Monday 30 April 2012


Winners' Curse - winners aren't learners


winnerOne trend we often see at in our Bird Island KM exercises, is what we refer to as the "Winner's Curse". This is where the team that builds the tallest initial tower, seems to learn the least from the others (and often from the Knowledge Asset as well).

The very fact that a team is ahead in the race, means that they have less incentive to learn. So the team with the tallest tower "relaxes" a bit. The best learners are often the teams with the second-tallest tower, as they know that with a little bit of learning effort, they can be in the lead. Also there seems to be a tendency to learn more readily from failure, than from success.

A real example of this can be seen after World War 1. Tanks were a decisive element in this war, and any learning from WW1 would surely include some really significant learning about tanks. Who do you think learned more about tanks - the British, French and Americans (who were on the winning side) or the Germans (who were on the losing side)?

It was, of course, the Germans. You can read here (in a review of this book by Max Boot) the following story

 The British military and government, before Churchill became Prime Minister, lost interest in tanks. In France, Captain Charles de Gaulle was interested in fast-moving mechanized warfare, but the French military favored defensive warfare and firepower. The United States also devoted little interest in armored warfare. Writes Boot:
The U.S. had deployed a Tank Corps in World War I, but it was disbanded in 1920 over the anguished objections of two of its leading officers -- Colonel George S. Patton and Major Dwight D. Eisenhower.
It was the Germans who were most interested in fast-moving mechanized warfare. Writes Boot:
Around 1934, Colonel Heinz Guderian, chief of staff of the Inspectorate of Motorized Troops, gave the Fuehrer [Adolf Hitler] a short tour d'horizon of tank warfare. "Hitler," Guderian wrote, "was much impressed by the speed and precision of movement of our units, and said repeatedly, "that's what I need! That's what I want!'"
In 1939 Hitler had a three-hour parade of mechanized forces. Fuller was there, invited because of his fascist sympathies, Hitler said to him, "I hope you were pleased with your children." Fuller replied:
Your Excellency, they have grown up so quickly that I no longer recognize them. 
The Winners' curse is that the winner often fails to learn, and so is overtaken (at least for a while) by the loser. So did Germany overtake the Allied powers in terms of tank warfare in 1939.

(Thanks to Andrew Mortlock at AZ for pointing out this story)

Friday 27 April 2012


The role of facilitation in KM processes


2007 SA NRM Facilitators Workshop Good facilitation is essential to effective face-to-face KM processes.  Effectively identifying and exchanging knowledge in a meeting requires high quality interactions between people. These interactions need to be built on

  • Open behaviours – listening, exploring, not criticising 
  • Good listening 
  • Dialogue, not argument 

This requires balanced input from many people; not a few people talking, and the others listening.  It requires process to be followed, within a given time frame. Without a facilitator, none of these are easy to achieve, particularly when you want to acheive the high-quality dialogue that is the basis of knowledge sharing!

Facilitation is the process making it easier for a group to effectively deliver the objectives of a meeting such as a Retrospect, a Peer Assist, or a Knowledge Café.  By providing non-directive leadership, the facilitator helps the group negotiate the meeting processes, so that the group arrives at the required objectives. Their role is one of assistance and guidance, not control. The facilitator looks after the process of the meeting, while the group looks after the content of the meeting

Facilitation is not
  • Teaching You are not teaching the group about Retropects or AARs, you are helping them to deliver results from a Retrospect or AAR 
  • Coaching You do not coach them towards the right answer – you don’t know the right answer – they do! 
  • Reviewing and assessing You will not tell them at the end whether they conducted the meeting correctly or incorrectly – you make sure they do it correctly! 
  • Team leadership The team leader is always interested in the outcome, and cannot facilitate effectively
Some of the key facilitator skills for KM process meetings are as follows
  •  Identifying themes or common threads in a discussion “Many of us have identified planning as a problem in this project – I wonder if we need to have a short discussion on planning“ 
  • Clarifying confusing statements , or ask for more detail on lessons “Susie, you said that it was important to plan properly – can you tell us what proper planning would look like?” 
  • Summarizing and organizing the ideas “If I can just summarize our discussion, we would suggest that in future , projects approach planning by ……….” 
  • Testing for agreement “Is that a fair summary of the discussion? What do you think?”

