as an
organization continues to learn and to facilitate the sharing
of knowledge.
One area of Army operations in which this has been done is
the development of base camps worldwide to support deployed
military forces. As a case study example we discuss how the Army
has built knowledge in this critical area to improve.

Refereed management tool manuscript. Accepted by Associate Editor Landaeta.

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37

Literature Background: Organizational Learning from

Experience
Today more than ever the pace of change requires that
organizations continuously learn in order to remain ready and
relevant. To do this organizations must scan the environment to
ascertain the pulse of changes and the impact of such changes
on their organizations. They must encourage their people to
try new methodologies and stay abreast of the techniques and
procedures of colleagues and competitors alike. Without a
focused approach to learning, organizations at best lose the
competitive edge and at worst become extinct. Wellman asserts
that the capacity to learn and apply learning is rapidly becoming
one of the few truly sustainable competitive advantages
(Wellman, 2007).
Learning however, is about more than simply taking in
information. As an individual, you gain information by reading
a book, but you learn by creating something new or recreating
something old with the knowledge gained from that book.
Organizational learning (OL) then involves both a cognitive
(understanding) component as well as an action (creation)
component. Organizations do not learn by simply gathering
information, they must combine or recombine the information
to move forward. Vera and Crossan (2003) dene OL as the
process of change in individual and shared thoughts and
action, which is affected by and embedded in the institutions of
the organization.
If OL is seen as a process, those organizations that are
successful at the process can be deemed Learning Organizations.
Peter Senge coined this term in 1990 in his book The Fifth
Discipline when he stated that LO are, organizations where
people continually expand their capacity to create the results
they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking
are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where
people are continually learning how to learn together (Senge,
1990). All organizations learn those that develop systems
to assess and recreate themselves based on that learning
are LO.
In the late 1970s, the Army introduced the After Action
Review (AAR) as a means of capturing lessons learned and
learning from both success and failure. AARs were rst instituted
at the Army training centers where external subject matter experts
evaluated all aspects of a units performance from arrival through
departure, and provided straightforward, unbiased feedback.
These reviews provided a difcult and sometimes confrontational
recitation of the positive and negative aspects of an exercise and
were a revolutionary means of assisting units in their training.
Army Field Manual 25-100 (1988) provides a step by step process
for the AAR.
In the decades since their introduction, AARs have taken
root in the Army culture and are now routinely conducted by
all units after every signicant activity, from a major training
exercise to a unit organizational day; however, before long, leaders
recognized that other units were experiencing similar issues and
experiencing the same learning curves. These leaders recognized
the need to go beyond the AAR and share these lessons learned
with other organizations. The lessons learned by a combat unit
during an extensive eld exercise contain valuable information
not only for other combat units but also for the service units that
support them. Shortly after Desert Storm, the Army established
the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) with the mission
to gather the information from unit AARs, synthesize the
common issues and provide a hard copy of the lessons learned
38

