3 Cul-de-sac arguments in Knowledge Management

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Over the 20 years that we have been doing knowledge management, there has been a number of recurrent arguments that appear regularly, often several times a year. Watch the linked-in forums; you will see these arguments popping up like mushrooms. I call them cul-de-sac arguments, as they lead us nowhere. They are never resolved, and they make little difference to pragmatic knowledge management.

Here is the first and the biggest.

Can you manage knowledge?

This argument often comes about because people sometimes assume that "knowledge management" means "the management of knowledge". Given that knowledge is intangible, they feel that it cannot be controlled as a "thing", and that without control, there can be no management.

This argument is debated around and around and around and around, and usually ends up with the position that "it depends what you mean by knowledge, and it depends what you mean by management". Often the argument is an emotional one, driven by the feeling that "Knowledge is Good, Management is Bad", and that we ought to find another term. "Knowledge Sharing", perhaps.

My position is that it doesn't matter. The validity of "Knowledge Management" doesn't depend on whether knowledge is a concrete object to be controlled, any more than the  validity of "Reputation Management" depends on whether reputation is a concrete object to be controlled, or that the validity of "Risk Management" depends on whether risk is a concrete object to be controlled.

The point is that you can do some really useful things through Management, which enable the flow and re-use of Knowledge, and which deliver real value to an organisation. It's "Management with a focus on Knowledge", and that's enough to call it Knowledge Management as far as I am concerned.

Here's the second

"If you write it down, is it still knowledge?"

Many hours have been spent arguing whether knowledge can ever exist outside the human head. Some say "Yes, it's explicit knowledge". Others say "No, it's information".

This argument is seldom resolved, but as far as I am concerned, it doesn't matter. It is possible to help people understand how to do things, through the transmission of the recorded word. You can add a huge amount of value this way, no matter what you call the medium of transmission (explicit knowledge, or knowledge-focused information). There is a loss of value when things get written down, but where does that loss turn knowledge into information? Is it

• when you formalise your thoughts into coherent form?
• when you speak your thoughts?
• when you record what you speak onto video?
• when you write a transcript of that video?

Nobody knows, and trying to pinpoint the step at which knowledge becomes information, is irrelevant to the fact that you can add value to an organisation (in many cases) through written transmission. It's seldom the best way to transfer knowledge, but sometimes its the only practical way.

Here's the third.

"What is knowledge?"

This is an argument that gets very philosophical, very quickly. Plato is often quoted, along with Senge, and other philosophers. Nobody can ever agree which definition is correct, nor which philosopher is authoritative.

I don't think it matters. You don't need to agree on the definition of an electron, to be able to create an electronic circuit which does useful things like lighting a lamp or ringing a bell. Similarly you don't need to agree on the definition of knowledge, to be able to help knowledge flow in order to do useful things like solve a problem or improve a process. You don't need to define "a thought" in order to think, you don't need to define "music" in order to sing, and you don't need to define "knowledge" in order to do knowledge management. Knowledge is hard to define, but its not that hard to deliver real value through knowledge management.

So the answer is "we don't really know, but see what we can do with it!"

KM failure story number 11

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This isn't a failure story of KM as such, it's more about the failure of one tool, which was applied inappropriately (rather like in this story)

It comes from here, and it's about the introduction of Yammer at the Local Government Association (LGA) of South Australia.
Yammer was being touted by Deloittes as a productivity tool, but it didn't take off at the LGA.

According to the story

“(Yammer) just wasn’t taken up or appreciated, and users feedback suggest it was yet another place they need to check and keep up to date.” The tool therefore fell by the wayside and Callbutt feels it may not be suited to a single office setting in which everyone knows all their colleagues and can interact with them without a computer or smartphone by simply walking over to their desk to strike up a conversation.

"We could see each other in the tea room," Callbutt said".

Deloiites, of course, is a global company and don't have a single tea-room. They need Yammer. LGA didn't.

The message, as always, is to choose the tools that match the needs. Lead with the need, don't lead with the tool.

8 demand-side KM principles

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I blogged recently about David Snowden's 7 KM principles, and it struck me as I did so, that they all relate to the supply side of knowledge management; to the transition from unconscious knowing, to conscious knowledge and to expressed knowledge. There is of course another side - the demand side, or the user side - which represents the transition from expressed knowledge to conscious understanding and to unconscious knowing. Here are a set of principles which apply to the other side of the equation - the learning side

These principles are based on our own experience in Knoco, and there is some overlap with the established “principles of learning” used in the educational field.

