The power of stories in Knowledge Management

Here are 4 reasons why stories can be a very powerful way to share knowledge.

I often use the US Wildland fire lessons center as a great example of knowledge sharing. Their portal contains lessons, advice, a blog, summaries of incidents, and links to videos hosted on their youtube channel. Playing one of these videos yesterday as part of an online webinar reminded me of the power of stories in sharing knowledge. 

Below is the video I used. It concerns awareness and strategies to avoid dangerous trees when fighting a forest fire. 

This material could have been presented in a dry formal way, in bullet point lists and PowerPoint slides. Instead they decided to use stories. Watch the first minute of the video below, and you can immediately see the power of this approach.

That was powerful, wasn't it?

So why are stories so powerful as a means of sharing knowledge?

1. They remind us that knowledge comes from the real experience of real people. People "just like you". Knowledge is not an abstract thing; it's grounded in reality. In the case of this video concerning danger trees, it's grounded in the reality of risk, injury and death. It's "hard-won" knowledge.
2. They convey emotion, in the way that the written word cannot. In the video above, the emotion is a very healthy respect for the dangers that trees present. In fact, the video identifies "normalisation of risk" as an issue, and the stories certainly would discourage anyone to become blasé about the risk from trees. The emotion in the first story also acts as a sobering introduction which compels you to treat the rest of the video very seriously. You think "this could happen to me if I'm not careful".
3. The great thing about stories is that everyone has a story to tell. If you see someone else share their story, it legitimises you to share your own. This is the concept of social proof; if you want to promote a behaviour in your organisation, show real stories of  people exhibiting that behaviour. If you want people to share knowledge from failure, then show stories of people talking about failure (as an example of this, see the NASA "my best mistake" compilation). This legitimises others to share their failure stories, and the knowledge they have gained as a result, and starts to bring about culture change.
4. You can use the stories to convince senior managers of the value of KM.  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". My colleague Ian Corbett speaks below about using video testimony from a young engineer as social proof to convince senior managers of the value Knowledge Management can bring.

“This was a high-profile project with big returns and the opportunity to do some marketing of what the processes will do.  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 talk, and the video transformed the presentation and got people on the edge of their seat. This was the turning point for the Director of Operations who is now the high-level sponsor for KM”

So think about the value of stories when it comes to transferring knowledge. There may be more benefits than you think.

The link between Big Data and Knowledge - the classic Walmart story

This is a short analysis of the story of WalMart's preparation for hurricanes, in order to explore the link between Big Data and Knowledge.

Hurricane Irma food distribution, by City of St Pete on Flickr

One of the earliest and most famous "big data" stories is around Walmart and it's analysis of sales data related to hurricanes.  Let's look at this story through the lens of "Observation, Insight, Lesson" to see the link between Big Data and Knowledge.

According to the New York Times in 2004 -

A week ahead of (Hurricane Frances) landfall, Linda M. Dillman, Wal-Mart's chief information officer, pressed her staff to come up with forecasts based on what had happened when Hurricane Charley struck several weeks earlier. Backed by the trillions of bytes' worth of shopper history that is stored in Wal-Mart's computer network, she felt that the company could "start predicting what's going to happen, instead of waiting for it to happen," as she put it.

The experts mined the data and found that the stores would indeed need certain products - and not just the usual flashlights. "We didn't know in the past that strawberry Pop-Tarts increase in sales, like seven times their normal sales rate, ahead of a hurricane," Ms. Dillman said in a recent interview. " 

And the pre-hurricane top-selling item was beer."Thanks to those insights, trucks filled with toaster pastries and six-packs were soon speeding down Interstate 95 toward Wal-Marts in the path of Frances. Most of the products that were stocked for the storm sold quickly, the company said. Such knowledge, Wal-Mart has learned, is not only power. It is profit, too.

This story is a classic example of the power of Big Data, but let's look at it through a Knowledge lens.  The Military model of knowledge development is that it comes through a 3-step process of Observation, Insight, Lesson, and that the Lesson then leads to Action. The New York Times suggests that the big data algorithms delivered knowledge, but I suggest that what they delivered was Insight, and that the Knowledge is applied when you know what to do with those insights.

• The "trillions of bytes' worth of shopper history" is a collection of Observations
• The correlation of shopper behaviour with imminent hurricane landfall is an Insight
• The lesson, on which action will be based, comes from an analysis of the insights with a background understanding of Walmart's business and strategy. 

