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Jacky Doumenjou, knowledge manager and foresight bulletin co-ordinator at CRIGEN (Gas and New Energies Research and Innovation Centre), GDF SUEZ
A Day in the Life of… Jacky Doumenjou, knowledge manager and foresight bulletin co-ordinator, CRIGEN – GDF SUEZ
This article discusses how knowledge is managed in a large company supplying gas, electricity, water and services utilities. Jacky Doumenjou’s role, synthesising knowledge for a restricted bulletin for his company’s most senior executives, means that he has to maintain strong networks in order to get and assess the information he needs. This means understanding the organisation he works for, and the agendas of the people he works with. After years looking at knowledge management from the perspective of other roles, he is also trying to develop a community of practice that will help him do his job more effectively. Doumenjou also has strong opinions on the role of knowledge management in project-based R&D organisations, which he outlines in a separate document.
Jacky Doumenjou works as a knowledge manager and edits a foresight bulletin at CRIGEN, the gas and new energies research and innovation centre of GDF SUEZ, in Saint-Denis, France. Doumenjou took a technical management degree at France’s National Institute of Technical Documentation (INTD-CNAM), and also graduated from the National Institute of Oriental Languages. He joined EDF GDF Services in 1995 as a technical documents manager, and handled all the technical documentation for Project Optimia, the largest IT project in France. After 12 years managing various aspects of knowledge management at former Gaz de France (since 2008, GDF SUEZ), Doumenjou became co-ordinator of a restricted technical newsletter for the company’s top 30 executives. He is particularly interested in how companies capitalise on the information generated in collective efforts such as R&D projects.
Jacky Doumenjou has worked in various aspects of knowledge management and technology scouting – his first job was to look for new product opportunities for Japanese companies by visiting exhibitions and keeping in touch with local market trends. After years of involvement with the details of knowledge management strategies, as both a user and a manager, he now edits a restricted newsletter for his company’s top 30 executives that highlights new technologies and market opportunities and provides commentary and analysis on their feasibility, potential importance and possible impact on the company.
Synthesising knowledge
The role puts Doumenjou at the sharp end of knowledge management, gathering information from all over the company and distilling it into a form that can usefully inform board-level decisions.
“People in the company provide this information and I have to check its veracity and add more details,” says Doumenjou. “The difficulty is to find the experts within the company with whom I can check the information, and from whom I can get a critical assessment of its worth.
I have to consider the different points of view of many people
“I then need to work out what we [the company] should do about each topic, in a sort of foresight role. The problem is that I have to consider the different points of views of many people so I have to be careful of that. And I also need to balance the newsletter’s coverage across our major markets of natural gas, electricity, renewable energies and services utilities.”
Maintaining a network
Doumenjou sees his job as involving a lot of networking: despite the presence of knowledge-sharing tools such as Lotus Notes within the company, he finds it is often most effective for him to pick up the phone to find or persuade an expert to provide him with the insights he needs. He also finds himself acting as an intermediary.
I have to get on well with everybody, because otherwise I’d have no information to work with
“The complexity of the role comes from the size of the company, so it is about managing the complexity of the expertise we have at our disposal, the many places in which it resides, and the different cultures in which it is developed,” he says. “I have to act as an intermediary between all these factors, and also make sure that I get on well with everybody, because otherwise I’d have no information to work with.
“I also need to deal with various internal opinions and trends, who may want to influence the innovation in one direction or another. And since the ultimate editor of the newsletter is the R&D director, I have to be sensitive to his interests as well.”
Understanding organisations
Different parts of the organisation have different approaches to knowledge management. The R&D function has a long tradition of managing and capitalising on knowledge, since it is both the division’s raw material and its product. Other divisions, such as exploration and production, sales or distribution, have their own knowledge management traditions that have to be respected and understood if Doumenjou is going to work with them effectively.
Having spent a long time working in knowledge management, Doumenjou now feels that one of its most effective forms is the development of communities of practice based around people with expertise. This approach, he believes, can help companies sustain their knowledge base even as the demand for project-led R&D makes it more difficult to do so.
Communities of practice
“Our communities of practice work with tools within our network, and meet once or twice a year somewhere offsite,” he says. “These communities have experts whose role it is to animate and share the knowledge within the community.
“The complexity of running these communities stems from the size and geographical spread of the company. You might have community members in various countries in Europe and the Americas. But it is easier to keep them in touch than it used to be using modern tools. And these communities also tend to develop their own culture, which can ease some of the issues that stem from asking people from a variety of cultural backgrounds to work together.”
There’s no magic in the online tools if information is not connected with a relational dimension
Doumenjou is trying to build a community of practice of his own, around his role of providing technological and market foresight information to the company’s most senior executives in collaboration with the different R&D centres of GDF SUEZ.
“I have to be the animator of that, spending a lot of time on the phone speaking with people, giving feedback and so on. There’s no magic in the online tools if information is not connected with a relational dimension. To build the network of potential contributors that I need, meeting face-to-face is still useful.”
Jacky Doumenjou
Knowledge manager and foresight bulletin co-ordinator at CRIGEN (Gas and New Energies Research and Innovation Centre), GDF SUEZ
jacky.doumenjou@gdfsuez.com
eIQ Action Points
- Recognise that knowledge may need to be presented in a way that matches the audience’s expectations and outlooks
- Balance content to reflect the whole company’s activities, even when there is little immediate change in a particular area – getting regular coverage keeps people engaged
- Work hard at maintaining the networks that bring you key information
- Moderate extreme views and bear in mind hidden agendas in order to try and provide balanced viewpoints
- Consider developing a ‘community of practice’ that will form a reliable continuing source of insight and expertise
- Don’t think that knowledge management tools hold some sort of magic – they can’t do the job for you
- There’s nothing like a phone call or a face-to-face meeting for sharing knowledge