Here are our principles

1. People don’t pay attention to knowledge until they actually need it. People won’t  absorb knowledge until they are ready, and they won’t be ready until they feel the need.  I could give you detailed driving instructions of the quickest way to travel from Cheddar in Somerset  to Woking in Surrey, but you wouldn’t retain them because they are of no immediate value to you. Then one day, you are at a garden party in Cheddar and your boss calls and says “can you get to Woking as quickly as possible, we have a potential big deal to close and I need you here right now”. THEN you will be highly receptive to the knowledge. The consequence of this "attention when needed" is that it is more effective to set up “just in time” knowledge sharing processes than “just in case” knowledge sharing processes (although these also have their place).
2. People value knowledge that they request more highly than knowledge that is unsolicited.  I don’t know the psychology behind this, but it seems to be true.  The best way to get knowledge into people’s heads seems to be by answering their questions. The old fashioned “show and tell” is far less effective than “question and answer”, and the blog is less effective than the discussion forum.  The company where the most questions are asked, is often the company that learns the quickest.  This principle is behind the design of most effective knowledge management processes, the majority of which are based on dialogue, and the primary focus of communities of practice should be answering questions rather than publishing ideas.
3. People won’t use knowledge, unless they trust its provenance.This is the “not invented here” principle, which is a very strong factor in knowledge management terms.  People won’t use knowledge they don’t trust, and they don’t trust knowledge if they don’t know where it has come from.  They need either to trust the individual who gave them the knowledge, or the organisational construct (such as the CoP) which provided the knowledge.  The source may be an expert, or a wiki (many people trust Wikipedia for example, despite its shortcomings), or a community of practice, and building credibility and trust has to be a key activity when building these constructs as part of the knowledge management initiative.
4. Knowledge has to be reviewed in the user’s own context before it can be received.  One of the knowledge receiver’s first questions is “is this relevant to me?” Everybody always feels their own context is different (even though the difference is often less than assumed), and they need to test the knowledge for relevance before they really pay attention.  We were recently facilitating a peer assist, where people were bringing knowledge from Africa, from India, from China, to be used in an Indonesian context.  For each of the learning points, we needed about half an hour to an hour’s discussion around context, before we could even approach discussion of how imported knowledge might be used. This means that transferring knowledge in a written form is difficult, unless you can introduce a process by which people can interrogate this within their own context
5. One of the biggest barriers to accepting new knowledge is old knowledge.  This is the curse of prior knowledge. People have to unlearn, before they can learn.  Old assumptions, old habits, “the way we have always done it in the past” may all have to be challenged before people can absorb and make sense of new knowledge.  This can be hard work! As an example, see the story about the war of the hedgerows, where the U.S. Army completely missed the implication of the Normandy hedgerows, assuming they would not be a factor in tank and infantry warfare after the D day landings
6. Knowledge has to be adapted before it can be adopted.  If people are provided with guidance, tips and hints, or even a “recipe to follow,” they will always tweak it and adjust it in order to “make it theirs”.  Sometimes this tweaking and adjusting is necessary to fit the knowledge to their own context; sometimes it is unnecessary in practical terms despite being necessary in emotional terms.  So when you are providing people with guidance, tips and hints or even a “recipe”, you have to give them some idea of where they can still adapt it, and where dangerous tinkering should be avoided. Otherwise they may "adapt" the wrong thing. We see this all the time in our Bird island exercise - they all want to tinker with the final design, and you have to let them tinker, but try to guide them to tinker in non-fatal ways!
7. Knowledge will be more effective the more personal it is.  The more personal, emotional, and highly charged the learning situation, the more the knowledge will be easily adopted.  Discussion, story telling and coaching can be personal, and motional and highly charged, but it becomes difficult to translate this into the written word.  The use of stories is very helpful, the use of video even more so.  Obviously this has profound implications for knowledge transfer mechanisms.
8. You won’t really KNOW it until you DO it.  We very often see in lessons learned meetings, teams that say  “we picked up this learning from the previous project, we tried it and it really did work!  That was a great learning for us”.  When they picked it up they knew it intellectually; after they had tried it they knew it practically and emotionally.  Seeing is believing, trying is trusting, doing is internalising.  This sort of positive reinforcement of learning is a massive boost for your knowledge management program; as people try things and find they work, this reinforces the belief that knowledge from others is of real practical value.

KM and demographics - Schlumberger studies

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Thanks to Jeff Stemke for forwarding me this interesting analysis from Schlumberger on the demographics of geoscience resources; one of an annual series of presentations from Schlumberger business services.

OK, the demographics of geoscientific resources may not sound relevant to your business at first hearing, but in fact this is an interesting study of a global "war for talent", and some of the KM-related responses that are in play in a number of companies.

Here's the story.

The Oil Industry is facing "The Big Crew Change", as a generation of older experienced workers give way to younger graduates. For many years it was feared that the number of new graduates would be insufficient to fill the gap. Now that's not the case, though the supply of staff from the top institutions is still much less than demand. However the nature of the work is changing, from a few big oil fields, to many smaller fields, requiring higher levels of staffing. The new staff are coming into a more demanding environment. To stick with old style "natural learning" patterns and expecting an effective result, is no longer an option.

So how do companies respond?

The screenshot here is from Schlumberger's 2006 study, and contrasts the difference in "time to competence" (or "time to autonomy") in geoscience staff between what they call Innovative companies, and Conservative companies. An "innovative company" can help new staff develop autonomy within 4 years, a conservative company takes 10 years. That 6 year difference makes a massive difference in the effectiveness and efficiency of your workforce (in later presentations they reduce this difference to 3-5 years, and suggest that the innovative companies are generally the Western Internationals, and the conservative companies are generally the National Oil Companies (2011 study)). They explain that what differentiates Innovative companies is

• The amount invested in training
• The length of graduate development programs
• The use of blended learning, and
• the use of Knowledge Management in a big way

Schlumberger themselves are of course one of the worlds leaders in Knowledge Management, as are many of the Western International Majors such as Shell and ConocoPhillips.

Another KM response is shown in the screenshot below from the 2010 study.

The western majors are investing in codifying their practice, at least for routine tasks, in order to provide explicit knowledge to younger staff. The National Oil Companies are not. 

And the value for all of this? A final screenshot from the 2010 study shows that without faster time to competence, without codification of practice (among other interventions), there are only a number of things you can do 

• Abandon projects (lose money)
• Abandon the operator role (lose control)
• Delay projects (lose money), or
• Carry more risk.

So some very interesting survey responses here, which all illustrate the support that Knowledge Management has to play in an industry with changing demographics, in order to save money and reduce risk.

Some addenda to Snowden's 7 KM principles

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David Snowden's landmark blog post in 2008 was an important event in developing a common understanding of Knowledge Management. By introducing his 7 principles, David reminded us that Knowledge is a difficult, personal attribute, not easy of recall, nor of extraction, nor of codification. These principles are widely quoted, often (sadly) without the commentary found in the original article, which adds considerably to the understanding of the principles.

