1. Sri Lanka Instituteof InformationTechnology
Project Report–2018
Subject: Knowledge Management(IM408)
Company Name: Pearson Lanka (Pvt) Ltd
Group ID –18
IT15071576 - M.A.P.D Dias
IT14143182 - W.A.G.C Wijesekara
IT15057570- W.A.S.A Perera
IT15051462-W.A.N.N Weerasooriya
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1. Declaration
We declare that this project report or part of it was not a copy of a document done by any
organization, university any other institute or a previous student project group at SLIIT and
was not copied from the internet or other sources.
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2. Abstract
This document reviews the prevailing situation of the selected company, its existingprocesses
and the infrastructure to understand the potential of the company to build and maintain a
Knowledge Management System. The purpose of the Knowledge Management System is to
provide value to the information resides in the Company resulting value addition to their
tasks and ultimately to approach competitive advantage. A suitable framework that would
help in achieving these goals will be further discussed in this body of information.
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3. Acknowledgement
We are highly indebted to our Lecturer Mr. Jayantha Amararachchi for his guidance and the
support to complete the Knowledge Management project successfully. Also we indebted to
the Pearson Lanka (Pvt) Ltd for their guidance and constant supervision as well as
providing necessary information regarding the project and also for their support in
completing the project. We would like to express our gratitude towards the company for their
kind co-operation and encouragement which helped us in completion of this project.
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4. Table of Contents
1. Declaration............................................................................................................................................... 1
2. Abstract.................................................................................................................................................... 2
3. Acknowledgement................................................................................................................... 3
4. Table ofContents...................................................................................................................... 4
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 5
1.1. Background of the company.................................................................................................... 5
1.2. Vision........................................................................................................................................ 6
1.3. Mission ..................................................................................................................................... 6
1.4. Objectives of doing this project................................................................................................ 6
2. Existing infrastructure facilities ............................................................................................................ 7
2.1. Current organization culture................................................................................................... 7
2.2. Tools and technologies used within organization................................................................... 7
3. Needed KM infrastructure................................................................................................................... 14
Gap 14
4. KM framework...................................................................................................................................... 15
5. Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 16
Reference list ................................................................................................................................................. 17
Appendices..................................................................................................................................................... 18
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1. Introduction
1.1. Background of the company
Pearson is an international company which has spread over 70 countries all over the world.
Pearson is a British-owned company(Based in UK) which claims that it is "the world's largest
learning company" including forty thousand employees worldwide. Pearson is originally a
publishing company founded in 29thofJulyin1998.CurrentChiefExecutiveOfficer(CEO)of
PearsonisMr.JohnFallon.Pearsonfocusesonbuildinglearningapplicationsandprogramsfor
students unlike other companies which tend to build commercialized applications. Company
slogan; "always learning" depicts contribution of company towards education and learning
system. Pearson has located in two places of Sri Lanka;Orion City(Dematagoda) and World
Trade Centre(Colombo). Pearson established in Sri Lanka 10 years ago and performs well with
earning lot of foreign currency to Sri Lanka. They work closely with teachers, learners,
researchers, authors, thought leaders, and local experts to put education in the hands of more
people around the world, in more inspiring ways. Even Pearson conducts lecturer refresher
programs for lecturers of leading universities including lecturer's of Sri Lanka Institute of
Information Technology. Company has a good culture and that culture has gained a good
reputation to the company. Their interview process for employment opportunities are formal,
unique and hard to get through. Pearson has expertise in educational courseware and
assessment, and a range of teaching and learning services powered by technology. Their
products and services are used by millions of teachers and learners around the world every day.
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1.2. Vision
Their vision is to help people make progress in their lives through learning. They are focusing
on the changing needs of the world’s education markets and their strategy is to combine content
and assessment, powered by services and technology, leading to more effective teaching and
personalised learning at scale. That is at the heart of what they do and is reflected through their
three strategic priorities: They are growing market share through their digital transformation,
focusing on structural growth markets and becoming a simpler and more efficient business.
1.3. Mission
Their mission is to help people make progress in their lives through learning — because they
believe that learning opens up opportunities, creating fulfilling careers and better lives.
1.4. Objectives of doing this project
This project has been carried out to understand the importance of a Knowledge Management
System to an Organization and the Benefits that could be gained from a Knowledge
Management system.
So, the main objective of doing this project is determining whether company (Pearson Lanka
pvt ltd) has a Knowledge Management System and if it has one, then we'll try to help them
find loopholes or points of failure where they can improve the system, otherwise we can
propose a new knowledge management system. Because we believe that a knowledge
management system can help Pearson to deliver excellent software products within a short
period of time without decreasing the quality and value of them. First of all, we might need to
look into the infrastructure of the company to understand how they have linked their
departments (HR, Finance and etc) together and how their knowledge being shared among the
organization.
After we completed company visit we ascertained that they have their existing internal
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knowledge management system and we try to improve it in such a productive and effective
manner.
