Requirements elicitation and planning of a knowledge portal : case study of a property management division in a housing organization

Abstract

Enterprise knowledge portals offer, among other characteristics, a centralized access point for information as well as a wide range of tools and content for individual knowledge workers to personalize to suit their daily tasks. Such tasks often include the collection, aggregation, and analysis of data/information as well as collaborative work among workers to solve problems and make decisions. Leveraging on a quantitative–qualitative research approach including the use of a prior research instrument developed for the elicitation of requirements for collaboration tools, this paper seeks to identify the primary and secondary functions of a knowledge portal for knowledge workers in the property management division of a housing organization in Hong Kong. Although portals are often treated as a kind of stand-alone enterprise knowledge management systems, proper planning and deployment of a portal with appropriate functionalities and a widely agreed content classification scheme can also help to enhance the navigation and presentation of knowledge assets in a knowledge-leveraged organization. In particular, the introduction of a federated search engine can save considerable time in conducting (multiple) searches; selective Web 2.0 tools can help to foster collaborative work as well as help knowledge workers to reduce time spent on search but keep pace with nominated topics on a timely basis. Drawing on the existing literature as well as the authors' experience in working with many other organizations to deploy portals and relevant tools in the Asia Pacific, the initial recommendations are further consolidated to form a two-phase deployment with the aim of enhancing the probability of success for the knowledge journey in the housing organization.