I would like to offer a few addenda to these principles from my own experience, many of which were implicit in the original blog post. The original principles are in bold italic, my addenda in plain italic, and my commentary in plan text below.

1. Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted, but it can be requested. 
   This first principle is a vital reminder that the disclosure of knowledge is a voluntary act, but I have met people who take this as meaning that the instigation therefore must come from the knowledge-holder. This isn't the case - as principle 3 shows, there are triggers and circumstances that can deeply influence the knowledge-holder to be forthcoming - to share or volunteer rather than hoard. A sincere honest request will do this - extensive peer pressure will also have a strong effect.
2. We only know what we know when we need to know it, but recall can be triggered.
   In his original commentary, David explains ways in which recall can be triggered, and many effective Knowledge Management practices are based on ways of triggering recall. Group dialogue, storytelling and analysis, interview techniques such as role-playing responses to situations, can all be used as ways of triggering the deep knowledge, and making this conscious.
3. In the context of real need few people will withhold their knowledge, and also in other cases where they feel sharing will "make a difference".
   I strongly resonate with this principle and believe it to be absolutely true. It is also based on the concept that Pull beats Push as a stimulus for knowledge sharing. However I am not sure that it always has to be "real need", so long as there is an "acknowledged customer" with whom the knowledge sharer can relate, real interest in, and appreciation of, what the sharer has to offer, and belief that sharing will "make a difference". I have seen many teams, workers or experts share openly and generously, with no real immediate need, but rather a belief that this knowledge will be re-used to help others in similar circumstances. The corollary to this, of course, is that if they feel it won't make a difference, and that their contribution will end up in an information junkyard, then they won't bother.
4. Everything is fragmented.
   I have nothing to add to this one. Everything is fragmented, knowledge is dispersed, and effective knowledge management approaches need to recognise this.
5. Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success, yet repeated failure is stupid, and success breeds success.
   There's a lot been written in this blog about the approach to mistakes, and about the role of failure in KM. Individuals learn well from failure, but failure can be very costly. Sincere failure in pursuit of risky goals is fine if treated as a learning opportunity, making the same mistake twice just proves that learning is not happening. Also it is as important to learn from the team that won the deal, as from the team that lost the deal. It is the shining examples, the instances of "positive deviance" which often provide the greatest leap forward in understanding. In our Bird Island exercise, all the participants want to know the secret of the 3 metre tower, and they make their biggest leap in performance once they can copy components of that successful design. Then once they have built their >3m tower, they look at it and think "Wow - I did that, using Knowledge from others". They had to "fail" (build a <1m tower) before they were open to learning, but that combination of failure AND success was crucial. The failure prepared them to learn from the success.
6. The way we know things is not the way we report we know things.
   Absolutely.
7. We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down, but good facilitated processes can help with both these steps.
   I completely agree with principle number 7, and the principle that value and content are lost in a) making knowledge conscious, and b) making knowledge explicit. There will always be that loss, but there are ways to reduce that loss to some. These ways always involve investment of resource and time, but always add value compared to the default "write down what you know" approach.

Quantified success stories #32, GM

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Here's a good case study of the General Motors KM approach (and you can also find a more detailed description in Tom's book).

GM is a company with 327,000 employees that manufactures cars and trucks in 33 countries, and the driver for GM was standardisation of design and manufacturing approach, delivered through identifying, codifying and applying best practices.

 Steve Wieneke of GM used an existing taxonomy to charter 138 best practice teams across 33 centres of expertise to work with the identified subject matter experts, to populate and maintain "Technical Memory", a database of explicit knowledge and best practice. About one-third of the database is updated every year.

According to the article

" Early outcome metrics are already beginning to validate the product engineering initiatives. During the 36 months in service, for vehicles sold during 2000 through 2003, actual warranty costs dropped by almost 20 per cent below forecasts. The catalogue of engineering solutions, technical memory and the closed-loop learning are three of the current 10 activities identified as the engineering enablers driving the warranty cost down.

Although not solely a result of the initiative:

• Product quality has dramatically improved;
• Time to market has been accelerated;
• Structural cost has been reduced;
• The engineering culture is progressing from hoarding to sharing knowledge and from reinventing to adopting and adapting what is already known".

How to identify your Critical Knowledge

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This blog post was inspired by a discussion on Linked-in, which got me thinking about "How do we identify our company's critical knowledge"?

We often say that "Knowledge Management must be focused on the critical business knowledge", but how do we identify what that critical knowledge is?

There are actually two dimensions to identifying criticality (at least in terms of steering your KM program). These are

• Importance, and
• Urgency

I have already blogged about how to identify the important knowledge - to start with your business strategy, identify the activities needed to deliver that strategy, then identify the knowledge needed to deliver the activities. These could be activities (and knowledge) at all levels in the organisation 

• knowledge of how to enter new markets as well, as knowledge of how to sell products
• knowledge of how to set production forecasts, as well as knowledge of how to operate a plant
• knowledge of how to interact with host government environmental agencies, as well as knowledge of how to avoid pollution at your chemical plant

The knowledge can be new knowledge which needs to be acquired, cutting edge knowledge which forms your competitive advantage, or core knowledge which is needed to keep your income stream alive, and to fulfil your commitments. It can even be knowledge which is supplied by your partners and contractors, but which is still vital to your business. You identify the important knowledge through conversation with senior managers.

What about the urgent knowledge? This is the knowledge which needs urgent attention from knowledge management. There are at least four cases where knowledge can be in need of urgent attention. These are as follows.