2. Existing infrastructure facilities
2.1. Current organization culture in Quality Engineering Department (QE)
2.2. Tools and technologies used within organization
Development Tools used in Pearson
Tool Usage
Eclipse
Eclipse is an open source integrated
development environment for Java.
Head of the Department
QE
Associate Director
QE
Senior Manager
QE
Associate Manager
QE
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InteliJ
InteliJ is also an integrated
development environment which is
mainly used by developers in Pearson
QA Tools used in Pearson
Tool Usage
SoapUI
SoapUI is an open source cross-
platform Functional Testing solution
that is used by Pearson QE team to test
the functionality of the Web Services
exposed through MSI
Saucelabs
Pearson uses Saucelabs for cross
browser/mobile testing.
Jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation
server to use for the purpose of having
the continuous integration and
continuous delivery in project levels.
Bitbucket
This is a web based version control
repository
Nexus
Nexus manages artifacts required for
the development
Selenium
Web Driver is an open source GUI
Test Automation tool that’s being
evaluated for Automating Tests for
Pearson Web based Applications
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ALM
ALM is the tool to track all the test
cases, test plans, release cycles and
testing cycles in all the environments.
Person proprietary QE Tools and Frameworks
Tool Usage
eSelenium
Framework
eSelenium is the optimized UI automation
framework in Pearson to support Education
domain which is written upon Selenium
framework
Rest Assured
Rest Assured is the used to automate/validate REST calls
Collaboration Tools used in Pearson
Tool Usage
Google hangout
Google hangout has the feature to take audio and
video calls for free
Polycom VMR
Polycom VMR is an online space, typically hosted
by a cloud-service provider, where multiple
participants can join a video call
Hip chat
Hip chat is a web service for internal private online
chat and instant messaging. As well as this can be
used for group/topic chats.
Join me
Take conference calls screen sharing, online
meetings and team collaboration
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Project Management Tools used in Pearson
Tool Usage
Jira
use to plan, track, and manage
your agile and software development
projects.
Excel
This is a spreadsheet program to store
and retrieve data
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Official Gmail Account
Each and every employee has Pearson account called "Mycloud". This account is the official
Pearson account which enables its employees to enjoy numerous facilities such as Gmail
(@Pearson.com), Google drive (with 30GB storage), Meeting Room Booking and so on. This
myCloud login credentials are used to login to laptops provided by Pearson to its employees.
below image will depict the features of myCloud account.
Once you login to the myCloud account using correct credentials it will navigate you to
below screen.
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Google Mail : All 40,000 employees of Pearson has been connected through Gmail as any
employee can send an email to any other employee in the company by just typing few letters
of the recipient. Once an employee types the name of the recipient, Gmail will start showing
suggestions by filtering names of employees.
Google Calendar : Employees can create calendar events and reminders for meetings and etc
through Google calendar.
Google Drive : Users can store and share files among employees through Google Drive
cloud storage.
PeopleData : Employees can search and get information of other employees of Pearson
through PeopleData.
Google Hangouts: This is the tool that pearson employees use to conduct meetings with
foreign employees. Google hangouts supports new technologies such as screen-sharing,
Group video and voice calls.
MyStore : Employees can request new software programs to their computers by raising a
ticket in MyStore. They can also request elevated access to certain systems in order to fulfil
their work.
Internal Application Training Material
NEO : Pearson, a global leader in education, technology and services, has embarked on a
solution to close this continental divide with a social media platform called Neo. Neo was
launched on February 28, 2011, six months after the initial idea sparked. Within the first two
months of the launch there were 20,000 users; over 50 percent employee usage. From an
analysis perspective, Neo has made a positive impact on company communication and
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collaboration.Neo has allowed Pearson to institute an environment where employees can
learn from one another.
Before employees go to e-mail to initiate answers for questions, they can go into the platform
and see what’s going on in groups. This is more strategic not a reactive mode.
Informal education is currently taking place to educate employees with Web exercises on
basic social networking skills like creating a blog. Pearson will eventually formalize learning
and development down the road once the platform has taken off.
Technical support for Employees
IT department of Pearson is called "IT Hub" and they provide both technical and software
guidance to employees. They keep track of their devices and they maintain them. Time to
time they conduct check-up sessions for their devices. There are only two or three people in
the IT hub which makes the division little bit busy. Since there are nearly 250 employees in
the building with Pearson provided laptops, staff of IT hub should be extended.
Internet access is available to all employees through PEROOT login. Those who have the
knowledge never get the chance to share the knowledge among the different management
levels due to busy schedule.