I would disagree with the New York Times. I think that what the data-mining experts found was Information in the form of a Correlation. The Knowledge would come in knowing what to do with that information (Knowledge, after all, being what enables correct action).

What would you do, dear reader, if you were a Walmart Executive who had been given this information on beer and pop tart sales? What action would you take?

• Should you (as the New York times suggests) stock your stores with extra supplies to increase profit?
• Should you (as this article suggests) put Pop-Tarts near the store entrances during hurricane season so that sales can "soar"?
• You could even consider raising the margin on these items, following the principles of supply/demand pricing?

All of these solutions will increase sales and improve profit, but would Walmart really want to use a hurricane solely as an opportunity to increase profit? That might not go down so well with the public.  As Peter Drucker said, "Information only becomes knowledge in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it" and luckily Walmart has the knowledge they need to use this information wisely.

What Walmart actually do 

Walmart have built their own "best practice" for disaster relief (here, from page 177)  In the US this includes

• Making sure their own stores are reopened as soon as possible 
• Providing merchandise for emergency responders, such as bottled water for first responders, office supplies for command posts, flashlights and batteries for search and rescue crews
• Donating pallets of dry food, soft drinks, flashlights, clothes, blankets and childrens board games
• Hosting massive barbecues in their parking lots, to feed citizens with no domestic power

 As a result WalMart is seen as a lifesaver, and it's disaster response procedure has been compared favourably with that of FEMA. They have won the hearts of the public, and of the administrators.

Walmart are winning on three counts. They have plenty of observations in the form of shopper data, they analyse this data to derive insights, and they have knowledge (based on experience and codified in best practice) that allows them to take the correct actions. 

It is that knowledge that allows them to know what to do with the insights they mine from Big Data

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".

Uplifting Story of how Nelson Mandela understood the value of knowledge

Here is another post from the archives - an uplifting story of the recognition of the Value of Knowledge from the Great Man himself - Nelson Mandela

Image from wikimedia commons

The text below is taken from the excellent book “playing the enemy”, by John Carlin – a book about the transition in power in South Africa from the old apartheid movement to Nelson Mandela’s new government, and the role that the 1994 Rugby World Cup played in this process and in the reunification of national spirit.

There is a little section in this book that made me light up as I read it, because it shows the importance Nelson Mandela places on knowledge and experience.

The scene is just after Mandela’s appointment as president, and John Reinders, chief of presidential protocol under De Klerk, and the former head of the prison service, is in his office packing up his desk.

 “I came in early that morning to collect my things”, Reinders recalled. “All us whites had applied for jobs elsewhere, sure that they would be asked to leave. Quite a few of us meant to go and work for De Klerk in the deputy presidency”.  

Reinders was packing away his mementoes of 17 years spent running the presidential office, when suddenly he was startled out of his reminiscences by a knock at the door. It was another early riser. Mandela. 

“Good morning, how are you?” he said, stepping into Reinders’s office with outstretched hand. “Very well, Mr. President, thank you. And you?” “Well, well but ….” Mandela said, puzzled, “what are you doing?” “I am collecting my things and getting ready to go, Mr. President”. “Oh, I see. And may I ask where you are going?” “Back to correctional services, Mr. President, where I used to serve.” 

“Mmmm,” said Mandela, pursing his lips. “I was there 27 years, you know. It was very bad.” He grinned as he repeated, “very bad!” Reinders, flummoxed, offered him a half-smile back. “Now,” Mandela continued, “I would like you to consider staying here with us.”  Reinders examined Mandela’s eyes with astonishment. 

“Yes. I am quite serious. You know this job. I don’t. I am from the bush. I am ignorant. Now, if you stay with me, it would be just one term, that is all. Five years. And then, of course, you would be free to leave. No, please understand: this is not an order. I would like to have you here only if you wish to stay and share your knowledge and your experience with me.” 

Mandela smiled. Reinders smiled, wholeheartedly now. “So,” Mandela continued, “what do you say? Will you stay with me?” Amazed as he was, Reinders did not hesitate. “Yes, Mr. President. I will. Yes. Thank you.” 

At which point his new boss gave him his first task: to gather together all the presidential staff, including the cleaners and gardeners, in the cabinet room for a meeting. The new president walked among them, shaking hands with each of the hundred or so people assembled, saying a few words to each, in Afrikaans where appropriate. Then he addressed them all. “Hello, I am Nelson Mandela. If any of you prefer to take the severance package, you are free to leave. There is no problem. But I beg you, stay! Five years, that is all. You have the knowledge. We need that knowledge, we need that experience of yours.” 