Thursday 26 April 2012


Quantified success stories number 29 - Xerox


29, yes! You can read about the Xerox experience with KM here, including some quantified success stories

Take the equipment problem a Brazilian engineer still couldn’t solve, despite using Eureka, equipment manuals, and the available help. It seemed the only option was to replace the customer’s color copy machine—a $40,000 cost. But before the engineer submitted the equipment order, he decided to check Eureka one more time. A Canadian colleague had entered the solution to his problem into Eureka a few hours earlier, so the potential $40,000 copier replacement became a 90-cent part replacement.
 Xerox saw a 10 percent reduction in labor and cost improvement just within the initial Eureka rollout in France. That return on investment jumped tremendously as the company opened the application to its Canadian, European, and South American engineers. Xerox estimates that Eureka has prevented at least 300,000 redundant solutions.

Also from here

we concluded that deploying this capability in the field organization
in France reduced their parts cost five to ten percent, and reduced
time spent at customers’ sites five to ten percent as well. If you dare to
extrapolate that to a worldwide sales organization with 20,000 people
and go at the high end (ten percent), you save, in some way, 2,000 people.
We have ten percent more productivity without adding people. Our
people are now much more effective, faster, and get more work done.
Also, anecdotal evidence shows that customers are much more satisfied.
Interviews with employees say they like this. This, again, is a win-win
situation for everyone. 
Also from here

Since piloting the system in France in 1996, Xerox has launched Eureka in 71 countries and has made it available to the company's entire corps of service engineers. The results have beat expectations. The system currently stores about 50,000 product fixes. Last year alone, it helped solve 350,000 service problems and saved Xerox approximately $15 million in parts and labor. 

Wednesday 25 April 2012


Best KM job in the world?


Barbados Anyone fancy this one?

Knowledge Management Advisor

Caribbean Development Bank

Barbados

Tuesday 24 April 2012


Quantified KM success stories, 26 through 28


-2627Stage 28 The ConocoPhillips Archimedes Awards are a great source of KM success stories.

Give, Grab, Gather and Guts Awards are given to the business units or regions that have successfully created a collaborative work force through giving, taking and applying, and sharing knowledge. Individuals, teams or Networks of Excellence are eligible to win Success Story of the Year or Networks of the Year.

Here are three quantified results from the 2009 awards, described in the 1Q 2010 in-house magazine

The Archimedes Gather Award was presented to the Alaska and Canada regions for successfully initiating collaboration among multiple parties leading to the discovery, creation or sharing of knowledge. The Alaska Region received the Gather Award for leveraging experiences from Conoco Phillips China and Lower 48 drilling and wells to develop a hand injury prevention program, resulting in over a 60 percent reduction in hand injuries for 2009. 
The Canada Region implemented a process to identify and reuse existing solutions in its business units, resulting in approximately $50 million in cost reductions.

The Upstream Rotating Equipment Network earned its second Network of the Year Award by expanding its focus area from turbo machinery to all rotating equipment. Three subnetworks were created to increase engagement with their extended membership, resulting in a 30 percent decrease in lost production attributable to rotating equipment.

Monday 23 April 2012


Three maturity levels of a lesson-learning program

Three generationsI blogged a few weeks ago on the three stages of lesson learning. I thought I would amplify these three stages.

We recognise three maturity levels in the way in which an organisation addresses lessons learned, and the lessons-based learning component of knowledge management. Each organisation seems to discover these three changes for themselves, although all too many lessons learned programs get stuck at level 1.