for dissemination throughout the Army. These monthly

newsletters served to share the organizational knowledge across
the Army.
With the advent of the internet came not only the
technology to more quickly spread these lessons learned to
other units, but the ability to facilitate discussions between
these leaders. Grass roots efforts such as companycommand.
com (http://companycommand.army.mil) and platoonleader.
org (http://platoonleader.army.mil) sprang up as leaders
sought better ways to share ideas and knowledge across sub
organizations within the army. The 1st CAV Division, under the
command of then-Major General (MG) Pete Chiarelli set up a
secure network (CavNet) during their deployment to Iraq that
facilitated knowledge sharing between small unit leaders. With
the rapid pace of changes during Operation Iraqi Freedom,
MG Chiarelli understood that the traditional methods of
sharing information were not fast enough to ensure that his
soldiers could respond to rapid changes in enemy tactics. He
formed a team to set-up a secure, moderated network on which
leaders could share lessons learned immediately following
a mission and on which leaders about to depart on a mission
could consult for the latest updates and trends. His vision
ensured that his learning organization stayed current and grew
(Michaelis, 2004).
Like individuals, organizations learn as they go, often after
suffering setbacks due to the trial and error approach to new
experiences. This is not surprising when the task is new and
the organization is attempting breakthrough efforts. The
setbacks, delays, and inefciencies these organizations face are
all part of being on the leading edge. Most of our organizations,
however, while certainly building organizational knowledge,
are not traveling uncharted territory they are traveling a road
that someone else has already been down, having themselves
learned through trial and error. The challenge for organizations
is to develop methods of sharing this organizational knowledge
throughout the organization so that sub-organizations benet
from the lessons of other parts.
Knowledge management is a growing eld that can
facilitate learning in an organization. Dr. Sami Al Banna denes
knowledge management holistically as, an organized effort to
espouse, develop, and support a program of change to create
and operate a knowledge environment within an organization.
A knowledge environment is an organizational, business, or
government environment that enhances the organizations
ability to deliver on its missionby enabling it to create
and leverage its intellectual capital (AlBanna, 2000). This
denition encompasses virtually all aspects of an organization
and not just information technology components. Effective
knowledge management is more than an electronic le cabinet
as it helps the organization take data and create actionable
information for the people who need it most when it is needed
(FMI 6-01.1, 2006).
The explosion of data availability due to technology
advances has led to the creation of this eld called knowledge
management. Michael Specter highlighted the growth of data
available in this statement: there are more than a billion
pages on the World Wide Web, all loosely tied together by seven
billion annotated links, which is at least one link for every person
on the planet (Specter, 2000). This data explosion concept is
also exemplied by Exhibit 1. Exhibit 1 was taken from an earlier
version of the US Armys Field Manual 6-01.1, Battle Command
Knowledge Management Cell (2006).

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Exhibit 1. Technology advances have led to data overload (FMI 6-01.1, 2006)

Exhibit 1 demonstrates that information technology

advances have significantly increased the amount of data that
is readily available. Knowledge management techniques help
organize this data, enabling people to access what they need in
a timely manner to create actionable information.
Knowledge management centers on capturing and
transferring knowledge. Explicit knowledge comes from
information that can be easily stored and retrieved. Tacit
knowledge, however, incorporates the experiences of people
that are not articulated until they are drawn out by social
interaction (Tsoukas, 2003). Knowledge management focuses
on two of the most difcult patterns of creating knowledge
in organizations posited by Nonaka in his seminal work on
knowledge creation, namely creating explicit knowledge from

explicit knowledge and creating explicit knowledge from tacit

knowledge. According to Nonaka, new knowledge is created
by the former when an individual, combine(s) discrete
pieces of explicit knowledge into a new whole and the latter
when an individual nds a way to express the inexpressible
(Nonaka, 1991).
Developing ways to tap into the experience base (both explicit
and tacit) of its people is a critical requirement for capturing
and managing knowledge for an organization. Exhibit 2, which
is attributed to the American Productivity and Quality Center
and is available on the US Armys Battle Command Knowledge
System, provides a spectrum of knowledge management methods
as a function of the type of knowledge accessed and the degree of
human interaction involved.

Exhibit 2. Spectrum of knowledge management activities as a function of the type of knowledge exchanged and the degree of human interaction
involved (BCKS, 2006)

