The moment KM was born - a story

This is a reprise from the archives - a story of when KM was launched at British Petroleum through an early meeting of supporters and enthusiasts.

It's an extract from my book Performance Through Learning (available here), telling of a key moment in the history of the BP KM journey - the moment that KM was launched as a "movement". I have highlighted that moment in bold below.

The setting is a basement conference room in Milan in the late 90s, where everyone in the organisation who was already doing something KM-related was brought together for three days, to share experience, to map out the collective way forward and to launch a corporate program.

"The room was too small for the number of tables, and the pillars made it difficult to see the stage. People needed to crane their heads to get a clear view, and the air was stifling from the heat of the video lights (the whole event was being captured on video, and web-cast live onto the BP Intranet). And yet there was a tremendous buzz in the room".

Three days in Milan - 1998 

"The three days had been an intense experience, as KM enthusiasts from around the BP group had stood up on stage and described the approaches they were already applying to managing knowledge. 

"Ray King had told us of his online community of computer modelers, Tony Kuhel told us about the Olympus knowledge base in BP Oil, John Minge beamed in by videoconference to talk about knowledge sharing on Texas drilling rigs, and many others shared their successes and plans. 

"Then there were the outside experts - Colonel Ed with his ‘war stories’ from the Army, Larry Prusak talking animatedly and powerfully for an hour without notes, John Henderson with his view of the future Knowledge Economies. Finally there was the input from the rest of the company, as people all over the world used the Knowledge Management website to raise issues and ask questions, which were read out loud to the assembled delegates in Milan every morning"

The moment of commitment 

"It was now the afternoon on the third day. The buzz was still high. We had spent the late morning in breakout groups, working some of the critical issues which needed to be overcome if KM was ever to be a way of life for BP. Jim Shannon, a video producer from the Alaska office, was standing on stage reporting the results from his group’s discussion. 

"Jim explained how the top levels of BP need to articulate the scale of the challenge and the potential benefits, and then cascade the KM ideals down to the production floor. People need to be involved, and the Knowledge Management community, exemplified by the attendees at this meeting, needed to identify and understand those people they will depend on for success. 

“How many of you people attending the meeting” Jim asked “are willing to go back and become champions within your businesses, to evangelize and lead Knowledge Management? Stand up if you are willing to be an evangelist for KM”. 

"There was a moment's pause, and then chairs began scraping back all around the room as every delegate rose to their feet in a silent movement of commitment to the KM cause".

Afterwards 

"After the meeting was over, the KM team travelled out to a restaurant on the shores of Lake Como where I led the group in our own retrospect of the conference. Each of us could identify our personal success factor. 

"For Nigel Gibbs, it was “'the sense, level and quality of community that we developed. Transforming 80 individual learners to a community of learners was the biggest shift I've encountered in such a session. The challenge now, for me, is to shift the community of learners to be a learning community.” 

"Barry Smale noted that we avoided the event being a 'Show and Tell' of KM Team presentations. “This was an objective in the organization of the event and worked extremely well since the delegates got ownership.” 

"Georgie Dicker recalled the continual buzz of enthusiasm in the room and how she ended up in a nightclub with a bunch of the delegates where they were still talking about Knowledge Management at 3 a.m. in the morning. 

"All of us agreed that Milan had been the right event at the right time and had sparked an excitement and commitment that would form the foundation of BP’s move towards a fully knowledge-enabled company".

Knowledge Management Awards - brilliant Multimedia example

The link below is to an excellent and high-quality multimedia description of the Knowledge Management Awards 2007 at ConocPhillips, introduced by the Executive Vice President of Exploration and Production, John Lowe

It provides a glimpse into how a mature KM program maintains visibility, and recognises the good KM performers.

Link

The Knowledge Manager as translator

One of the most important roles for the Knowledge Manager is acting as a translator, translating the ideas and concepts of KM in the the language and context of the organisation.

Bing translator, by download.net.pl on Flickr

Knowledge Management is a fairly well established field now, with a jargon of its own. Two Knowledge Managers talking together would understand the difference between Peer Assist and After Action review, between Curation and Synthesis, and between Lessons Identified and Lessons Learned.  Knowledge Managers need a good understanding of KM theory and concepts, and are perfectly entitled to use the jargon and the technical terms when planning, designing and delivering a KM approach. But that jargon has to stop when you reach the internal customer.

