7 routes to knowledge acquisition

Sometimes your organisation needs to acquire new knowledge, new know-how or new capability. Here are 7 ways to approach this.

Knowledge Acquisition is a core component of Knowledge Management. ISO 30401:2018 recognises this, and requires compliant organisations to include Knowledge Acquisition as part of the Knowledge lifecycle (Acquisition, Utilisation, Retention, Archive/removal).

Knowledge acquisition therefore needs to be covered as part of your KM program, at least if you want to reach the ISO quality standard. Here are 7 ways in which an organisation can acquire knowledge. 

1. Build the knowledge yourselves, through trial, error and success

Learning from your own experience is a good way to cement learning, but the critical word in the heading above is "error". If you need to acquire important, difficult or critical knowledge, then just figuring it out for yourselves may involve costly errors before you hit on the formula for success. For brand new knowledge, which does not exist outside the company and where no trainers or consultants are available, this may be the only option for knowledge acquisition, hence the prevalence of R&D departments. Make sure that R&D is integrated into the KM cycle, and that they realise that their primary job is the acquisition or creation of knowledge. 

2. Learn with partners

For really new knowledge, consider setting up a learning network or learning partnership. Use processes such as Deep Dive (aka Business Driven Action Learning) to co-create the new knowledge.  Working as an open innovation partnership is less risky than just trying to create the knowledge yourself, as the different partners will bring different knowledge components  which can be assembled into something new.  Alternatively, if the knowledge is not too complex, hold a peer assist with partner companies to access their knowledge.

3. Hire a consultant

If the knowledge already exists outside your organisation, then consultancy may help. When you hire a consultant, you rent their knowledge. If the piece of work for which you need the knowledge is a one-off exercise, then it makes sense to hire this knowledge on a short term deal. If it is not one-off and you need to internalise the knowledge within the company, ensure the consultant offers training, coaching and knowledge transfer as part of the contract

4. Get training

Where the knowledge is procedural, then training is a great way to acquire it. Training will never transfer all the knowledge - there will always be some gaps - so training is best combined with the next approach.

5. Hire a contractor

A contractor is like a long term consultant, in that you are still hiring the knowledge, but with a contractor, its a longer term hire. The contractor may be working for your company for a year or more, and during that time you have access to their knowledge. However if you need the knowledge after the contractor has left, you need a knowledge transfer program in place, such as shadowing and mentoring.

6. Employ an expert

More permanent than using a contractor or consultant is hiring an expert. Use that expert as an internal coach, mentor, community leader and practice owner, so their expertise can be diffused within the organisation.

7. Acquire another company

This can be a very effective way to internalise a new capability, and acquire new knowledge - buy or merge with another company that already has that capability. Then of course you need to diffuse the knowledge through the new, bigger merged company.

The 10 myths of creativity

In his book "The myths of creativity" , David Burkus demystifies the creative process, and explodes what he calls the top ten myths about creativity, based on his research with highly creative individuals and firms.

The ten myths are listed and described below, and David introduces two of them in the following video.

His top myths are as follows:

• The Eureka myth - that creativity strikes (as Terry Pratchett says) like particles of inspiration sleeting through the universe
• The Breed myth - that some people are just more creative than others
• The Originality myth - that creative ideas are original (as opposed to a combination of existing ideas)
• The Expert myth - that creativity comes from creative experts
• The Incentive myth - that you can incentivise people to be creative
• The Lone Expert myth - that creativity comes from inidividuals working alone
• The Brainstorming myth - that you can brainstorm creativity
• The Cohesive myth - that you have to suspend conflict to be able to innovate
• The Constraints myth - that creativity must be unconstrained
• The Mousetrap myth - that once you have the creative idea, the world will beat a path to your door. It won't

Organisations need to unlearn these myths, and to see creativity not as an individual attribute, but as a team process ,ideally one that mixes many viewpoints and personality types, one that starts from a problem rather than an idea (usually a big out-of-the-box problem), that remixes existing knowledge,  defers judgement, and operates under stress and time pressure. Like this process, for example

You can learn more about these myths in David's hour-long talk at Google, below.

Six legal ways for an organisation to acquire knowledge

There are 6 ways in which an organisation can acquire new knowledge

 Davenport and Prusak (that classic of the genre, first published in 1998). give six ways of knowledge creation within a company (and by creation, they don't necessarily mean "creation from nothing" - they mean acquiring that knowledge in-house).

There are other methods of knowledge acquisition which they don't mention, such as IP theft, industrial espionage, patent infringement, reverse engineering, pirating and so on, but of course these are illegal.