• When knowledge is important to the company, but we don't have it (or we don't have enough of it). Here the focus will be on the acquisition and development of knowledge - on innovation, knowledge creation, research and action learning.
• Where knowledge exists widely in the company, but is siloed, and not shared, or otherwise not properly managed. Here knowledge is used inefficiently - advances in one part of the business are not shared and learned from, in other parts of the business. Multiple, and inefficient, solutions exist, where one or two solutions would be better. Here the focus will be on the elements of knowledge sharing, and knowledge improvement, such as communities of practice, lessons learned, and development of knowledge assets, best practices, and standardisation.
• Where important knowledge is at risk of loss (perhaps through the retirement of key members of staff). Here the focus must be on developing and deploying a Retention strategy.
• When critical knowledge is held by a contractor, partner or supplier, and they don't have knowledge Management. Here the focus is on defining a Knowledge Management Framework for them to apply, to keep your knowledge safe.

How do you identify the urgent knowledge? You need to do a Knowledge Scan of the important topics, and shortlist the ones in most need to attention.

Those important and urgent knowledge issues are the ones that should drive your knowledge management strategy, tackling them one by one.

Don't wait for the KM culture shift - start now

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We know that implementing Knowledge Management requires culture change, specifically the change from seeing Knowledge as something personal, to be hoarded, to seeing knowledge as something collective, to be shared.

We know that there can be very many cultural barriers to knowledge management.

We know that the wrong culture can kill your KM initiative.

However, here's a lesson for you - Don't wait for the culture to change, before you start to implement Knowledge Management.

The most powerful agents of KM culture change, are the processes of Knowledge Management themselves. After Action Reviews, Retrospects, Knowledge Exchanges, Communities of Practice, Peer Assists (in particular, Peer Assists), are all agents of culture change.

So make a start.

1. Find an area of the business where the culture is not so much of an issue, and start there. 
2. Set up a pilot project tacking a real business issue using KM processes and principles. 
3. Demonstrate success. 
4. Use that success as a springboard, an exemplar, a source of killer stories.
5. Use those stories to begin to change the culture elsewhere
6. Repeat from 1 above

Before long, the culture change will be unstoppable.

4 classes of knowledge for an organisation in transition

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In a recent white paper, we described the role of Knowledge Management in helping public sector organisations to get through the major transitions associated with the public sector cuts.

We described the need to focus on a knowledge-based view of the future, and the need to move to a networked model, but we also talked about the four types of knowledge, or the four types of competency, which a public sector sector body should consider.

These four types, as shown in the matrix here, are generic, and should be considered by any organisation going through major changes, major downsizing, or other big changes in direction or strategy driven by recession.

Basically, the organization needs to take a competency-based and knowledge-based view of the future, centred around the services and products it will deal with in the new future. Currently it has the knowledge and competence to deliver the old services, but it needs to move to a set of competencies needed to deliver the new, focused services.

We can think about this competence transition in terms of four areas of knowledge, as shown above, and described below.

Things we need to know in future, but don’t know now. This is the future competence which will need to be developed to operate in the new world. Those organisations which come out of recession as leaders tend to be those who invest in new competence. Knowledge Management can help develop new competence through processes such as Action Learning and Communities of Purpose.  In the early days of delivering the new service, the organization will need to learn rapidly, with close attention to the lessons learned process; acting on the lessons from the past and capturing their own lessons, both to develop their own performance, and to share with followers.

Things we need to know in future, and already know now. This is current core competence which will be also needed in the future. Here the focus is on improving and streamlining the current competence, reducing inefficiency and waste, and controlling cost. Knowledge Management can help improve efficiencies through processes such as Lessons learned, After Action Review, and Communities of Practice, and through technologies such as Wikis, Portals and networking tools. Any staff reduction in these areas will need to be done very carefully. An excellent example of public-sector Knowledge Management and Lessons Learning can be seen within the Military sector, where considerable attention is paid to delivering the most effective result through learning from all activity. 

Things we know now, but will no longer need. These are the competences associated with the peripheral areas of business which we will cut, and may be transferred to other bodies. The knowledge associated with these areas should be either archived, or packaged and transferred. Knowledge Management can help retain and transfer this knowledge through processes such as Interview, Knowledge Exchange, and through technologies such as Wikis and Portals. These technologies can host knowledge assets for informing future service providers. The approach to knowledgeretention and knowledge capture needs to start as early as possible, so that a measured strategy and process is set in place from the beginning. A model can be taken from NASA, where the strategy to capture and document the knowledge from the Constellation program (cancelled by the Obama administration) has started a year in advance of the program closure.

Things we don’t know, and won’t need to in future. These are areas of non-core competence, delivered by others. These areas are outside the scope of work of the organisation, both now and in the future, but still may impact delivery.  . Knowledge Management can help address these areas through the creation of communities of interest along the supply chain, or across government agencies.

Wisdom And Knowledge Shall Be The Stability Of Thy Times

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teacher is the chief learner (quote)

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The role of the Lessons Learned Integrator

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The Lessons Learned system is well embedded in the United States Army (see for example this excellent analysis from Nancy Dixon). It works well, and forms a model from which industry can learn, especially when it comes to assigning knowledge management roles within the business.

 This article describes some of the components of the US Army learning system

"Because of the uncertainties and diversity of the modern battlefield, the Army is constantly learning and adapting its doctrine, tactics, techniques and procedures. The various mechanisms that drive this change in a coordinated and coherent process fall within an umbrella concept known as "lessons learned."  The Combined Arms Center (CAC) is the Army's coordinator for the collection and integration of lessons into Army procedures and doctrine. CAC facilitates real-time collection, analysis, and archiving of lessons learned information across the Army through a variety of techniques. These include: 

• Formal efforts, such as embedded liaison officer cells within forward-deployed units, liaison cells at the Army's various training centers, integration analysts stationed at U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) centers and schools and embedded within operational unit headquarters at home station, and specialized collection and analysis teams that focus on specific hot topics and mobile training teams. 
• Informal efforts such as collecting, analyzing, and archiving published after action reviews and conducting individual interviews with selected Soldiers returning from the operational theatre.