Imagine someone, centuries ago, introducing financial planning to an organisation. They wouldn't have got very far if they started talking to managers about fiscal prudence, and flow of liquidity. They needed instead to say "we would like you to count your money, and record payments and receipts in this book". Similarly in KM you won't get very far talking to the business about lessons management and communities of practice. Instead you say "we would like you to record the lessons you have learned by filling in this form on the screen", or "you can ask a question using this software, and any one of your colleagues who knows the answer will reply".

A good KMer can translate the jargon and the terminology into business terms, and relate it simply to what people do on an everyday basis.

Here's what a knowledge manager said to me recently

"I would be suspicious of (a KM leader) using knowledge management terminology.
I would like to hear business and customer terminology. When queried and
challenged on that, then they can explain it in a knowledge management way. To
me, that would suggest they understand the customer, and they understand
knowledge management and how to apply it to the customer and vice versa".

That's one of the most valuable things a KM leader can do - translate the woolly, theoretical, airy-fairy world of KM into real practical operational words and actions.

Using video to sell KM to leaders

Senior Management support is both the biggest enabler your knowledge management implementation can have, and also the biggest threat if it is missing. Here's one way to gain that support. 

Image from wikimedia commons

Senior managers will support Knowledge Management if they believe it can be done, and can add value. Like most people, they "believe it when they see it".

This is where social proof comes in.

Social proof is the honest and supportive testimony of a user of knowledge management, speaking about the value knowledge management can bring. My colleague Ian Corbett, of Knoco South Africa, speaks below about using video testimony from a young engineer as social proof to convince senior managers of the value Knowledge Management can bring.

The value of the video was that the senior managers could see that this was a real story, from within their own organisation, told by "one of their own".

“This was a high-profile project with big returns and the opportunity to do some marketing of what the processes will do. The embedded video is the best way to market how powerful this approach is. I recorded one of the engineers talking. He is young, credible and eloquent, and I put his video in a presentation for the senior management team. I gave the talks, and I showed Steve, and it transformed the presentation and got people on the edge of their seat. This was the turning point for Gavin Beevers, the Director of operations and now the high-level sponsor for KM”

If you need to convince your senior managers, then try this sort of approach; it is very powerful.  

Breakthrough KM proof of concept - a case study

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The story here is taken from the book "Performance through Learning", and tells of a crucial "proof of concept" exercise at De Beers, the global diamond company, which was instrumental in demonstrating the value of Knowledge Management to senior management, and gaining their support and buy-in.

A De Beers piece by Joe Hall on Flickr

One of the earliest stages of the De Beers Knowledge Management strategy would be to try some simple KM processes on some of the key activities or projects within the organization; to see if they worked, to see if they generated value, to come up with some early wins, and to create some success stories which could be used for marketing. 

Ian (Ian Corbett, the De Beers Knowledge Management lead) had already identified one or two possibilities, and more had come up during the (strategy) workshop. There was one very interesting and challenging possibility though, which would be a real test of the power of Knowledge Management; the !Gariep project. 

 !Gariep had been a blue-sky technology project for De Beers Marine. The De Beers Marine team had planned to build a piece of mining technology beyond anything that currently existed. The project had been an ambitious challenge, and many many learnings had been generated; so many learnings that the organisation had been unsure how to harvest them for reuse. Some of the key players were still in the organisation, others had left. 

Ian saw the possibility of using the Retrospect process as a powerful and non-confrontational way of harnessing some of that knowledge. 

 The !Gariep retrospect took place over two days in Cape Town, involving 25 members of the project team, with up to four years history with the project. We divided the project into four stages, and spent half a day on each stage. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that we invited too many managers and not enough "workers" to the retrospect, because many of the most valuable insights came from some of the more junior members of the project team. 

 However some very interesting and powerful lessons were captured, and we took the opportunity to record some video advice from the participants, as well as some feedback on the retrospect process itself. Although the lessons from !Gariep were extremely valuable, and have already been carried forward to future projects to great effect, those video clips were an even more powerful demonstration of the value of Knowledge Management. 

 Shortly after the retrospect had been completed, Ian attended a meeting of the senior management team of the De Beers group to talk to them about KM. He had recorded one of the engineers at the retrospect, a young credible and eloquent contributor with some excellent knowledge and advice to offer, and he embedded the video in his presentations. 