These six legal ways are as follows;

Purchasing the knowledge. The most effective way to get knowledge is to buy it. A company can buy knowledge from another company, by using them as an outsource partner or a supplier, or by buying training, or they can hire individuals that have the knowledge. Or they can find a company they has the knowledge they need, and buy the company. Many corporate acquisitions are about acquisition of knowledge.

Renting the knowledge. This may be one of the most common ways of acquiring the knowledge - you bring in a consultant. Effectively you hire them to bring the knowledge in, and apply it in your context. Then once the problem is fixed, you don't need them any more. You hire knowledge at home every time you bring in a tradesman to service your boiler, for example.

Dedicated resources to create knowledge. Here the company dedicates resources to knowledge creation. This could be an R&D department, or a thinktank, or the 20% of time that Google staff are reputed to have, to spend on innovative projects.

Fusion of existing knowledge into something new. Here you bring people from different parts of the company to work together on a project, or to collaborate  on a problem. This is the process that happens in Peer Assists and Knowledge Exchange and often results in the creation of new knowledge from old.

Adaptation is a company response to changes in the environment, or to problems and disasters. The bigger the change, or the bigger the disaster, the greater the adaptation that is needed. This form of adaptation is the knowledge-creating process you see within Lessons Learned systems.

Networking is the final method for knowledge creation, which to me is really a type of fusion. This is the mechanism of Knowledge Creation within Communities of Practice.

10 things a KM champion needs to understand

Here are ten things a KM Champion needs to understand in order to do their job well.

Image from wikimedia commons

Understand your role
Discuss this with the KM team until you have a clear idea what your role as Champion entails. It may contain elements such as the following:

• Development of KM strategy for your part of the business 
• Deployment of a KM Framework (Roles, processes, technology and governance)
• Promotion of KM behaviours and culture (Communication, Support, Coaching and Facilitation) 
• Measurement and reporting of KM Activity and benefits

Understand your stakeholders
Find out what management need from KM, what you need from them, and the value proposition for management. Also find out what the knowledge workers need from KM, what you need from them, and what their value proposition is.

Understand your scope of work
What is in scope, and what is out of scope?

Understand the critical knowledge
Find out the critical knowledge for your part of the business, so you can focus only on the most valuable knowledge - the 20% of knowledge that will make 80% of the difference.

• Is it new knowledge, where the focus is on rapid learning? 
• Is it knowledge spread among many people, where the focus is on sharing good practice? 
• Is it old knowledge which should be standardised? 
• Is it knowledge of an expert, which should be captured?

Understand the KM Framework 
This is the framework of roles, processes, technology and governance that defines how knowledge will be managed in your organisation. You need to make sure you understand this completely, as this is what you will be trying to implement in your own project, department or division.

Understand the core KM tools and processes
You need to understand these, as you will be coaching people in their use, and facilitating some of the processes. These will include:

• Tools and technologies for knowledge discussion, such as Peer Assist, Knowledge Exchange, and community forums 
• Knowledge capture tools and processes such as After Action review, Retrospect,  lesson management systems and blogs   
• Knowledge synthesis tools and processes, such as Knowledge asset creation and update, knowledge article creation and update, wikis and knowledge bases,.
• Knowledge access and re-use tools and processes such as KM planning, and the use of search tools and people-finders.
• Knowledge creation tools and processes, such as Deep Dive. 

Understand communities of practice
If communities of practice are included in your KM Framework then you need to understand how these work, and the roles, processes and technologies involved.

Understand the issues of implementing KM in your part of the organisation
Understand the barriers to KM and how to overcome them, and the enablers you can use. Understand the use of pilot projects and "proof of concept" activity.

Understand how to sell KM, and react to objections
Understand the influencing techniques you can use, and the use of social proof, in selling the concept of KM internally.

Understand KM Governance
This includes the elements of KM expectation, metrics and rewards, and support. Governance is the issue that will be most powerful in reinforcing KM behaviours, and you need to be able to explain your stakeholders how it works.

Contact Knoco for help in developing your understanding further. 

7 ways to import knowledge into your organisation

Sometimes your organisation needs to acquire new knowledge, new know-how or new capability. Here are 7 ways to approach this.

Knowledge Acquisition is a core component of Knowledge Management. The ISO 9001:2015 quality standard recognises this, as follows.

When addressing changing needs and trends, the organization shall consider its current knowledge and determine how to acquire or access any necessary additional knowledge and required updates.