Every single member of the presidential staff stayed.

Quanitified KM value story #120 - Petroleum Development Oman

Our list of KM Value stories reaches number 120, with this story from Petroleum Development Oman (PDO). See the complete list.

Image from wikimedia commons

The story was presented last week at the UK KM Summit by Hank Malik, who gave an excellent presentation on how standard project-based Knowledge Management has been developed and deployed at PDO.  The elements of KM Hank described included 

• Lesson Learning, 
• Best practices, 
• Knowledge Assets, 
• Content Management, 
• Knowledge Retention and 
• Communities of Practice; 

in fact all the core elements of project-based KM, plus a complete Governance layer and a Processes toolbox.

Hank described a whole set of acheivements from the KM program, including the following quantified benefits delivered to date:

• 5,554 Lessons Learned captured to date across over 50 projects,
• Over $740 M savings,  and $80M realised for in-country value.

Well done to Hank and the KM team at PDO!

3 principles for an effective learning system (example from the Army)

Here are three powerful principles about building an effective learning system. 

The principles come from   his interesting article about CAVNET - an online forum for the junior leaders of the US Army 1st Cavalry.

It's worth reading the whole article, but I share below some of the points made by Major Patrick Michaelis, the founder of CAVNET, who was Battle Command Officer and Task Force CKO for the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq at the time the article is written (2005). These points are important, in helping define an effective learning system.

• Firstly, Michaelis had a clear view of the purpose of the learning system. The enemy was adapting faster than the Army at the tactical level, and company-level leaders had little chance to physically interact. Therefore an online system was needed.
• Secondly, he had a clear view of the scope - - "designed to prepare for the next patrol, not the next war", and focusing on "actionable" (contextually-based) knowledge which could be incorporated into the patrol plan, prep, and execute cycle. This meant focusing on the HOW - the tactics.
• Thirdly, it had to fit the tempo of life in the Army. As Michailis says, "One of my baseline evaluation criteria is that it had to compliment a commander's battle rhythm rather than complicate it ... It was my belief that if a commander could not get on, get information, post information, and get off within about 10 minutes, it would be useless".

These three principles resulted in a simple but very effective way of sharing knowledge, over and above the AARs at unit level, and the development of Army Doctrine.

Does the system work? Michailis provides two anecdotes to illustrate the value delivered by CAVNET

"A leader posts a report that his unit experienced an IED that was cloaked by a poster of Moqtada al-Sadr. On the other side of the city, a commander taps into the CAVNET and reads the post. Though he is in another part of the city, he has been involved in operations that require removing posters posted on IIG [Iraqi interim government] projects. He briefs up his leaders before they execute a normal combat patrol. One sees a poster that mirrors the description given by the original post. Instead of ripping it down, he calls EOD [Explosive Ordinance Disposal], who discovers that it is rigged as an IED.

"In another instance, a scout platoon leader from 1-8 Cav.  was given the mission to conduct sniper operations. He had never really executed a mission like it before. He looked on the CAVNET, where a commander from 1-9 Cav, in another part of the city, had posted notes and TTPs from employment of snipers over the past months. The Scout Platoon Leader from 1-8 was able to integrate what he had read from the CAVNET into his planning, preparation, and execution cycle".

Quantified value story 108 - video from US Army corps of Engineers.

Here is an interesting video on the use of KM within the USACE (US Army Corps of Engineers)  including an example of quantified value.

During a recent flood emergency, the KM staff, as part of the incident management team, established wiki pages as a "one stop shop" to share knowledge with the public and other stakeholders This reduced the daily requests for information from 100 day down to 10.

There is also a nice summary at the end by Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, USACE Commanding General, on the importance of KM to the USACE



 

Every lesson is a story

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188/365 Story time!, a photo by Chase Lester Photography² on Flickr.

Monday saw another excellent post from the Farnham Street blog (well worth following) entitled "The structure of a Story."

To summarise the post, a great story includes Context, Action and Result (where Context includes Where, Who, What do they Want, and What's getting in the way). As the blog says

It all hangs on the central Context, Action, Result (CAR) structure. It starts with the Subject, Treasure, and Obstacle, and concludes with the Right lesson and link back to why it’s being told.

We all know that humans naturally learn through story, and that when we transfer Knowledge, story is one of the best formats. That is equally true of lesson-learning as it is of the other elements of KM. Yet all too often, lessons fail to meet the test of a good story.