The stages are as follows,

1. Reactive capture - capture lessons "for information"
2. Reactive change - capture lessons "for action"
3. Proactive change - lesson-hunting

Stage 1  is to reactively capture lessons at the end of projects, and document them so that others can learn. Lessons are stored somewhere, and people need to find and read the lesson in order to access the knowledge. There are sub-stages or sub-levels of maturity in stage 1, which include
1a) Ad-hoc capture of lessons, often by the project leader, documenting them and storing them in project files with no quality control or validation step. Lessons must therefore be sought by reading project reports, or browsing project files structures
1b)Structured capture of lessons, through lessons identification meetings such as retrospects, documenting and storing the lessons in project files with no quality control or validation step.
1c) Structured capture of lessons, through lessons identification meetings such as retrospects, documenting and storing the lessons in a company-wide system such as a lessons database or a wiki. This often includes a validation step.
1d) Structured capture of lessons, through lessons identification meetings such as retrospects, documenting and storing the lessons in a company-wide system with auto-notification, so that people can self-nominate to receive specific lessons.
Stage 2 is to reactively capture lessons at the end of projects, document them, and as a result make changes to company procedures and practices so that the lessons are embedded into practice. Here people do not need to read the lesson to access the knowledge, they just need to follow the practice. Again, there are sub-stages or sub-levels of maturity in stage 2, which include
2a) Lessons are automatically forwarded to the relevant expert for information, with the expectation that they will review them and incorporate them into practice.
2b) Lessons include assigned actions for the relevant expert, and are forwarded to the expert for action
2c) Lessons include assigned actions for the relevant expert, and are forwarded to the expert for action. These actions are tracked and reported.

Stage 3  is to proactively hunt lessons from wherever they can be found, and make changes to company procedures and practices so that the lessons are embedded into practice.  There are not enough organisations at stage 3 to recognise sub-stages, but there are some ways in which Stage 3 can operate
3a) Senior managers can identify priority learning areas for the organisation. Projects are given learning objectives - objectives for gathering knowledge and lessons on behalf of the organisation. These may be written into project knowledge management plans. 3b) Learning teams may analyse lessons over a period of months or years to look for the common themes and the underlying trends - the weak signals that operational lessons may mask.
3c) Organisations may deploy specific learning resources (Learning Engineers, Project Historians, etc) into projects or activity, in order to pick up specific learning for the organisation.
 Lesson-learning can be a very powerful way for an organisation to learn, change and adapt, but only if it is approached in a mature way. Level 1, to be honest, will not add much value.

If you aspire to be a learning organisation, set your sights at levels 2 or 3.

Friday 20 April 2012


"Make New Mistakes"


Accident I was providing KM training in Sweden this week, and one of the managers opened the event by saying

"Make New Mistakes.

I am happy for you to make mistakes, provided they are new"

I though this was a good message. He was promoting both risk-taking and learning at the same time - both asking them to push the boundaries without fear of failure, while at the same time avoiding repeating the mistakes of the past.

Wednesday 18 April 2012


Gen. Dempsey - 4 trends in KM


An interesting video below from General Dempsey, introducing the Army Operational Knowledge Management conference, in which he identifies 4 trends which make KM important for the US Army

  1. The certainty of uncertainty
  2. The increasing pace of change
  3. The competitive learning environment
  4. Decentralisation
I would suggest that these trends can also be seen in industry.

Gen Dempsey sees KM as a key tool to address all of these challenges, because it beings together processes and people, enabled by technology, to exchange individual and collecting information and experience.

Tuesday 17 April 2012


When do you need a Peer Assist:?