Knowledge acquisition therefore needs to be covered as part of your KM program, at least if you want to reach the ISO quality standard. Here are 7 ways in which this knowledge can be acquired.

1. Get some training.

Where the knowledge is procedural, then training is a great way to acquire it. Training will never transfer all the knowledge - there will always be some gaps - so training is best combined with the next approach.

2. Build the knowledge yourselves, through trial and error

Learning from your own experience is a good way to cement learning, but the critical word in the heading above is "error". If you need to acquire important, difficult or critical knowledge, then just figuring it out for yourselves may be a risky approach. On the other hand, for simple knowledge with no consequences for failure, learning for yourselves may be a good approach, and for brand new knowledge, which does not exist outside the company and where no trainers or consultants are available, this may be the only option.

3. Hire a consultant

When you hire a consultant, you rent their knowledge. If the piece of work for which you need the knowledge is a one-off exercise, such as an audit, then it makes sense to hire this knowledge on a short term deal. If it is not one-off and you need to internalise the knowledge within the company, ensure the consultant offers training, coaching and knowledge transfer

4. Hire a contractor

A contractor is like a long term consultant, in that you are still hiring the knowledge, but with a contractor, its a longer term hire. The contractor may be working for your company for a year or more, and during that time you have access to their knowledge. However if you need the knowledge after the contractor has left, you need a knowledge transfer program in place, such as shadowing and mentoring.

5. Employ an expert

More permanent than using a contractor or consultant is hiring an expert. Use that expert as an internal coach, mentor, community leader and practice owner, so their expertise can be diffused within the organisation.

6. Learn from partners

For really new knowledge, consider setting up a learning network or learning partnership. Use processes such as Deep Dive (aka Business Driven Action Learning) to co-create the new knowledge.  Working as an open innovation partnership is less risky than just trying to create the knowledge yourself, as the different partners will bring different knowledge components  which can be assembled into something new.  Alternatively, if the knowledge is not too complex, hold a peer assist with partner companies to access their knowledge.

7. Acquire another company

This can be a very effective way to internalise a new capability, and acquire new knowledge - buy or merge with another company that already has that capability. Then of course you need to diffuse the knowledge through the new, bigger merged company.

The creation of Knowledge

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Knowledge creation happens only when inspiration hits the receptive mind.

You can't manage inspiration, but you can manage receptivity. All knowledge creation activities are based around approaches to helping people to move outside their boxes, and open their minds.

For example, the Deep Dive process is based not only on a rigorous approach to problem analysis, but also on a series of exercises to de-limit the thinking of the team members. Deep Dive is used as a way to bring innovative thinking to the biggest business issue.

Similarly the Technical Limit process used by Shell involves challenging teams to deliver the best result possible, encouraging them to challenge the way things have always been done.  Technical limit is used in the project planning phase.

Even the humble After Action Review can include a knowledge creation step, when the team discusses "How will we do this differently next time".

Knowledge creation can be encouraged by any of these processes, and although you cannot manage inspiration, you can use processes such as these to encourage receptivity.

The main enemy of receptivity is prior knowledge. As Epictetus said, "you cannot teach someone something they think they already know". This means that if you give people problems they know how to solve, they will not look for additional knowledge, and they will not think outside the box.

So the key cultural behaviour that drives Knowledge Creation is challenge - challenge to the way things are currently done, and continually looking for a better way.

Management can help by giving people targets that they don't know how to meet, as a deliberate way to move people out of the comfort zone and into the knowledge creating zone.

Knowledge creation therefore is an active combination of process and behaviour, rather than a passive waiting for inspiration to strike. But the ideas created in these processes only truly becomes knowledge when tested in practice.

Three styles of Knowledge flow - centre-out, out and in, or multiflow

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There are three common styles of knowledge flow that you can see in organisations. We can call them centre-out, out and in, and multiflow.

In our picture here, the red dots are the central group of experts, the white dots are the knowledge users or knowledge workers, and the white arrows are the flow of knowledge.

In the centre-out model, the knowledge is created by the experts in the centre, and "pushed out" to the knowledge workers, in the form of doctrine, work instructions and policies. The centre owns the knowledge - they are the Knowers - while the knowledge workers apply the knowledge - they are the Doers.

In the out-and-in model the knowledge is managed by the experts in the centre. Knowledge is gathered from the knowledge workers, synthesised and validated in the centre, and transferred back out to the workers. There are feedback loops such as lesson learning systems which mean that the central knowledge is always tested against reality and updated regularly. The centre stewards the knowledge and validates it, while the knowledge workers both apply and improve the knowledge.