As the Farnham Street blog says, aspirant storytellers usually start with the Action, because that is the exciting part, and omit the context, and as a result the reader of the story or lesson cannot easily identify with nor internalise the learnings.

When we teach lesson-learning to organisations, we say that Every Lesson is a Story, and we recommend that the lesson has at least 6 components

1) Context. Here we explain what was expected to happen, but didn't. It is amazing how many project teams or facilitators skip this step. Because "what was expected to happen" is so obvious to them, they expect it to be obvious to the reader, but of course it seldom is. 

2) Outcome. Here we explain what actually happened - the Action step of the story. What went wrong? What actually happened? 

3) Root cause. Here we explain WHY it happened - what the Obstacles were, what was missing that should have been there, or (in a success story) what was done to achieve the result. 

4) Impact. Here we explain or try to quantify the result, either negative or positive. 

5) Lesson. Based on the root cause, what is the learning for future projects? 

6) Action to Embed.What action do we take to embed that lesson into business process, so mistakes are never repeated, and successes always copied.

This is also the structure used by Lessons Management Systems such as the Lessons Management Hub. It is no coincidence that this structure corresponds closely with the After Action Review structure.

A lesson with a story-based structure such as this takes about a page to write down or a couple of minutes to tell, compared to typical bullet-point one-liner lessons - told in seconds, forgotten almost as quickly.

However if we treat every lesson as a story, then we realise that it must be presented as a Narrative, with Context, Action and Result, concluding with the Right Lesson.

This is the simple structure that conveys the message.

Knowledge headlines; Lesson first, then story

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The last couple of weeks I have been involved in some major knowledge handover exercises (a knowledge handover being a meeting where a project invites other projects to come hear and discuss the lessons they have identified from their project activity, with rich storytelling and questioning).

These exercises have been very successful, with 100% of attendees saying they have been either very hepful, or extremely helpful events. However as with everything in life, we can always see room for improvement.

One piece of feedback we recevied was to do with the relative roles of lesson-stating, and storytelling. Many of the presenters started with the story, and ended with the lesson. "This is what we planned, this is what happened, this is what we learned, this is what we recommend to others".  However this approach did not go down well with all attendees. As one person said later

"We need to push presenters even harder to present in a language of 'recommendations' for next projects, as opposed to reflecting on what happened in their project. We should coach presenters to get to the lesson quickly, perhaps even starting with the lesson and then returning to the story of where it came from".

This at first sight is counterintuitive. How can people understand the lesson if they don't hear the story?

But thinking about it a little more, I begin to ask "why will people pay full attention to the story, if they don't know that there is a lesson for them?"

It's a bit chicken-and-egg; you need both story AND lesson, but certainly in some cases last week we got it the wrong way round - too much story, not enough lesson.

Possibly the answer is to treat the sessions as if they are newspaper articles. Start with the headline, summarise the key lesson, then give the detailed story that backs this up. For example -

"We have come to the conclusion that a project like this needs to involve the marketing department from day 1, as part of the core project team. Let me tell you what happened in our project as a result of bringing in marketing only towards the end of preliminary trials."

A start like this will engage the reader, and give them context for the story.

Why should I share? Receiving, in order to give.

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Share
Originally uploaded by andrew_mc_d

Back in the days of the BP Knowledge Management program, in the late 1990s, we were travelling the world, spreading the news about Knowledge management and engaging different BP business units in conversation about the value KM could bring.

One of our tours took us to South America, where we visited the Colombia Business Unit in Bogota. They had been doing some great work locally on the use of LiveLink to exchange and build knowledge, and we asked whether they would be prepared to share this work with the rest of the company.

They said No.

Not because of any secrecy issues, but because they were very busy, and this was very low on their list of priority actions. Effectively it would cost them time and resource, with no payback for them, as the benefit would be for the rest of the organisation). In terms of "What's In It For Us", the answer (at the time) was "Nothing".

About a year later, BP Colombia went through a massive downsizing and restructuring operation, where they needed to reduce office costs by 50%. Their aspiration was to do this fairly, with complete consultation, so that everyone in the exercise felt they had been treated well. And that is very difficult to do. So they looked around for help, and they remembered the Knowledge management program. They called us in, we conducted a whole series of interviews from past restructuring programs, and drew together the best of the lessons from the past. Colombia used these lessons to inform and tailor their own program, and their restructuring went as well as they had hoped. Everyone felt they had been given choices, everyone felt they had been treated well, there were no incidents of people feeling aggrieved or upset or outraged, there were no safety incidents or production incidents caused by people getting worried or distracted.