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39

Explicit knowledge can be shared with little human

interaction by individuals accessing information stored in selfservice databases. Sharing in groups or networks of people,
often referred to as communities of practice include experiential
or tacit knowledge as they involve a greater degree of human
interaction as lessons are shared. The goal of a knowledge
management system is to facilitate the sharing of best practices
across an organization. To be effective, this must involve the
transfer of tacit knowledge between people because as individuals
interact, they draw out the experienced-based knowledge that
only becomes articulated when people are reminded of their
experiences that otherwise would not be written down and stored
(Tsoukas, 2003).
Despite the power of knowledge management methods,
organizations have been relatively slow to embrace it as
demonstrated by a study of 4,500 scientists, engineers, and
managers by the University of Southern California. This study
revealed that 70% of participants did not believe knowledge was
shared and reused, and 88% said they had no access to lessons
learned in other areas of the organization (Mohrman, 2000).
Since then organizations are recognizing that the, the ow of
knowledge between different organizational unitsprovide
the highest potential for innovation and competitive advantages
(Maier, 2004). Knowledge management methods enable this ow
of knowledge around the organization.
Organizations do need to understand the potential
issues associated with knowledge management systems in
order to use them effectively. A recent study actually provides
empirical evidence that team performance is degraded when
using knowledge gathering or management systems if the
organization is characterized by overworked employees with little
organizational experience and decision-making autonomy (Haas,
2006). In this environment data does not become information
that creates benecial knowledge for the organization. The
organization needs a good plan for updating content to keep
the system current and benecial to users. This can be both time
and resource intensive. Data made available to users needs to
be used to create knowledge for the organization or it just takes
up space. Too much unrelated data can limit and frustrate users
trying to create knowledge from mountains of information. An
organization creating a knowledge management system should
explicitly consider these potential issues in the planning phase for
the system.
Successful knowledge management systems involve a change
in organizational culture that fosters a willingness to capture,
transfer, and build knowledge. Studies have shown that the
relationship between organizational culture and knowledge
transfer has a statistically signicant impact on the success of
a project (Karlsen and Gottschalk, 2004). Effective knowledge
management that leads to improved performance and productivity
nds the synergies between the organizational components
of technology, processes, people, and organizational structure
(Directorate of eBusiness, 2006). Finding these synergies results
in an organizational culture that enables learning through the
sharing of knowledge.
The Department of Defense (DoD) is embracing knowledge
management initiatives based on the business communitys
experiences in the late-1990s. Several successful DoD applications
exist including the Battle Command Knowledge System (https://
bcks.army.mil). Another area of US Army operations in which
knowledge management methods have been employed is base
camp planning and development.
40

Case Study: Building Knowledge for US Army Base Camp

Development
The Department of Systems Engineering at the United States
Military Academy (USMA) at West Point became interested in
studying military base camps as a real world example of a system
in which students would likely be immersed early in their military
careers. After the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the US military increased the pace and reach of
its operations worldwide. Military units now routinely deploy
worldwide to ght wars, participate in peace enforcement and
peace keeping missions, train foreign armies, and respond to
humanitarian crises. To support these operations, the military
develops temporary base camps, which are evolving military
facilities that support the military operations of a deployed unit
and provide the necessary support and services for sustained
operations (Ezell, 2001). Base camps are complex systems with
many integrated components that follow a life-cycle pattern and
thus provide an excellent educational opportunity for students of
systems engineering.
While USMA recognized the educational benet from
studying base camps, the military recognized the need to improve
processes for planning, developing, and sustaining them. Video
images of the difculties that US Army forces faced when
deploying and setting up operations in the Balkans were prevalent
around Christmas 1995. Difcult terrain, antiquated civilian
infrastructure and industry, and bad weather made establishing
base camps hard at best. Further, history shows that these base
camps were needed for years not months as in the Persian Gulf
War. Leaders today recognize that the military needs to learn from
their experiences in the Balkans. The junior and intermediatelevel military commanders during the initial Balkans operations
are today in positions to enact policy and leverage information
technology in order to ensure that lessons learned and best
practices are shared throughout the DoD community, and beyond
(Semonite, 2006).
Base Camp Workshops
In 2001, the Department of Systems Engineering began running a
series of workshops to help the military community of practice for
base camps learn from each other. Communities of practice are
groups that regularly share and exchange ideas, build relationships
and connections within the common context of the community
subject matter. Building communities of practice in organizations
that are large with difcult rather complex missions and whose
employees are geographically dispersed have proven benecial
in improving organizational performance. Through effective
communities of practice some organizations have experienced
improved performance demonstrated by increased innovation
and decreased learning curve (Lesser, 2001). We hoped to foster
an environment of similar results by helping build a base camp
community of practice.
The 2001 workshop identied that the community of practice
was indeed wide and varied, and that the issues facing them were
extensive. We discovered through this series of workshops that
there was a true need to capture, transfer, and build knowledge
for the base camp community of practice.
After a respite the next base camp workshop was held in
March 2004. The theme of the workshop was Base Camps of
Today and Tomorrow, and full details are provided (Cushing,
2004). The workshop forum solicited input from the diverse
community of practice regarding these fundamental domains of
base camp study: initial planning, site selection, environmental