Knowledge Sharing through the On-boarding training Sessions
New employees can get to know the company and its procedures through a method called
"On-boarding Sessions". These sessions are conducted by knowledgeable people in the
company, specially by key roles in the company from HR department, Software Quality
Assurance department, Performance team, software accessibility team and etc. They have
created their own presentation slides to pass down organizational knowledge among new
comers. There are some practical sessions in these events such as demonstrating software
tools which are used in the company. These on-boarding sessions help lot of employees to
understand how company performs its activities and how to maintain personal and business
ethics. These on-boarding sessions are scheduled by the HR and employees will be notified
through Google Calendar and Gmail. Employees can download presentation slides later
onwards according to their preference.
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3. Needed KM infrastructure
We believe that having on-boarding sessions to pass knowledge among employees is
inadequate. Because employees will listen to them and then they will go back to work, so that
eventually they will forget what they've been taught. This is common issue in the industry as
many of us are busy at work stuff. It would be great if the company could design some sort of
knowledge sharing and storing mechanism to allow employees to get knowledge instantly
when they need to learn something. Most of knowledge regarding work stuff is in heads of
people (tacit knowledge) and they are not codified into a single document which makes it hard
for new employees to understand. Since knowledge comes with constant work and experience,
it will take some time for new employees to get into track. If the company could build a
system to codify work ethics and all (Tacit knowledge) in a system, it might help employees to
search for knowledge at the every moment when they need to know something. There should
be enough restrictions in this system as there is a chance of exposing company secrets to
public. Elevated access should only be given to roles of top level management. Experts should
be willing to provide necessary information to this system to make this attempt successful.
Since Pearson has its own information sharing network (NEO), the information or knowledge
shared through NEO is only accessible to few people as it is similar to a blog post.
Gap
Without a proper Knowledge sharing mechanism, many employees won't be able to understand
work ethics and their role in the company. Employees know their designations but they won't
understand what should be done in certain situations. So, they will consume lot of time figuring
out stuff that they can't understand at once. This will make a chaos in the company and its
business strategy. In other words, Knowledge management is a necessity for the company as
proper knowledge management can lead the company to accelerate business outcomes. So, the
company will be able to get the best out of its employees. On the other hand, employees will be
pleased to work in the company as they can easily access the knowledge that they want at any
time anywhere through a Knowledge Management System.
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4. KM framework
There are six dimensions we need to consider before come up with a proper idea for a
Knowledge Management framework.
Concepts – Develop a set of integrated constructs and theories that can be used to
discuss and understand knowledge in the organization.
Development and Change – Introduce new knowledge frameworks, processes, tools,
and behavior for management of knowledge within the organization.
Knowledge Content – Includes information about characteristics and typologies of
the products of knowledge processes.
Measurement – Evaluation of knowledge content, capabilities, and potential
opportunities for knowledge utilization such as measuring knowledge processes, and
locating areas of improvement.
Tools and Methods – Introduced methodologies, organizationally tailored
communication packages, information systems.
Organization and Management – Integration of formal, informal and knowledge
processing structures, knowledge management roles, organizational institutions,
including incentive structures, knowledge sharing policies, and culture.
A knowledge management framework ensures that all necessary Knowledge Management
elements such as Accountability, Processes, Technologies and Governance are in place and
interconnected. This ensures that there are no gaps in between the system and knowledge flows
freely through the organization. When building the framework, Pearson will have to make sure
that they cover all employees of each department. Pearson needs to develop the cultural
activities within organization that makes people more sociable and friendly to share their
knowledge and experience. The existing knowledge will be shared among others by such an
event. This constantly helps employees to stay motivated and reduce the work stress. [2]
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5. Conclusion
We conclude that improving the existing knowledge management system of Pearson will
increase the efficiency and productivity of the company as well as employees will be satisfied
with the workaround. Creating a new Knowledge Management System will solve current
knowledge management issues as we have mentioned in this report. Since help is always out
there, collecting knowledge from experts in the company won't be a big deal. The company
already has help desk facilities and Knowledge Management team will support them to increase
the quality.
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Reference list
[1]. Official Web site of Pearson Lanka (Pvt) Ltd. http:// pearson.com/
[2]. An Interactive KM Framework. https://www.apqc.org/km-framework
[3]. Pearson NEO.
https://trainingindustry.com/articles/learning-technologies/pearson-a-neo-way-of-
collaboration/
[4]. Pearson Mycloud. http://mycloud-login.pearson.com/
[5]. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearson_plc
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Appendices
Requirement Gathering Questionnaire for Pearson:
1. Explain the organizational hierarchy.
2. Explain the types of businesses (products or services) that company is involved.
3. What is the mission and vision of the company?
4. How many departments are there and what are they?
5. How many computers are there?
6. If any technical problem occurs, whom should be contacted?
7. Who has access to company servers and databases?
8. If employees want to know something about the company, how can they get what they want?
9. What are the methods and procedures you use in order to share knowledge among
employees?
10. Do you have any cultural activities apart from work life in the company?
11. To whom you develop software products?
12. Employees awareness of Knowledge Management including:
Knowledge Creation
Knowledge Codifying
Knowledge Storing
Knowledge Sharing
Applying Knowledge