Here are some guidelines for whether a Peer Assist is the right solution for a project

  • The project recognises that it needs knowledge
  • The required knowledge is complex knowledge, which has not been codified into standards and best practices.
  • The Project team has tried traditional knowledge sharing methods such as iLearning, formal training, expert support etc.
  • The scope of work, and the issues which need to be discussed, are clear.
  • The project team have enough knowledge of the subject but still need expertise and experience from other people to help them make the correct decision.
  • The project team are still open to new ideas and challenges, and are not yet comitted to a course of action
  • The potential saving exceeds the cost of the meeting.
  • Therefore they need a Peer Assist

Monday 16 April 2012


The business benefits of Communities of Practice


Wyverstone Community Cafe There are lots of business benefits delivered by Communities of Practice
Here are some of the most important
Problem Solving
through solving the problems of the members, a CoP can deliver business value through
  • Faster tasks or projects
  • Quicker time to competence
  • Better individual productivity
Problem Avoidance
through developing approaches which avoid problems and which repeat best-in-class approches,  a CoP can deliver business value through
  • Repeated good practice and good performance
  • Fewer repeat mistakes
  • Greater alignment of practices across a distributed organisation
  • Continuous improvement of practices and results
New Ideas
through networked innovation within the community, a CoP can deliver business value through
  • Faster time to market for new products and services
  • Better market share
  • Step change in delivery
Staff retention
through delivering a greater sense of belonging, and through providing knowledge resources to its members, a CoP can deliver business value through
  • Lower staff turnover

Saturday 7 April 2012



This blog is on holiday for a week

normal service will resume from the 14th

Friday 6 April 2012


The three-fold role of the Technical Experts in KM


talk to the experts The technical experts in many knowledge management organisations tend to have a three-fold role
  • Acting as a source of expert opinion for the identification and development of technical practices and procedures.
  • Maintaining guidelines and best practices, and validating federal lessons
  • Building effective learning communities
In other words, they are accountable for
  • Use of their own tacit knowledge
  • Ownership or stewardship of the explicit knowledge in their subject matter area
  • Creation of the network that stewards the tacit knowledge in their subject matter area

Thursday 5 April 2012


Quantified Success stories 22 through 25, ConocoPhillips China


GRÜNER TAG in Projekt B-22 :)Façade du Hangar 2324Sábado 25, dia de COLOMBAR - IçaraThere are a whole series of Knowledge Management success stories in the Summer 2005 edition of the ConocoPhillips China Newsletter

Here are a few success stories, each of which has a dollar value figure assigned.
Tom Lan, Senior Operations Support Engineer, Production Support of ConocoPhillips China (COPC), cites a good example of knowledge sharing (KS) that took place early January 2005. Tom needed a simulation model to calculate the pressure drop on the subsea pipeline at Bohai Phase 1 and organized a site visit by Larry Harms, Staff Production Optimization Engineer at the US Lower 48 & Latin America business unit. By sharing software, Larry and Tom were able to create a simulation model at a net saving US$19,600 for the company.

In another story, Jerry Liu, Senior Buyer of Tanggu Operations, COPC, was preparing to order 7 5/8" 13 Cr casing for an upcoming drilling program. The quoted prices for this material seemed excessive, so contacts were made with Global Procurement who suggested checking with Australia for market intelligence. Changes to the Australian program had resulted in some of their material being surplus and available at a much lower price. 4,431 meters of pipe were then transferred from Australia to China. The China BU saved approximately US$526,000. An additional benefit may be claimed by the Australian BU as they were able to dispose of excess material.

Brendan O'Reilly, Senior Explorationist, Exploration Department, COPC, gave an example of how knowledge was shared from various BU's overseas to the China BU, saving the company US$10 million in drilling costs. The China BU Exploration Team called upon this expertise from Vietnam, Indonesia and two groups in Houston to peer review the geoscience and engineering aspects of the PL 9-1 Buried Hill Field that was discovered in 2000. The peer team reviewed the results of the discovery well, the geological, geophysical interpretation, the resulting geological model and the different play types and recommended that the China BU focus on a southern Carbonate Play that may provide the best opportunity to achieve economic success on the project. The peer team also recommended that an expensive deeper well (costing US$10 million) not be proposed until more well information is acquired.