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issues, structures, energy, and force protection. This forum proved

useful for information sharing; however, the lessons were shortlived as there was no continuous means to keep the base camp
community of practice together.
In May, 2005 the next workshop brought together
researchers and practitioners with recent eld experience in
developing and running base camps (Thompson, 2005). Beyond
information sharing this workshop focused on the sharing of
best practices among the community of practice. With a mix of
practitioners, researchers, and military support contractors, this
workshop yielded three primary conclusions:

DoD needs to simplify the funding processes for base camp

development.

DoD, as well as the services (e.g. Army, Navy), need to

establish organizations as proponents for the Base Camp
community of practice.

There is a need for a system that allows Base Camp

community of practice members to share knowledge related
to the life cycle management of base camps and Joint Forward
Operating Bases (JFOB).
The organization had moved from the mere one-time
sharing of lessons learned to sharing best practices to recognizing
the need to capture, transfer, and build knowledge in a formal,
continuous system.
Results of the Workshops A Knowledge Management System for
the Base Camp Community of Practice
The workshop in 2006 used the organizations recognition of the
need for, and willingness to capture, transfer, and build knowledge
as a mandate for developing a knowledge management system for
the base camp community of practice. Prior to the 2006 workshop
we focused on a literature review of knowledge management and
a functional analysis of the potential system for base camps. We
found an existing Department of the Army system, the Battle
Command Knowledge System (BCKS), available at https://bcks.
army.mil/ that could provide a forum for housing a base camp
community of practice system. This allowed us to focus the 2006
workshop plan on three main efforts (Lindberg, 2006):

Understanding and conveying the objectives of knowledge

management to the base camp community of practice;

Generating and validating base camp-specic knowledge

management system functional requirements and constraints
through the workshop working group sessions;

Receiving senior leader and community member buy in for

the recommended knowledge management system design
solution.
Gathering a group of various subject matter experts, we used
the GroupSystems II collaborative software (GroupSystems,
2006) to facilitate the requirements generation and validation
process for the base camp knowledge management system.
Since the workshop was held in St. Louis, we used networked
laptop computers running off of a server back in the Systems
Engineering Department at West Point. Participants worked
through the following questions to help generate information for
a prototype system:

From whom did we want/ need to obtain knowledge?

With whom did we want/ need to share knowledge?

What is our system environment (i.e., what are the existing

or anticipated super-, lateral-, or sub-systems that attempt to
share related types of information)?
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What should this site offer?

What categories of knowledge do we want/need to share?
How is knowledge currently shared within the base camp
community of practice?
What are the risks associated with this endeavor?
Who should handle the various site management
responsibilities?
What should the site be named?

Using GroupSystems allowed us to quickly capture, sort and

prioritize the ideas of the diverse group of participants.
The workshop allowed us to identify the key content or topic
areas for the knowledge management system. The participants
identied these areas as appropriate for organizing the content
of the system:

