Knowledge management in DuPont’s legal department, with the EDGE

A previous post described some of the features of the EDGE, the knowledge management platform of DuPont’s legal department (See my post of Jan. 18, 2007.). KM Space, a site hosted by Doug Cornelius, reports some comments by Gabrielle Townsend of DuPont (See my post of June 4, 2007 about other in-house knowledge managers.).

After a Six Sigma study and a calculation of the return on investment, a team of law department employees, led by a knowledge manager, chose Interwoven’s Worksite MP to serve as the platform for the EDGE. Townsend said that the EDGE has 75,000 documents and 1,169 users (458 external and 711 internal). Law firms that DuPont retains have access to the extranet site. “Team rooms” are the locus for knowledge sharing, something like electronic communities of practice. The system has 95 active team rooms “with 5 to 7 team rooms being currently active.”

Comments

[Doug Cornelius]

Rees -

I have always wondered why legal departments don't set up their extranet system to help manage outside counsel and the matters they are working on.

A well designed system could make it much easier for inside and outside to collaborate. It would even be possible to give greater functionality to outside counsel.

I generally find requests for extranet capability in RFPs, but inside counsel to not be very interested in them.

Doug