Battle Command Knowledge System
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) is the change agent for implementing knowledge management (KM) capabilities into the training and military operations of the United States Army. People, processes, and technology are the three components to KM. BCKS is responsible for developing the dynamic operational and social processes for transferring relevant knowledge from those who know to those who need to know.
Contents |
[edit] BCKS Mission Statement
The BCKS mission is to support the generation, application, management, and exploitation of Army knowledge to foster collaboration among Soldiers and Units in order to share expertise and experience; facilitate leader development and intuitive decision making; and support the development of organizations and teams.
[edit] BCKS objectives include:
- Enhance Battle Command
- Facilitate Exchange of Knowledge
- Foster Leader Development
- Support Doctrine Development
- Support Lessons Learned
- Support Training
- Enhance Professional Education
[edit] Effects of Battle Command Knowledge Management:
- Improved situational understanding
- Improved Common Operational Picture
- Faster transition cycles between units
- Quickens transfer of expertise and experience
- Improved decision making process
- Provide reach back capability
- Ensure knowledge is captured, stored and shared
- Share lessons learned and TTP’s across enterprise
- Break knowledge “stovepipes”
- Influence doctrine development cycle
- Produces agile and adaptive Leaders & Soldiers
[edit] BCKS current initiatives include:
- KM Forums
- KM Training
- KM Doctrine
- Multi-repositry search engine
- Digital Storytelling and Interactive Video Development
[edit] KM Forums
BCKS provides a network of facilitated professional forums that provide a foundation for knowledge exchange. Army Soldiers and civilians connect to share explicit and tacit knowledge to solve problems, share best practices and develop their professional skills. Leaders and staff members have access to others with similar duty positions and challenges. Functional specialists and those interested in a particular specialized domain gather virtually in focused forums.
Army Professional Forums were informally implemented by passionate volunteers who wanted to share their knowledge and experience with their peers in order to improve their profession. CompanyCommand.com and Platoon Leader were formally adopted by the U. S. Army in 2002. The Battle Command Knowledge System Professional Forums were formed in September 2004 to provide structure to this innovative knowledge sharing process. Later, the NCOTeam.org was also supported and adopted by BCKS.
By September 2004, there were four formal U. S. Army Professional Forums with approximately 20,000 members. Since that time, the U. S. Army has grown their Professional Forums into one of the premier collaboration instruments in the U. S. Government with 46 Professional Forums supporting Active and Reserve forces as well as the National Guard. The Professional Forums support Soldiers around the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. These collaboration tools have been widely accepted across the entire enterprise structure, with membership ranging from General Officer to Private, all being able to share their unique knowledge and experience with others on the Forum without regard to rank or position. Army Professional Forums currently have over 75,600 members and are growing at a rate of approximately 1,900 new members per month mainly by word of mouth through a grass-roots effort.
[edit] By the Numbers
- 42 BCKS Forums with 64,000 accounts
- 4 West Point Forums with 9,600 accounts
- 46 BCKS Forums with 75,600 accounts and growth of approximately
- BCKS Growth = 1,500 per month
- West Point Growth = 400 per month
- Total Growth = 1,900 per month
- 33,000 unique visitors per month
- 1,000 unique visitors per day
[edit] KM Training
BCKS has developed curriculum for the Army’s newly developing knowledge management cells at the brigade and division levels. This curriculum provides the training and education necessary for the Battle Command Knowledge Management (BCKM ) cell to understand and practice the employment of KM/BCKM activities, principles, processes, techniques, and tools.
This 18-20 hour training curriculum consists of the following modules:
- BCKM
- Knowledge Management (KM)
- Content Management (CM)
- The BCKM Cell
- Software and Hardware
[edit] KM Doctrine
Doctrine is sound military advice prepared in advance. Army doctrine provides a common framework of operations from which plans can be developed and successfully executed. Doctrine provides a common language and defines the terms used in the profession. Doctrine presents the fundamental principles that guide the employment of forces and facilitates organizing forces tailoring for specific operation.
BCKS helped develop the first Army KM doctrine. Working in partnership with the Combined Arms Doctrine Directorate (CADD), BCKS wrote a field manual interim (FMI) 6-01.1 “The Battle Command Knowledge Management Cell”. This collaborative effort included direct input from Soldiers in the field. FMI 6-01.1 will serve as the Army’s authoritative source for the Battle Command Knowledge Management Cell (BCKM). It will serve as the standard reference for understanding the role of knowledge management in operations. Although the FMI 6-01.1 focuses on the modular division BCKM cell, it will be applicable from brigade to corps level. FMI 6-01.1 will have an effective lifespan of two years from publication at which time a regular FM is planned to supersede it. BCKS is the primary coordinator and author of the initial draft of this FMI.
Topics included in the FMI are: Definitions, types of knowledge, KM principles, spectrum of KM strategy, knowledge lifecycles, and relationship of KM with Battle Command, KM in ARFORGEN, BCKM cell functions, duties, and responsibilities, KM processes, case studies, and examples.
[edit] KM Multi-Repository Search Engine
With the explosion of databases and portals of knowledge artifacts throughout the United States Department of Defense, as well as access restrictions placed on them by community/ forum leaders, it is difficult for Soldiers to quickly find and apply relevant information in support of their combat mission. The Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) has provided the resources and leadership to implement the Warrior Knowledge base (WKB), an online repository of data assets/artifacts and platform for conducting federated searches across domains. The BCKS vision is to make it easy for Soldiers to find trusted data assets from portals and domains throughout the Army and the DoD, so information can be captured, repurposed and shared within minutes. Most repositories are not structured to support semantic searches of their content, only searches of indexed information, which hinders discovery. They cannot provide the real-time linkage between the data asset and the forum where it is being discussed and validated. The BCKS leadership and vision brings industry-leading search and content management technology to Soldiers world-wide.
[edit] Digital Storytelling and Interactive Video
Narrative engineering is the KM discipline that applies storytelling to the purposes of the organization. The NCO Net pilot is the cornerstone of Army narrative engineering, and is designed to bring storytelling to bear for: knowledge creation, sharing and exploitation; building and integrating individual, team and organizational expertise; leader development and leadership; a “springboard” for change; and situational awareness, as a way to organize and articulate perception, interpretation and actionable prediction in an operational environment. The NCO Net is a foundational Army community of practice, but the narrative engineering pilot has implications across the entire breadth and depth of military operations, learning, and innovation. The NCO Net pilot focuses on a road to competency in actionable cultural awareness using digital stories and face-to-face stories, both supported by a Narrative Wizard.
[edit] Results
NCO Net posted a 3D animated video clip “Trouble at Checkpoint 4” showing a set of problems unfolding at a checkpoint in Iraq. The online NCO facilitator led discussion with context specific thought questions on how the Soldiers could handle the situation. Over 220 comments from junior to senior ranks were posted within first 48 hours. This video and comments have been viewed over 6,000 times in US, Europe, and Iraq. Some of the comments received were:
- Good leadership training
- Many discussions concerning how Soldier should have reacted
- Good cultural awareness training
- Amateurs talk about TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures - 'How to books'),professionals talk about people and cultures
Link to BCKS public webpage
(AKO users only) Link to BCKS sign-in webpage