Joint Forward Operating Base (JFOB) Master and Force

Protection Planning

Intelligence Considerations and Threat Analysis

Risk Assessment, Safety, and Course of Action Development

Health and Environmental

Sustainment and Maintenance

Site Selection and Layout

Perimeter and Internal Security

Protective Construction and Infrastructure Assurance

Incident Response and Consequence Management

Public Outreach and Information Operations

Communications and Computers

Real Estate/ Real Property, Resourcing, and Funding Issues

Training, Exercises, Conferences, Workshops, and Seminars

During the workshop GroupSystems session, we also
determined that ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net would be a system
name that would be recognizable and functional for the larger
base camp community of practice.
Identifying the key stakeholders and leadership team to
run a knowledge management system is critical to the success
of the system. Exhibit 3 provides a simple graphic to depict the
relationships among the primary stakeholders (user, expert, and
administrator) in such a system.
Through the workshop we identied the US Army Engineer
School as providing the leaders and administrators to run the
ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net system. After the workshop, this
organization (with our help) took the lead on building and
maintaining the system following the general roles as outlined
in Exhibit 3.
Assessing the Knowledge Management System
As part of the development process, we identied a plan to assess
the effectiveness of the knowledge management system. The
plan is to formally assess the value of ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.
net forum to the community of practice at the next annual Base
Camp Workshop in 2007. Exhibit 4 shows the key stakeholder
objectives for a knowledge management system next to the
planned measures of effectiveness for the ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.
net forum.
We obtained usage data from the system administrator to
get an interim assessment for illustrative purposes for this article.
The metrics we received reect site usage data, which is primarily
our quantitative assessment metrics not qualitative. Exhibit 5
provides the cumulative data over the initial seven month start
up period for ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net. Note that the workshop
was in May 2006.
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41

Exhibit 3. A Simple, UML-Based Use Case Diagram (Arlow and Neustadt, 2003) that Shows the Various Stakeholder Functions Within an Actual KM
System Design

Exhibit 4. Objectives and Measures of Effectiveness for a Knowledge Management System

Aggregate Stakeholder Objective for KM Initiative (Maier, 2004)

ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net Measures of Effectiveness (BCKS, 2006)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Quantitative

Membership trends (new, most active, participants, diversity,

contributors, etc.)

Functionality and topic discussions (topics, knowledge, contents,

views, most active discussion groups, chat, search, page hits, etc.)

Site usage matrix

Number of documents downloaded by topic area

Most frequently downloaded documents in rank order

Number of problems brought to solution through ArmyBaseCamp/

JFOB.net

ID Existing Knowledge
Improve Documentation of Existing Knowledge
Change (parts of ) Organizational Culture
Improve Communication and Cooperation
Improve training, education, and networking of newly recruited
employees
6. Improve training and education for all employees
7. Improve retention of knowledge
8. Improve access to existing sources of knowledge
9. Improve distribution of knowledge
10. Improve management of innovations

Qualitative

User satisfaction (satisfaction or specic knowledge goals)

Identication of success stories

Innovation (increase in innovative/breakthrough ideas)

The term knowledge created in Exhibit 5 refers to new

information, or data, being posted and made available to users.
Discussions created are the questions or issues that users have
raised in the system and requested assistance in obtaining answers.
Memberships created are the number of users that have formally
signed-up to be part of this knowledge management forum. The
42

data shows that peak usage was in July, 2006 after the system
was introduced and advertised by the US Army Engineer School
leadership. The rate of growth in usage has declined over time
since introduction; however it continues to grow. The quality
of the knowledge created and shared has not yet been formally
assessed at the writing of this article.

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Exhibit 5. Initial Assessment Data for the ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net Knowledge Management System
Month