Carl Cheng, Production Engineer, Production Engineering Department of COPC, gave an excellent example of applied KS centered around a developing technology. The China BU was recommended by UT to field-trial the Multi-Phase Meter (MPM) as an alternative well testing method (as compared to the conventional test separator method). During the six month testing phase in Bohai field, a number of comparison tests were conducted between the two with the guidelines established by a Flow & Metering expert at UT. Based on UT's recommendation, COPC purchased this unit of locally-made MPM last year and switched fully to MPM for all daily well testing in Bohai field as of November 2004. Experience from PL 19-3 Phase I operation shows that the MPM results were overall more consistent than the test Separator results. This has made production allocation more accurate as well performance is evaluated. Moreover, MPM has cut the well testing time by half from 4 hours to 2 hours with improved metering accuracy. It is projected that from November 2004 to the end of 2005, the revenue from the resulted incremental production could reach approximately US$147,000.


Wednesday 4 April 2012


Show me the money! Demonstrating KM value


Show Me the Money! "How do you show the value of Knowledge Management?"

Yet another client was asking me the same question - how can you demonstrate the value?

I had just quoted to him Shell's claim that they deliver £200m per year though their knowledge-sharing communities, and he just could not see how that value could be measured.

The answer is quite simple.

Shell's CoPs are based on Pull - on Problem Solving. People in the Shell business units have a problem, and they got to the Communities of Practice to find a solution. When they have found a solution, they estimate how much time, money or risk that solution offered them.
Here's an example
You can see clearly how access to Community Knowledge allowed this guy to obtain a better price from a vendor. Demonstrable value added. Here's another example
One man-month of effort avoided. Demonstrable value.

It is by adding up examples like this, that Shell come to the figure of $200m annual savings that they claim for knowledge management.

Part of the challenge for the customer, was that until that point, he had not made the link between Knowledge Management and Problem Solving. To him, KM was all about blogs and case studies  - about Knowledge Push, and not Pull.

Once he could see the problem-solving link, he could more clearly see how KM could deliver value.

Tuesday 3 April 2012


Where does Knowledge come from? (2)


A few months ago, I published a blog post called "where does knowledge come from?"

In this post, I made the point that althrough one of the most common models for KM is the DIKW model (where Knowledge comes from Information, which itself comes from Data), most people will, when asked, say that Knowledge comes from Experience.

I thought I would test this assertion, and I ran a quick poll in Linked-In.

The question was "Where do you think Knowledge primarily comes from?", and the 4 options are shown in the picture here.

43% of people think it comes primarily from Experience
48% think it comes from Experience and from Information
6% support the DIKW model in thinking it comes primarily from Information
Only one person thought it came from neither

In my blog post on Experience Management you will find the diagram below


This diagram supports the poll results, and highlights the importance of Experience as a factor in Knowledge Management. When we look at the feedback loops involved, we can see the important of experience management in KM, and can also see that if we take a purely Information Management approach to KM, we miss at least half the picture.

Monday 2 April 2012


Unknown Misknowns



As Donald Rumsfeld said, there are the Known Knowns, the Known Unknowns, and the Unknown Unknowns. He considered the last category to be the most dangerous.

I htink the most dangeous category is the Unknown Misknowns - the things we know are true and valid, and that we are completely wrong about.

As an example, here are some well know facts that everybody knows are true
  • Napoleon was short
  • Vikings had horns on their helmets
  • Danish Pastries come from Denmark
  • Chameleons change colour to match their surroundings
  • Mussolini made the Italian Trains run on time
  • When Olde English was spoken, people said "Ye", not "The"
  • Bats are blind
  • Sugar causes hyperactivity in children
  • The tongue has Taste Zones
  • Humans have 5 senses
  • The declaration of independence was signed on the 4th July
But in fact, all of these are false.

Luckily, believing these are true is not dangerous - very little harm can come if you think bats are blind, or Vikings wore horned helmets

However once upon a time (17th century), everyone knew that tobacco was healthy, while the tomato was considered poisonous. Those unknown misknowns could kill you.

In any Knowledge Management system, there needs to be constant challenge to the Unknown Misknowns - the assumptions and misconceptions that "Everybody Knows"

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