The description above mentions processes such as After Action Reviews and Learning Interviews, but also mentions  different roles with accountability for the lessons process, such as embedded cells within forward-deployed units. One of the key roles in this learning process is the role of the Lessons Learned Integrator, or L2I. 

The Centre for Army Lessons Learned (part of CAC) is deploying Lessons Learned Integrators in operational units and in other units such as training schools and doctrine centres. These L2I analysts gather lessons learned, research requests for information (RFI), and support the unit within which they are situated. They act as conduits for lessons in and out of the units. You can find various role descriptions for this post (e.g. this one), which suggest that the role primarily involves

• Collecting, reporting, and disseminating lessons from the host unit
• Monitoring lessons learned and other new knowledge from elsewhere, assessing it for relevance to the host unit, and "pushing" it to the correct people
• Initiating actions that lead to change recommendations
• Locally supporting the "Request for Information" process, where soldiers can make requests for information from the Centre for Army Lessons Learned.

In many of the support centres, the L2I analyst also has a role in developing doctrine, as described here

• The L2I analyst can derive information from a variety of sources: unit after-action reports; tactics, techniques, and procedures used by units in and returning from theater; Soldier observations/submissions to the Engineer School; and requests for information. 
• This information is used to conduct doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel, and facilities gap analyses and to determine solutions

As ever, Industry can learn from the Military.

Too often we see "Lessons Learned systems" which seem to have no roles or accountabilities assigned to them. The assumption seems to be that "everyone is responsible for lessons learned", which quickly becomes "someone else will do it", then "nobody is responsible". The Army avoid this by identifying specific pivotal roles for identification, communication and analysis of Lessons, and for identifying what needs to be done as a result.

If you want your Lessons Learned system to really work, then you will need roles similar to the L2I in your operation units.

Making knowledge visible

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One of the biggest challenges in Knowledge Management is the invisible nature of Knowledge.

You can't see it, you can't measure it, you can't tell when it's missing, other than by observing it's effects. If you could see knowledge, and you could see it's absence, then you would be in a much better position to set up the knowledge transfers that need to happen. You could say "Look, Susie needs some Red knowledge, Peter has lots of Red knowledge, let's introduce Peter to Susie". But because knowledge is invisible you can't see what Susie needs or Peter has, unless you ask them.

Here are two easy ways to make Knowledge visible, and to set up Knowledge Transfer.

Seekers

Seekers is a simple exercise, suitable for groups of 40 or 50 or more, and runs during the breaks or over lunch. It requires blank name badges, so either buy a supply of badges, or if you are in a badged event, ask people to turn their badges to the blank side. Ask them to write on the blank badge, in large clear letters, a question to which they would like an answer. It can be a work question, or a home-life question. Make sure it's a practical question! It should be "How do I plan a themed birthday party for my 5-year old" rather than "Is there a God?" Do this in the morning, then during the breaks and lunch, if people see a question they can help answer - either giving good advice, or pointing people to a source of advice - then they go and introduce themselves and offer help. After the afternoon break, ask for a show of hands for "Who has received an answer?". You should see between a third and half the people raise their hands. You can then lead a discussion on motivation (what motivated people to help? what would motivate you to ask questions at work?), on the power of Asking as a driver for knowledge transfer, on "how we can make our questions visible to others as part of our work", and on KM approaches such as community forums and peer assist.

Knowledge Market

A Knowledge Market is a meeting to match up people who need learning, with people who can provide their learning. It is a way of connecting people to stimulate knowledge, make new connections, and identify new collaborative relationships, it is for connecting those who have problems with those that can potentially solve the problem in a very simple way. Knowledge Markets are commonly used within Communities of Practice.

At a Knowledge Market, you ask people to write (on post-it notes, or (better) on a large poster) two or three "Knowledge Offers", and two or three "Knowledge Needs". These should be real business issues - either an issue for which they have found a solution (a knowledge offer), or a business issue which they are currently facing, where they need access to more knowledge to help them make the correct decision.  Then you display these posters or notes, and ask people to walk around and identify

1. A knowledge need they think they can help with
2. A knowledge offer which they want to hear more about, because it will help solve a business issue for them.

Once these "matches" have been identified, then you set up follow-on conversations (either at the same event, or later) to transfer the knowledge.


Both of these methods make Knowledge, and its need, temporarily visible, allowing matches to be made between Knowledge Suppliers and Knowledge Customers. To allow this to happen on a long-term continuous basis, you will need to introduce a KM Framework including elements such as lesson-learning and communities of practice.

Capturing the Phantom - a Knowledge Management story

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I have been blogging regularly about the issue of Value and Knowledge Management, and also how Communities of Practice can take the initiative in determining value, and in setting their own targets.

Here's a story of how one KM Community leader helped define that value in a very graphic form. The story was told to me by my friend Johnny, who was at one time the leader of a highly successful Community of Practice in the Oil Refining sector. The great thing about Johnny's story is that way that the Community were able to personalise their target - to personalise, and make an enemy, of the waste in the production process which the CoP could reduce through knowledge-sharing.

Here's Johnny.

"It is always a hard one - to wrestle with the value that a community can deliver. It is very difficult to measure somehow. In some ways you just know instinctively that it has made a difference, but to actually pin a monetary value on it, is sometimes very very difficult.

"However, we recognised that in the operating area, there was money disappearing. Every year, while the plants are running, we say "this plant could have run better - we could have got more out of this asset". So we have lost money somewhere along the line. We like to spin it around, and say that it is money that has gone to The Phantom. It has disappeared, you can't recover it. So we need to go after this Phantom Money. 

