Questions and Answers From IRI's Members

Questions on formal system to manage your technology project portfolio and knowledge management initiatives are answered. According to Tom Kavassalis VP, Strategy and Alliances Xerox Innovation Group, they have an approach for managing their technology portfolio that they have been using for the past six years. Their approach was developed in-house after studying many of the contemporary frameworks for portfolio management and value creation. It does not rely heavily on any commercial tools, as they found most tools offered a particular and often narrow perspective. Nanako Mura, associate director, Open Innovation and Knowledge Management, Kraft Foods, Inc, said one very helpful best practice is to benchmark with other companies that are known for good knowledge management (KM) practices. They reached out to a number of companies and they were happy to share their current practices, tools, and external resources. KM is an area that seems to be widely perceived as noncompetitive for the most part, and so companies are happy to share.