Knowledge Created

Discussions Created

Membership Created

Page Visits by Members

Page Visits by Non-Members

May-06

242

60

Jun-06

78

55

2949

774

Jul-06

98

11

162

4950

2609

Aug-06

114

17

201

6572

3247

Sep-06

153

21

220

7763

3594

Oct-06

181

23

236

8569

3999

Nov-06

181

24

242

8803

4055

Challenges and Lessons Learned in Conducting the

Workshops and Building Knowledge
We faced several challenges in helping the Army learn in the
area of base camp operations. This section focuses on the
challenges and lessons learned that we believe are applicable to
virtually any organization undertaking an initiative to build and
transfer knowledge.
While the military is a structured, hierarchical organization,
we found that the base camp community of practice actually
consists of disparate agencies with no formal relationships tying
them together. Members exist in all military services (Army, Navy,
Air Force, and Marines) and in many civilian eld agencies and
contractors supporting base camps worldwide. Through our base
camp workshops, it became strikingly clear that there existed
a real need to share information horizontally throughout and
between these agencies. Learning methods such as after-action
reviews typically help connected organizations learn; however, the
learning tends to stop at organizational boundaries. Knowledge
management methods seemed a natural t for this problem that
spanned normally disconnected agencies.
Getting senior leader acceptance and emphasis prior to
attempting to implement the knowledge management solution
was paramount. During the 2004 and 2005 workshops, it was
evident that there existed no central proponent responsible for
research, development, policy, planning, and acquisition activities
related to base camp operations. Just prior to the 2006 workshop,
the US Army Engineer School volunteered to become the Armys
proponent for base camp operations. As of publication, the Armys
organization responsible for all training and doctrine development
had just directed the Engineer School to establish and lead a team
of members from across the base camp community of practice to
work issues and develop new concepts related to base camps. This
brings organization and leader emphasis to the learning initiatives
and provides a means to manage organizational change. Without
a responsible organization to push the initiatives, there would be
little chance for success of organizational learning activities such
as the knowledge management system.
Getting the organizational management and cultural change
necessary for effective learning requires more than focus on
the information technology means that facilitate the learning
environment. Between the 2005 and 2006 workshops, we
spent several months determining the information technology
requirements for creating a knowledge management system.
Prior to the workshop, we discovered an existing military
knowledge management forum that we could leverage in creating
the ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net system. This forum is available
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on a secure US Army web site that requires both an ofcial

identication card and a personal pin for access so information
and user access can be controlled. This allowed us to focus on
creating a workshop plan in which we could develop the content,
leader responsibilities, and organizational connections required to
enhance learning in the community of practice. The information
technology systems to support learning exist and can likely be
adapted to a particular organization; however, organizational
management and cultural change requires leader emphasis,
planning, and hard work. Information technology solutions can
be outsourced; however, the cultural change to enhance learning
requires leadership that cannot be outsourced.
We found that building an assessment plan for new learning
initiatives as we developed the knowledge management system
was important. As we thought about how to assess effectiveness,
we also thought about the means to get the desired learning
effects. Although we have not yet formally performed a qualitative
assessment as shown in Exhibit 4, we believe that planning for
assessment in the design stage actually informs the design and
improves the learning system.
Promoting and advertising the knowledge management system
is required to gain acceptance throughout the organization. Our
usage data in Exhibit 5 shows that the system was most used after
initial introduction when the community of practice was most
aware of the initiative. At publication, the number of users has
jumped to 569. While usage continues to grow at a slower rate, we
believe that better advertising and promotion efforts will enhance
learning throughout the community of practice. While Soldiers
are not currently introduced to this knowledge management
system during school training, the US Army Engineer Schools
new role as the lead for base camp concepts may lead to integration
of this into the curriculum. Also, an article on this knowledge
management system will appear soon in the Armys Engineer
magazine, which is written for all engineering organizations in
the Army.
Implications for the Engineering Manager
Engineering managers and those charged with the life cycle
management of base camps and forward operating bases face
similar challenges. Both must tap into and build upon the
existing core competencies within their organization and be able
to leverage technology in order to solve difcult problems while
maintaining a competitive advantage (Lindberg, 2006).
In a at, relatively unconnected organization, knowledge
management methods can be effective in enhancing learning and
facilitating organizational change. Learning is further enhanced
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43

when the organizational leadership considers it important and

apportions resources appropriately. The engineering manager
can be the key to integrating the technology solutions for learning
with the organizational leadership emphasis to create a learning
culture. Of these, the engineering manager should emphasize
setting conditions for the required organization cultural
changes to support learning over the technology solutions that
facilitate the learning environment. Effective use of knowledge
management systems can enable the engineering manager to
build the organizational knowledge necessary for change.

We believe the engineering management community can

benet from the lessons learned from this work. There are
denite similarities between Base Camp operations and many
other difcult, ill-dened problems that engineering managers
are likely to face in industry. Knowledge management is at
least initially proving to be an effective method for enhancing
organizational learning and knowledge transfer for this life-cycle
management problem facing DoD. It should be considered as a
viable option by the engineering management professional faced
with a similar scenario.