"One of the tools that we have in the Community tool box is "Capturing The Phantom". We actually go after the drips and the bits and pieces like that. And shared learning is very important. If you can capture what people have done before you, you can get enormous value from that. We can start to measure that less and less money is going to The Phantom. 

"People understand what The Phantom is, and they also understand that we can maybe capture The Phantom, but if we take our eye off it, The Phantom will come back. The Phantom will always come back!"

17 value delivery mechanisms for Communities of Practice

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Here's a list we made a while ago, in conjunction with Adel Al-Terkait, of the different mechanisms by which a community of practice can add value to an organisation. No doubt you can think of more!

1. Solve problems for each other 
2. Learning before 
3. Learning during 
4. Learning after 
5. Benchmark performance with each other 
6. Exchanging resources 
7. Collaborating on purchasing (buying things that any one member could not justify) 
8. Collaborating on contracts (using the purchasing power of the community) 
9. Cooperating on trials and pilots 
10. Sharing results of studies 
11. Exchanging equipment (re-use old equipment, share spares) 
12. Warning of risks 
13. Mentoring and coaching each other 
14. Building and maintaining documented Best Practices 
15. Developing checklists and templates 
16. Identifying knowledge retention issues 
17. Identifying training gaps and collaborating on training provision 
18. Innovation – new products, services or opportunities

When Communities of Practice take the wheel

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There is a natural lifecycle or maturation cycle for communities of practice.

We can see that through the many Maturity models that people have set up for CoPs; many many people recognise a maturation process. I am not going to propose or describe a maturity model here, though we have developed one at Knoco that seems to work very well.

Instead, I am going to talk about a change in the life of a CoP, when it begins to take control of it's area of practice; when it "takes the wheel" if you like.

The early stages of a CoP are dominated by relationship-building, trust-building and cementing the community "ways of working."

The next stage is when the CoP begins to operate as a mechanism to solve the problems of the individual members. This is done either through Question and Answer (so that members raise questions which the others answer), or by exchanging practices, so that people can see, learn and adopt a better practioce that their own (sometimes converging on a community "best" practice).

However there is another stage. I remember seeing this happen in one community I was involved with, half way through a community core team meeting, when someone leaned forward excitedly and said something to the effect of "You know, with all the knowledge we have in this network, we should be able to cut the costs of  this process by half". It's the step where the CoP realises the power of its collective experience, and decides to go beyond solving individual problems, to taking the next step forward in understanding and improving the discipline itself.

How do they do this?

Firstly, the nature of the dialogue with the sponsor changes, The CoP starts to tell the sponsor what's needed, rather than vice versa. They begin to identify the common problems, the common "drag factors", the common opportunities that all their members face. They set up work groups, they start to act like a huge quality circle, or a huge Six Sigma group. They set themselves, collectively, aggressive targets. They request the initiation or research programs or other initiatives.

They "take the wheel".

Top 10 success factors for Communities of practice

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CoP Launch, Middle East

What factors make a Community of Practice successful? What can you do to help develop a lively, open, asking-and-sharing CoP that adds real business value?

These nine success factors come from a study by the Warwick Business School and the UK Knowledge and Innovation Network (of which I am an associate), which was based on a major survey of CoPs in many companies. I have added my own commentary and elaboration on each factor, and added a tenth.


(1) Provide significant funding for face-to-face events. CoPs are based on relationships and trust, and relationships and trust are cemented through meeting. The core team of the CoP, and as many extended CoP members as possible, should meet; once at Community Launch, and then on a regular basis (ideally annually)

(2) Ensure community activities address business issues. This is the Number 2 factor from Warwick, but for me would be the number one factor. I know you can set up CoPs for sharing recipes, for Bike groups, for Wine Appreciation, but people are professionals - they know that work-time is for work things, and they are much more likely to devote serious attention to business-centred CoPs. By all means start with a social focus for your CoPs, but transition over time to a business focus once the "community experience" has been introduced..

(3) Provide CoP leader training. CoP leader, or CoP facilitator, is a key role, and it requires skills and awareness.

(4) Ensure CoP leaders are given sufficient time for their role. "Sufficient time" depends on the size of the CoP. Over about 600 - 100 members, this becomes a full time role (see stats)

(5) Ensure high levels of sponsor expectation. Expectation, not management. CoPs must self manage, but the expectations can be set by the sponsor. This 5th success factor is contrary to some KM lore - that any Management influence will kill a CoP. However this is not what the Warwick/KIN survey found. They found that an engaged, supportive sponsor with high levels of expectation is a condition of CoP success.

(6) Engage members in developing good practice. That's primary purpose #1 of a CoP - for the members to exchange practice knowledge, and look for ideas and solutions that will improve their own practice. It doesn't initially have to be codified into Best Practice, but that CoP will probably move in that direction over time.

(7) Improve the usefulness of Community Tools provided. They need to be useful, sure, but they also need to be Usable and Used. Which is not the same as "high tec" or "functionality rich".

(8) Ensure there are clearly stated goals. These come from the Community Charter - they are set by the members. They are influenced by the Sponsor expectation, but the goals are set by the community itself. These can be concrete goals - I know of many CoPs who have said the equivalent of "You know, if we all worked together, I bet we could shave 20% off the cost of this activity. Let's go for it!".

(9) Promote CoPs ability to help employee’s solve daily work challenges. That's also primary purpose #1 of a CoP - for the members to get solutions to their problems. That's the WIIFM for the members (the "What's in it for me"). Without number 9, your CoP will wither and die as the members move away. Without a WIIFM, a CoP becomes a drain on time; with a WIIFM, a CoP is a time-saver.

10). This one was not in the Warwick list, but for me is important. Create a sense of Identity - of belonging. CoPs work  in the long term through loyalty and belonging; a sense of belonging to a professional group, and a loyalty to your fellow practitioners that will drive you to answer their questions, share your knowledge, and trust their answers.