In the multiflow model, the knowledge flows between expert and worker, worker and worker, worker and expert. Knowledge is created, updated and validated by all parts of the system, and is available realtime. The knowledge is managed and owned by the Community of Practice, while the centre manages and stewards, not so much the knowledge itself, but the knowledge-creating and knowledge-validating system.

The first model seems very old fashioned nowadays, and the third model seems much more attractive, and is becoming more common (see for example the use of Wikis to develop Army doctrine).

However in reality all three models may be needed simultaneously in any one organisation, to deal with different types or different levels of knowledge.

There may be mandatory knowledge, such as knowledge of company law, or knowledge of policies such as anti-money-laundering or anti-corruption policies, which has to be mandated and controlled from the centre.

There may be strategic knowledge, driven by company strategy, which can certainly be tested in the business, with clear (and welcome!) feedback, but which needs to be owned and coordinated centrally and strategically.

There may be operational and tactical knowledge which is owned by the Communities of Practice, and handled within wikis and blogs and discussion forums (and indeed the Army wikis mentioned above were specifically for tactical knowledge).

So it is not as simple as saying "model 1 is old fashioned and rigid and Bad, model 3 is free and liberated and modern and cool and Good".

It is, as is so often the case in Knowledge Management, a case of determining which model is most appropriate for which knowledge.

The output of the knowledge work stream

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I blogged a while ago about the two parallel work streams in product development - the product work stream and the knowledge work stream.

A question came up last week - who defines the output for the knowledge work stream? The output from the product work stream is defined by the customer for the product - there are product specifications which meet the client requirements or the requirements of the market. But who defines the specs for the knowledge work stream?

The answer, of course, is simple, the knowledge customer (or the knowledge market) defines the specifications for the output from the knowledge work stream.

For a product going into service, the knowledge customers will be

• The manufacturing staff, who need to know how to build the thing
• The sales, service and support staff, who need to know the details of the product in order to sell it, to support the customers, and to service the product. They need to know the selling points, the functionality, and the as-built spec.
• Anyone in future who will make modifications to the product, who need to know the design rationale;  the choices made in design, why they were made, what the alternative choices were, and why they were rejected, what the core "don't mess with this" items are, and what the "options to improve" components are.
• Managers and teams of similar development projects, who want to know how to repeat the successes of this project, and avoid the pitfalls
• Owners of corporate process, who need to know if any modifications to those processes are needed
• Technical authorities and technical communities of practice, who need to know of any technological advances developed along the way, and what these may mean for future products.

You find the needs of these customers by asking them, or (if they are not yet identified) by predicting their needs as a sort of market research. The knowledge workstream, and the delivery of these results, are managed through the Knowledge Management Plan.

The six ways of creating/acquiring knowledge

Here's an old but good insight, from Davenport and Prusak (that classic of the genre, first published in 1998).

 Davenport and Prusak give six ways of knowledge creation within a company (and by creation, they don't mean "creation from nothing" - they mean getting that knowledge in-house). There is a seventh, which they don't mention, which is knowledge theft - IP theft or industrial espionage - but of course that is illegal.

These six legal ways are

Purchasing the knowledge. The most effective way to get knowledge They say) is to buy it. A company can buy knowledge from another company, by using them as an outsource partner or a supplier, or by buying training, or they can hire individuals that have the knowledge. Or they can find a company they has the knowledge they need, and buy the company.

Renting the knowledge. This may be one of the most common ways of acquiring the knowledge - you bring in a consultant. Effectively you hire them to bring the knowledge in, and apply it in your context. Then once the problem is fixed, you don't need them any more. You hire knowledge every time you bring in a tradesman to service your boiler.

Dedicated resources to create knowledge. Here the company dedicates resources to knowledge creation. This could be an R&D department, or a thinktank, or the 20% of time that Google staff are reputed to have, to spend on innovative projects.

Fusion of existing knowledge into something new. Here you bring people from different parts of the company to work together on a project, or to collaborate  on a problem. This is the process that happens in Peer Assists and Knowledge Exchange.

Adaptation is a company response to changes in the environment, or to problems and disasters. The bigger the change, or the bigger the disaster, the greater the adaptation that is needed. This form of adaptation is the knowledge-creating process you see within Lessons Learned systems.

Networking is the final method for knowledge creation, which to me is really a type of fusion. This is the mechanism of Knowledge Creation within Communities of Practice.