Designing a Knowledge-Sharing Platform to Connect Nearly 1,900 Researchers at a Federal Health Institute.

About the Client

NIAID is one of the institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, headquartered in the Bethesda, Maryland area. NIAID conducts and supports basic and applied research to better understand, treat, and prevent infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases, work that has contributed to new therapies, vaccines, and diagnostic tools over more than six decades. Within NIAID, the Office of Strategic Planning and Financial Management (OSPFM) was responsible for implementing knowledge-sharing practices and tools across the Institute, giving its own knowledge management capability outsized influence over how well NIAID’s broader research mission was supported.

Industry Context

Large federal research agencies like the institutes that make up NIH are mission-driven but highly decentralized, with scientific and programmatic knowledge distributed across many divisions and thousands of researchers — making efficient knowledge sharing directly relevant to an agency’s ability to respond to external inquiries and avoid redundant work across its research portfolio. By the mid-2000s, federal agencies were increasingly investing in intranet portals, enterprise search, and expertise-location tools to operationalize knowledge management strategy, particularly as government accountability requirements pushed offices like OSPFM to demonstrate operational effectiveness with concrete, measurable metrics rather than process improvements alone.

Current Situation

OSPFM faced long cycle times to respond to external requests, little or no reuse of content, and inconsistent control of information as it flowed between OSPFM and the Institute’s other offices and divisions. An effort was launched to address two of the Office’s 15 strategic goals: knowledge mapping of the priority OSPFM knowledge repositories, and gathering baseline metrics on knowledge sharing and knowledge management. The project scope also included developing an OSPFM workforce portal and an expertise locator application.

• Slow response times to external requests. OSPFM faced long cycle times responding to external requests and inquiries from across the Institute and beyond.
• Little or no reuse of existing content. Existing content saw little or no reuse, meaning staff regularly recreated work that may have already existed elsewhere in the Office.
• Inconsistent information control across the Institute. Information flowing between OSPFM and other NIAID offices and divisions was inconsistently controlled and managed.
• No baseline metrics for knowledge management effectiveness. OSPFM lacked baseline metrics for evaluating its own knowledge-sharing effectiveness or for prioritizing future knowledge management projects.

• Conduct knowledge mapping of OSPFM’s priority knowledge repositories.
• Establish baseline metrics on knowledge sharing and knowledge management.
• Provide governance and organizational recommendations for how OSPFM should organize and staff its knowledge management activities.
• Design, develop, and deploy a web-based OSPFM workforce portal and an expertise locator application.

How Iknow Structured the Work

Iknow structured the engagement around four primary workstreams — knowledge mapping, metrics, governance and control, and systems development — culminating in a full end-to-end build of a production web portal and expertise locator application, reflecting Iknow’s knowledge audit and mapping methodology for grounding a new platform in genuine understanding of the organization’s content and behavior.

Key Activities & Decisions

• Knowledge mapping workstream. Iknow’s knowledge mapping workstream identified relevant content sources and analyzed the existing content classification and organization approaches, using proven knowledge harvesting practices to ensure the necessary assessment information was collected and analyzed.
• Metrics workstream. Iknow’s metrics workstream established knowledge-based performance measurements for evaluating the Office’s operational effectiveness and for assessing and prioritizing proposed projects.
• Governance and control workstream. Iknow’s governance and control workstream provided insights on how OSPFM should organize and staff its knowledge management activities.
• Systems development workstream. Iknow’s systems development workstream created a Web-based workforce portal for knowledge dissemination, identifying current and future organizational needs and documenting functional requirements; the resulting intranet website included multiple content delivery approaches and role-based personalization.
• End-to-end software development lifecycle. For systems development, Iknow conducted a full, end-to-end software development lifecycle, including requirements collection and documentation, user experience design (use cases, wireframes, and screen mockups), and system design, development, integration, testing, and deployment.
• NIAID Experts Finder deployment. Iknow delivered the NIAID Experts Finder, an expertise locator application providing a comprehensive listing of contact information, communities of practice participation, project team work, and published documents to facilitate connections among NIAID’s roughly 1,870 employees.

Stakeholders & Collaboration

Iknow served as prime contractor on a contract held by Perot Systems Government Services, Inc., supporting the Knowledge Management Office within OSPFM, with KCurve, Inc. serving as subcontractor.

Diagnosing Why Knowledge Wasn’t Flowing Across a Large, Decentralized Institute

Long cycle times, low content reuse, and inconsistent information control could have stemmed from many different root causes, and guessing wrong risked designing a portal that didn’t fix the actual problem. Iknow addressed this by dedicating an entire workstream to knowledge mapping, using proven knowledge harvesting practices to systematically identify content sources and existing classification approaches rather than relying on anecdotal impressions of where the gaps were.

Turning “Improve Knowledge Sharing” Into Something Measurable and Fundable

An abstract goal like improving knowledge sharing is difficult for any office to act on or secure ongoing funding for without a way to measure progress. Iknow addressed this by pairing its knowledge mapping and governance workstreams with a dedicated metrics workstream that established baseline, knowledge-based performance measurements specifically designed for evaluating OSPFM’s effectiveness and prioritizing future projects, not just describing the current state.

Quantitative Outcomes

• Strategic goals addressed: Two of OSPFM’s 15 strategic goals directly addressed through the engagement.
• Program scope: Four workstreams delivered: knowledge mapping, metrics, governance and control, and systems development.
• Platform reach: A deployed Web-based workforce portal and expertise locator application reaching NIAID’s roughly 1,870 employees.
• Delivery completeness: A full end-to-end software development lifecycle completed, from requirements through deployment.
• Engagement duration: Six-month assignment that grew into a collaboration lasting more than a year.

Qualitative Outcomes

Iknow’s work with NIAID launched a more than year-long collaboration to enable greater internal knowledge-sharing at the Institute, demonstrating that the initial engagement built lasting trust and follow-on work rather than ending with a one-time deliverable. The NIAID Experts Finder gave staff a comprehensive way to locate colleagues by research area, community of practice, and project involvement, directly addressing OSPFM’s original difficulty connecting requesters with the right subject matter experts. The OSPFM homepage consolidated previously scattered content, tools, and dashboards into a single, role-personalized destination, addressing the Office’s original content-reuse and cycle-time challenges.

Timeline to Impact

Within the six-month initial engagement, Iknow delivered the full knowledge mapping, metrics framework, governance recommendations, and a deployed, tested, production web portal and expertise locator — work that then extended into a collaboration spanning more than a year.

Core Skills

• Knowledge audit and mapping
• KM assessment and maturity benchmarking
• Knowledge base and intranet design
• End-to-end software development lifecycle management

Methods & Frameworks

• Knowledge harvesting practices
• Knowledge-based performance metrics design
• Governance and organizational design for knowledge management

Technologies & Tools

• Web-based portal development with role-based personalization
• Expertise locator / subject matter expert search application