You note I have not put "social" as a factor - social is important, but is an output rather than an input. If the sense of identity is there, the leader is well chosen and trained, and the tools are good, then social relationships and trust will emerge and will support the business-focused nature of a successful Community of Practice.

Quantified KM benefits #31 - Orange

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Here's a good case study in Inside Knowledge Magazine, by my friend Debbie Lawley, on introducing KM to support call centres in Orange.

The focus was on the creation of Communities of Practice of call centre coaches, to share good practices and lessons on call centre coaching. Debbie gives an example of the benefits that this brings.

"The KM team could point to a steady increase in the customer satisfaction figures in the months after the community system was put in place, increasing from 69 per cent to 76 per cent. This was a remarkable achievement in such a short space of time and primarily attributed, in the company, to the change in coaching style".

"Before and After" - the Knowledge Management Makeover

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What does an organisation look like, when it is fully engaged with Knowledge Management? What will the After shot of the KM make-over look like?

Or to put it more prosaically, what are the roles, the accountabilities, the reporting structures? What is the structure of the knowledge-centred organigram?

It has become increasingly clear to us at Knoco over the years that if KM is to be embedded into an organisation, it needs to be embedded into the organisational structure, as well as into organisational process, the technology infrastructure, and the governance system (including the recognition and reward structure).  The KM organisation is not just a case of

1. The KM team
2. Everyone else

If KM is part of the business, then it needs to be part of the accountabilities as well. For example, at Tata Steel (widely recognised as one of the leading KM companies in the world), the KM team supports a KM organisation of

• 500 SMEs identified by the communities who validate the accuracy and reliability of all the good practices being submitted;
• 25 champions for the various communities;
• 250 practice leaders, who lead the sub-communities;
• 250 conveners who help manage the communities and sub-communities;
• 200 experts who help others over the discussion databases to resolve problems;
• 50 KM coordinators; and,
• 1000+ part-time evangelists. (Figures from 2009)

Or think about the US Army, with

• A full-time Centre for Army Lessons Learned
• An owner for every Doctrine
• Lessons Learned Integrators in every battalion, as well as the training centres
• Combined Arms centre staff who run the Battle Command Knowledge Centre
• Facilitators and core teams for the Communities such as companycommand.mil, platoonleader.mil etc
• Hundreds of trained AAR leaders
• etc

Or Wipro, with

• Full time functional team of 32 in Wipro Technologies (45 in consolidated Global IT Business).
• More than 400 part time KM Primes/Champions across various groups - typically committing 10-15% of their time to KM activities for the group.
• Full time team of 15-20 to support and enhance IS platform for KM.

So one question every organisation needs to think about, when implementing KM, is "What will we look like afterwards".  You will almost certainly need

• KM roles in the operational units and projects, to facilitate the processes and act as champions
• KM roles within the communities of practice, including community sponsors, leaders, core teams, facilitators
• Subject matter experts to look after the codified knowledge base
• People to support the KM technology infrastructure
• People to manage the lessons learned system(s)

You will need a Knowledge Management organisation.  Increasingly, organisational design such as this is becoming a part of our consulting offering, as companies take the KM Make-over.

Who owns the knowledge?

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There has been an interesting discussion recently on Linked In, about Who Owns The Knowledge, specifically the tacit knowledge in your head. The discussion began with a poll, with three options

• I own it
• The company owns some
• The company rents it from me

Currently there is a strong feeling among the contributors to the discussion that "the Knowledge in my head is Mine, and the business only leases it from me"

I have problems with this viewpoint.

I think the viewpoint fails to recognise that most knowledge is created communally, within a community or within a team, through discussion, dialogue, on-the-job learning etc. As far as ownership of knowledge is concerned, you cannot separate the individual and the organisation. An organisation is made up of individuals, after all, and knowledge is created, shared, refined, re-used and re-evaluated through interactions between individuals. It is the interactions within the organisation that put most of the knowledge in your head in the first place. You can no more say "the knowledge in my head belongs to me" than you can say "the air in my lungs belongs to me. "  The shift from "Knowledge is Mine" to "Knowledge is Ours" is what I see as the basis of the culture shift that KM both needs and engenders.

So can knowledge "belong to you"? Yes it can, legally, when you copyright something; when you have intellectual property fights. You need to have created that knowledge, or idea, or intellectual property yourself, and by yourself. You should not have copied it, or built it with others. The only way you can justify "I own my tacit knowledge" is if you join a company with that knowledge in your head, and then learn nothing while you are there.

So can the knowledge in your head "belong to the company"? Most of the time No, even though much of that knowledge you may have picked up on the job, through training, through learning, through the CoPs that operate in that company. If the company said to you "we want you to pay us for all the knowledge you picked up through learning on the job. We have effectively educated you, and you need to reimburse us for that", you would no doubt object strongly. However, think of knowledge which is sensitive - either commercially, or in defence terms. More than once I have signed a confidentiality agreement, or a secrecy agreement, or been given access to knowledge under strict conditions of security clearance. That is therefore clearly Company Knowledge. You can hold it in your head, but you can't do anything with it outside the resctrictions of the organisation. You can't tell anyone, you can't share it, you can't write it down or talk to anyone about it without breach of a signed agreement, until they release you from that agrement. When my colleagues and I left BP in 1999, we were given letters which granted the rights to use the Intellectual Property regarding Knowledge Management which we had developed while we were there. That was a clear case of the company saying "we had ownership of this knowledge, we pass this over to you"

If there is no IP agreement in place, and no secrecy or security issues, who "owns" the knowledge? It really is not as simple as "its in my head, so it belongs to me" - not even for tacit knowledge. I see knowledge as co-owned, as community-owned, and as a common property. Common knowledge, not the propery of any one person or institution. The knowledge you use at work is through an unstated agreement - the company will educate you, and you will use that knowledge to support the company. It's not yours, it's not theirs, it belongs to both.