This was the turning point for some of the senior managers; it transformed the whole presentation and got them on the edge of their seats. It was a real-life, highly relevant demonstration of what KM within the De Beers context, and from a complex and high-profile project as well. And then, when the senior managers asked "and how did the participants feel about the Retrospect process?" Ian was able to show them a second video clip of enthusiastic feedback.

Turning the "proof of concept" in to high level support

Ian later reported the following;

"The embedded video is the best way to market how powerful this approach is. I recorded one of the engineers talking. He is young, credible and eloquent, and I put his video in a presentation for the senior management team. I gave the talks, and I showed Steve, and it transformed the presentation and got people on the edge of their seat. This was the turning point for the Director of operations, who became the high-level sponsor for Knowledge Management in De Beers”

This approach for engaging key leaders can be replicated by any courageous knowledge manager.

• Find a big business issues
• Apply Knowledge Management as a "proof of concept" exercise to solve, address, or learn from that issue
• Ask the people involved in the KM exercise to tell the story, in their own words, on video
• Use that video to engage your senior managers

The Knowledge Management "proof of concept"

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Proof of?, a photo by katmeresin on Flickr.

In the early stages of Knowledge Management - even when you are still drafting the Strategy - you may need to deliver a "Proof of Concept" exercise.

This is a small intervention with a Knowledge Management tool or process, just so that people can see it in action, and to show that "Yes, it can work here. No, it's not all smoke and mirrors".

This is not the same as a full-scale pilot, nor is it part of implementation - it's a "Look at this" exercise.

Suitable proofs of concept might include the following;

A retrospect on a tricky (or successful) project. For one of the companies we have worked with this was a project that had gone disastrously wrong, and they effectively said to us "if you can get learning from this project, then we will believe what you say about Knowledge Management. We did, and they did.  

A Peer Assist for a high profile project. This  has been the proof of concept for many companies - a straightforward demonstration that valuable knowledge can be shared between projects teams, and can make a positive impact to project plans.  

A Knowledge Exchange on a key topic. For another organisation, the proof of concept was getting experts together from all over the world to build company Best Practice on bidding and winning PFI contracts. 

A Knowledge Asset on a key topic. For a third company, who was going through a series of mergers, this was a Knowledge Asset to summarise "what we have learned about mergers." 

A Community of Practice launch. One organisation was seeking to develop knowledge sharing behaviours, and a successful community launch gave them the evidence they needed to move forward 

A retention interview from a departing expert. This has been the proof of concept for many a Retention strategy. Management want to see what is possible, and they want to see the output, in order to prove that retention can generate valuable output.

In each case, you should seek to create two things from the Proof of Concept.

The first is some valuable knowledge, either exchanged between people, or captured as lessons, guidance, tips and hints, or FAQs

The second is stories, or feedback from the people involved, saying "Hey, we tried this knowledge management thing, it was great, it was not difficult, and it created real value".

There is your proof of concept, right there.

ROI from KM; 4 reasons why this is an opportunity, not a problem.

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This blog post is sparked from a comment by Suresh Nair on yesterday's post. In it he says "The real problem comes when top management asks for ROI".

For me, this is not a problem, it is an opportunity.

Here are the four things that make this question into an opportunity.

1) Top Management are talking to you. You have access to them, and they are listening to you. A conversation with senior management has opened up. As a KM salesman, make the most of this (see "selling KM on emotion").
2) You have the opportunity to show them some success stories which demonstrate a very high ROI. KM can deliver fantastic ROI - our October 2012 Newsletter (available here) gives many examples of KM ROI, and how it can be measured, and this blog has published an occasional series of quantified success stories, with 53 examples to date. There is plenty of evidence you can show them.
3) You have the opportunity to make a deal with them. See here for how this deal might go. You promise them ROI, in return for their endorsement, example, steer, recognition and challenge.
4) You have the opportunity to offer to use KM to solve some of their real problems. Don't forget, KM works extremely well when applied at senior level - its not just for the frontline staff. Senior managers are knowledge workers too. If you can do this, they will be on your side forever (see "taking the thorn from the lions paw").

So look on this request as an opportunity to engage, and broker a deal, at the highest level. Remember John's story; seize the opportunity and be bold - it could be the best thing that happens to you.