Implications for the Researcher

The area of organizational learning continues to be a fruitful
domain for research. Technology solutions to enhance learning
are prevalent particularly in knowledge management methods.
The impact of these methods on organizational learning should
be researched more fully to both improve these techniques and to
gain greater leader acceptance.
Our experience in this work shows that planning for assessment
of learning effectiveness during the design stage of a knowledge
management system is important; however, our metrics for both
quantitative and qualitative assessment may not be robust enough
to measure learning from the ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net system.
We believe that assessment metrics for organizational learning in
general, and knowledge management systems in particular, is an
area requiring further research.

References
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for Development in a Rapidly Changing Global
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Conclusions
The workshops have enhanced learning in the Base Camp
Community of Practice. The application of knowledge
management methods proved appropriate for this problem
area and community. We believe that these lessons learned
from our effort with the base camp community are applicable
to engineering managers and researchers seeking to improve
organizational learning:

Knowledge management methods appear to be a natural

t for facilitating learning among agencies which are not
normally connected through organization hierarchical
design.

Obtaining senior leader acceptance and emphasis is essential

when implementing organizational learning initiatives.

When developing new initiatives for building knowledge,

focus on the organizational cultural changes required rather
than the technology means to facilitate the learning.

Planning for assessment in the design stage actually informs

the design and can improve the organizational learning
system developed.

To gain acceptance of a system to enhance organizational

learning
requires
constant
promotion
and
advertising efforts.
At the time of publication, the user group had 569 members,
and ArmyBaseCamp/JFOB.net has facilitated (at times signicant)
dialogue on other topics that are relevant to this community of
practice. The topic that has provided the greatest opportunity
for both operational and intellectual collaboration is the topic of
Stability and Reconstruction Operations, in which the military
is deeply immersed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We believe that the
organizational learning initiatives that we worked on through
these workshops will continue to help foster related research
opportunities between seemingly disconnected agencies which are
seeking solutions in an increasingly complex and networked world.
44

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June 2008

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Engineering Management Journal

Vol. 20 No. 2

Acknowledgments
The authors want to acknowledge the hard work of several
ofcers in the Department of Systems Engineering at West Point
who signicantly contributed to the success of the Base Camp
Workshops discussed in this article. Particular thanks go to Major
John Cushing and Major Travis Thompson whose tireless efforts
resulted in the lessons learned from the workshops that led to
the creation of a knowledge management system to improve the
planning and development of base camps to support US military
forces worldwide. We also want to thank the group of reviewers
whose insightful comments helped us make this a better article.
Disclaimer
The views expressed in this article are those of the authors, and/
or presenters at the workshop, and do not reect the ofcial
policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department
of Defense, or the US Government.
About the Authors
Colonel Timothy Trainor received his MBA from Duke
University and his Ph.D. in industrial engineering from North
Carolina State University. He received his undergraduate
degree from the United States Military Academy in 1983. He is
currently the Head of the Systems Engineering Department at
the United States Military Academy. He has served in various
command and staff positions in the Engineer branch of the
US Army during a 24-year Army career.
Colonel Donna Brazil received her M.A. and Ph.D. in
social psychology from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill. She received her undergraduate degree from
the United States Military Academy in 1983. She led the
Leadership Program at the United States Military Academy
for ve years. She currently serves in the Department of
Behavioral Sciences and Leadership at West Point. She served
in various command and staff positions in the Transportation
branch of the US Army during a 24-year Army career.
Major Travis (TJ) Lindberg received his M.S. in systems
engineering from the University of Arizona in 2004. He received
his undergraduate degree in engineering management from
the United States Military Academy in 1995. He is currently
a student at the Armys Command and General Staff College.
He served in various command and staff positions in the
Engineer branch of the US Army.
Contact: COL Tim Trainor, Department of Systems
Engineering, United States Military Academy, West Point,
New York, 10996; phone: 845-938-5534; fax 845-938-5919;
[email protected]

June 2008

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