Learning has to lead to action

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Here at Knoco, we firmly believe that learning needs to lead to action, if you want to be a winning company, or a winning team. We've seen that many times in industry, and it was interesting to hear this reinforced from the sports field.

One of my hobbies is to support Bath Rugby, and my wife and I are season ticket holders at the Recreation Ground. It's been a disappointing season - we've lost too many close games, and finished up in the lower half of the league table; far below where our ambition would take us.

So it was interesting to read an analysis from one of the players this week, which firmly points to a lack of a link between learning and action, as part of the reason behind a poor season.

Here's what Dan Hipkiss (outside centre) has to say

"It's all right saying that you haven't done well, but you've really got to find out why you are not doing that. We've got to be really precise and say 'This is what I'm not doing in a game, this is what I'm not doing very well, this is what you're not doing very well'. We haven't made enough effort to change the bits that we've done badly or the bits that have lost us games. Even if we have identified them, we haven't put them right at the weekend"

Now translate what Dan says into business terms

• You've really got to find out why you are not doing better.
• You've got to be really precise and say 'This is what I'm not doing very well, this is what you're not doing very well'.
• You have to make a real effort to change the bits that you've done badly or the bits that have lost you business.
• And when you have identified them, you  have to put them right

If you do that, in business and in rugby, maybe your business can avoid being in the lower half of the league table, far below where your ambition would take you.

As for Bath Rugby - we will have to see where next season takes us, but with the sort of passion for learning and action that Dan Hipkiss is looking for, then the only way is up!

Popeye's lessons in leadership

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Some good KM lessons in here as well!

Quantified KM success story number 30 - Halliburton Electronic Technicians Community

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Here's a nice quantified case study of monetary and time savings through the use of KM within Halliburton, taken from this excellent case study in Inside Knowledge magazine

"The high-pressure pumping and mixing process for fracturing, acidising and cementing have become more automated during the past ten years. This automation allows for consistency, but has also added new operational and maintenance processes.  

"Just three years ago, Halliburton ESG noted that electronic technicians were required on 80 per cent of fracturing jobs to ensure that the electronics performed flawlessly. Technicians were difficult resources to hire and train to meet the demand of customers at each well site. Halliburton’s knowledge-management group facilitated the creation of a small team of electronic technicians for a three-month period in late 2001 to help understand the business needs and design a solution that would improve pumping job-service quality, reduce non-productive time and decrease the need for electronic technicians to intervene at individual well sites.  

"Together, the electronic technicians and KM group were able to design a knowledge-management solution. Essentially, electronic technicians needed to be connected to experts and to each other so that the experience of the entire group could be used to troubleshoot and solve problems, rather than relying on the limited knowledge of one individual isolated at a customer’s well site. The group therefore developed a collaborative, problem-solving community to provide 24/7 peer-to-peer training, troubleshooting and support.  

"The team defined the community and processes required for the technicians to discuss issues and share good practices. The group developed an easy-to-use portal interface, which was designed around a collaboration tool that allows the community to share its knowledge and get answers to questions. The interface also provides access to vital documents and contact information for leading experts on various pieces of hardware to ensure immediate answers to urgent technical questions. The community was launched in December 2001 and today is a thriving knowledge-sharing network of more than 200 users in numerous locations around the world. Interestingly, the number of users is greater than the actual number of electronic technicians within the community.  

"In 2003, individual instances of knowledge sharing generated, in one way or another, over $1.4m for Halliburton. In addition, electronic technicians report time savings of approximately 20 per cent due to the community. This has allowed the company to meet the demands of business growth without employing additional technicians. The technicians it currently has are also better trained and more effective than ever. They have reduced the number of repeat repairs, measured through SAP work orders, from 30 per cent to virtually zero".

Recreating the learning organisation - BP's values after Macondo

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What can a company do after a disaster such as Macondo? A massive physical disaster, with loss of life and environmental damage, a massive PR disaster with BP coming away as the Great Villain of the Gulf, and a massive commercial disaster, with huge settlements to be paid, only affordable through selling off big chunks of the business.

There could be two possible responses;

One would be to batten down the hatches, and revert to a Command-and-Control organisation, with massive controls over everything that anyone did.

The other would be to rebuild the Learning Organisation of the past, that earned BP MAKE award status for many many years in the late 90s and early 00s.

I am delighted to see, with the publishing of BP's new, post-Macondo, Corporate Values, that they are aiming for the second approach.

BP's new Value number 3 is "Excellence", and the second part of this reads "We commit to quality outcomes, have a thirst to learn, and to improve. If something is not right, we correct it".

The "thirst to learn" is the hallmark of a learning organisation, and I firmly believe that a Thirst to Learn is a far better support for, and outcome of, Knowledge Management than a Thirst to Share. Very good - that's an excellent step in the right direction.  

BP's new Value number 4 is "Courage" (an interesting value for a commercial company), and in the description of this Value we find the statement that "We explore new ways of thinking and are unafraid to ask for help. We are honest with ourselves, and actively seek feedback from others".

Again we see the "asking for help" value, the value of learning before doing, and this time in the context of "exploring new ways of thinking".  "Honesty with yourself" and "seeking feedback from others" are also key tenets of learning.

So can BP make it's way back from Macondo, to be a trusted and admired Learning Organisation again? If they truly believe in, and follow, these values, then the answer has to be Yes.

Free KM Newsletter - KM frameworks

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Go Here to download our free Spring* Knowledge Management Newsletter. This issue features the topics of Knowledge Management Frameworks, an article on "how to get started" by Javier in Chile, and an introduction to a new face in Knoco W Australia

*That's the Northern Hemisphere spring - apologies to those south of the line.