And afterwards, the gates were open in terms of Colombia sharing knowledge with the rest of the world. It was like a switch had been thrown. They were delighted to share, starting with their own experiences from their own restructuring.

So what had changed?

What was now "in it for them"?

The answer is, reciprocity. They had received, and now they gave. They had felt the benefit, and so were willing to share the benefit. Instead of sharing "in case it helps someone", they would share "because it will help someone".

So if you find a part of the business which is unwilling to share, then start by giving them something - some knowledge that will make a real difference to them. Allow them to Pull before requiring them to Push. Let them feel the benefit of knowledge transfer before asking them to share the burden.

Let them receive, before asking them to give.

Performance metrics, KM and asparagus

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Asparagus picking
Originally uploaded by net_efekt

In this post I asked the questions - "What if there are no measures of performance? How will you know if any one approach is better than another, and worth replicating? How will you see the learning curves, without metrics? How can you plan to improve, with no targets? What will incentivise people to learn from each other, if performance is not a driver"?

I was reminded of this yesterday, reading an article on KM and the Peruvian Asparagus Cooperative (by Luis Chang, in Pauleen, "cross-cultural perspectives on knowledge management". This is a story of how the asparagus growers of Peru began to collaborate, firstly to build a shared refrigeration facility, and secondly to exchange knowledge of processing and aircraft loading, so that the slow loaders didn't hold the others back.

Hidden in there, are some really important observations on the link between performance metrics, and KM. I quote -

"Knowledge Management experience in many settings has shown us that trying to
quantify productive knowledge is virtually* impossible, but charting the
positive outcomes that knowledge generates is both possible and useful, because
it shows where productive knowledge resides, and which practices deserve to be
widely adopted"

Like I said above, if you have measures ("charting the positive outcomes"), you know if one approach is better than another, and worth replicating ("deserve to be widely adopted"). In Peru, this happens as follows

"Each partner company receives daily information .... the reports blank out the
names of all the other partners, so each recipient sees his rank and detailed
quality on quality without knowing which of the other companies occupy the other
lines. For partners that score significantly below the others, the reports who,
first and foremost, that the work can be done more effectively and efficiently.
This objective proof of superior performance helps overcome a principal barrier
to convincing experienced professionals to adopt new practices - that is, the
belief that they are already doing the right thing and that their current
results are the best that anyone can expect"

I would like to repeat that last bit, because it's really really key

Objective proof of superior performance helps overcome a principal barrier to convincing experienced professionals to adopt new practices - that is, the belief that they are already doing the right thing and that their current results are the best that anyone can expect

That's the link that I was talking about in the other post, when I asked "What if there are no measures of performance? How will you know if any one approach is better than another, and worth replicating? What will incentivise people to learn from each other, if performance is not a driver"

A final quote from the paper to summarise the point

"Knowledge management experience in a range of settings has shown that clear
evidence of better performance helps motivate adoption of best practices"

In other words, if you know for sure that your performance sucks, you have no excuse for not learining. And the caveat is, that if you have no metrics, you will never know your performance sucks, and you may very well continue in blissful ignorance of how poor you are.








*virtually, but not completely. There are some very well metricated settings where it is possible.

More on stories

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"Story Road"
Originally uploaded by umjanedoan

I am a great believer in the power of stories in Knowledge Management, as a key tool in the KM toolbox. However I have seen some pretty awful use of storytelling as well, where the stories were used as pretty much the only KM tool, with limited results.

I saw an application of KM this week, where the approach was to create case studies, and then invite the learning to read these, and to draw out their own learning. Not a bad idea, but the case study library now runs at 100 case studies, and that's a lot to read! You are making it very hard for the learner.


Thats why I was pleased to read this post from Donna Fitzgerald in the Gartner Blog Network, where she says

"I think the trick is having the right stories and knowing when to use them to illuminate or contextualize advice. Stories that are quick and illustrative without sounding preachy. The trick is also having the right forum to tell the stories in, because part of the value of the stories is the fact that they really are personal".

This quote encapsualtes what I feel about the use of stories. There are several key words here

"Illuminate or Contextualise". The stories are there to give context to the knowledge, rather than to be the sole conduit of the knowledge.

"Quick and Illustrative". The stories should not outlive their welcome

"Personal". The best stories are those told in person, by the people involved, by the people who have the knowledge.

All of these are key to success in the use of storytelling in KM.