Knowledge Management
Sharing Knowledge in Crime Kowloon East

0 Photo

Crime Kowloon East Regional Headquarters has always been committed to turning mistakes into learning opportunities, and as a matter of practice, all case acquittals in Kowloon East (KE) are reviewed and all learning points are placed on the Crime Kowloon East Bulletin, which provides a valuable resource for crime officers in the region.

To save officers' time, the Senior Superintendent Crime's Standing Orders have been re-engineered, so that they are now in an action card format - each section of the orders has been broken down so that it can be referred to on its own. This not only makes searching easier, but also saves paper in printing the relevant sections.

In order to cut down on the time taken by officers to find work-related information, a Crime KE Instructions & Guidelines database has been set up as a one-stop-shop for investigators which contains all recent headquarters and regional instructions.

In addition to the Knowledge Management databases, a number of databases have been opened to enhance internal communication by reducing the volumes of information in circulation on PEN.

Previously the Crime KE general registry would forward newly received incoming emails to all officers, so that everyone's email inbox was always full of emails, many of which were of no relevance to the officer.

In order to improve this situation, a Crime KE Noticeboard has been set up so that all new messages received by the registry are now placed on the Noticeboard, which is only circulated twice a day, allowing officers to choose what they want to read. This has cut down incredibly on the amount of unnecessary reading that officers need to do, and means that they are no longer swamped by unnecessary emails.

In an extension of this concept, a database named Crime KE Briefs holding details of all briefs prepared for frontline duties has been developed, giving a single point of reference to operational commanders in the region.

Having developed all of these databases, two key issues now remain. The first is to get crime officers to use them, and a key selling point is the WORKSPACE function, which is the online filing cabinet that is available for use under the databases option on Lotus Notes. Unfortunately most of our officers are totally unaware of this function, which allows databases to be ordered and placed in customised folders, which can considerably cut down on the amount of time spent searching for information.

The second issue is encouraging officers to contribute knowledge from their own work experiences, and now that we have built the databases and demonstrated the value of the system, we believe officers will be more encouraged to contribute.

All of this work is being done as part of the Knowledge Management development plan to conduct a pilot in a single region. Upon the successful running of the KM pilot in Kowloon East, implementation of KM will be extended to other Regions in phases.

For enquiries or comments on KM, please contact Rene Lam, the CIP ES SQ at 2866-6775 or ip-sip-es-sq@police.gov.hk.