Since being appointed by Director of Management Services as a KM Champion on June 1, this year, he has made considerable progress in this endeavour, by studying the critical success factors of KM initiatives in both the public and private sectors in Hong Kong, as well as those in international firms and leading organisations overseas.

In order to develop the Practices and Experience Acquisition Kiosk (PEAK), Mr Wong has obtained research reports and case studies from the Harvard Business School, which has given him an insight into methods of capturing, vetting and sharing best practices and areas of improvement.

He has also spent much time browsing through other research material, including documents and research papers from public libraries and the Resources Centre of the Trade Development Council. On average he spends about six to 10 hours per week on the PEAK project.

Recently, two University of Hong Kong students, Carol Wong Pui-yin and Chris Wong Man-chit on Placement Internship in the Force teamed up with Mr Wong. They were assigned to help Mr Wong as they are majoring in "Information Management", which is relevant to the PEAK project. With their assistance, Mr Wong is developing PEAK further by:

* studying successful good practice repositories developed by other organisations, their implementation and related critical success factors;

* designing a classification scheme of good practices and areas for improvement, and

* proposing a template design for capturing and uploading good practices and areas for improvement.

Before taking up these roles, Mr Wong canvassed the views and expectations of superintendents, chief inspectors, and NCOs with regard to PEAK, during two focus groups with these officers.

In studying other business cases, Mr Wong established a dialogue with a leading local accounting firm. "During discussions regarding the internal platforms being used to share knowledge, we discovered that the Force and the firm have some things in common, including the use of Lotus Notes software to collate, disseminate and share information and knowledge," he said.

In addition, Mr Wong is convinced that the Single Sign On System, which provides user-friendly access, would facilitate searching for and retrieving of knowledge from POINT.

In studying the KM initiatives outside the Force, Mr Wong always bears in mind these questions: "How do we compare with them?", "Is there anything we can adapt and adopt?" and "What's missing from our KM System?"

To move forward, Mr Wong will continue to benchmark other critical success factors outside the Force, including those of the Hospital Authority and Town Gas. If possible a visit to another international consultancy firm based in Hong Kong will also be arranged.

In order to enhance the technological feasibility, Mr Wong is working with EPOL to develop a suitable template. He emphasised that a tailor-made template is desirable to facilitate search and navigation on the site. "Therefore, we've passed officers' requests to EPOL. Hopefully the end product will provide a seamless process for search and navigation, which is, in management terms, 'quicker, better and cheaper'," he noted.

Mr Wong hopes that the KM Portal, POWER, which rolled out on May 8, would be further developed and brought to a more advanced level. "We should capitalise on the current KM platform and take it forward for the betterment of services and knowledge sharing for all officers. The development of KM won't happen overnight and as such will take a lot of effort as it requires constant input and updating. For both my duties and my own enhancement, I've accepted the challenge of being a KM Champion."

Both of Mr Wong's student assistants have high regard for the functions of PEAK.

"PEAK is a practical platform for members of the Force to know more about good practices and areas for improvement, but not many officers are aware of its function at this stage, so more can be done to promote it," Carol said.

"PEAK has codified information by different topics, and officers can obtain the information they require," Chris added.

SSP Wong and his student assistants, Carol and Chris