UNDP KM strategy

Linked below is an excellent video on the 2022 KM strategy from the UN Development program. 

Good to see the focus on culture and networks.

Lesson Learning in NATO (video)

 Here's a great video from NATO about their lesson learned capability

Source here

The Learning Maniac Pledge at WD40 - an example of how to set cultural expectations for learning and sharing.

Described in a Harvard Business School article from 2016, here is the pledge that WD40 staff take to commit to organisational-wide sharing and learning. 

This is the Learning Manic Pledge; part of WD40's "tribal culture".

The pledge is as follows:

I am responsible for taking action, asking questions, getting answers, and making decisions. I won’t wait for someone to tell me. If I need to know, I’m responsible for asking. I have no right to be offended that I didn’t “get this sooner.” If I’m doing something others should know about, I’m responsible for telling them.

This is a really great way to give permission, and set the expectation, that people will ask, learn, and share as part of the culture, and as a daily habit. 

In the video below, WD40 CEO, Garry Ridge, explains how this pledge is used to decentralize the responsibility for accountability and learning out to the employees within the organisation. Also see the way he talks about "learning moments" as opportunities to improve. 

Value-focused Knowledge Management (video)

 The video below is from a talk I gave to the Gesellschaft für Wissensmanagement (GfWM) knowledge camp last week, on the topic of "value focused KM". You can find more videos from the same event here.

The video lasts about 30 minutes, and covers the source of value that KM taps into, and how that value is measured.

What's the status of Knowledge Management today? Hear from two of the pioneers

The video below is a conversation between Nancy Dixon and Tom Stewart, two of the early pioneers of the KM discipline. This is great stuff with important insights - please set aside 30 minutes to listen to it!

The conversation is part of Columbia University’s "IKNS Conversations That Matter" series (see the video in context here). In this conversation these two KM pioneers discuss KM's beginnings thirty years ago, how it has improved organizational outcomes, and what challenges remain within the practice.

In case they need any introduction to people new to the KM field:

• Tom Stewart, is former Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Business Review and now Chief Knowledge Officer of AchieveNEXT, and author of (amongst other books) Intellectual Capital, the new wealth of nations
• Nancy Dixon, is a lecturer in Columbia’s Information and Knowledge Strategy program, a long time thought leader and blogger in KM, and author of (amongst other books) Common Knowledge.

KM at PWC Middle East (video)

Here is a link to a video of my ex-colleague Rupert Lescott talking at a virtual KM event about the application of KM to projects within PWC. 

Thanks Rupert for letting me share the link below (you will need to ckick the link rather than the picture.

PWC Case Study: Applying KM to projects - learning before, during and after - Rupert Lescott, Director of Knowledge Management at PwC Middle East - 2021 Knowledge Management Conference

 According to the website, 

This talk covers the way we have built our KM function and now use it to leverage consultants’ experience of engagements. It will look at the following areas: 

● Overview of KM framework elements - i.e. roles, processes, technology etc. 

● KM Governance - policy, performance management, support 

● Knowledge domains - project delivery, research & benchmarking, clients & consultants 

● KM tools - to aid learning before, during and after each project 

● The knowledge pipeline - from a client engagement to our portal

KM in the US Army - video part 1 (including how KM helped with Covid response)

The US Army Training and Doctrine command, who run KM for the US Army, have released the first part of their KM documentary (I shared the introduction here).

There is some great stuff here. 

"All of the foundational thoughts about Mission Command, rely heavily on Knowledge Management"

"Those organisations who have been successful in Knowledge Management have this lesson to share  - senior leaders must actively participate in the Knowledge Management program if it is to be successful"

The video also explains the way KM has helped the Army during the pandemic. "Had we not been in that spot (with our KM system) when the pandemic hit, it would have been a mess"

Well worth watching!

S1. Episode 1 - Why KM Matters from U.S. Army TRADOC on Vimeo.

Introduction to KM in the US Army

"Knowledge management is a powerful force multiplier, that creates shared understanding, and informs and enhances the decision making process... It is not a function performed by a few people in HQ; it's part of everyone's job"

These are two of the messages from this introductory video from TRADOC, the Training and Doctrine command that handles and coordinates KM for the US Army. 

This video is one in a series; I am not sure when and if the rest will be available, but you should be able to find them here.

S1. Intro to KM Documentary from U.S. Army TRADOC on Vimeo.

Why is KM important to the Army? (video)

A great video from the TRADOC Facebook page, which I saw on Linked-In and share here.

General Funk refers to one of his principles - TOPS (Take Other People's Stuff) -  as the rationale behind KM. 

More on TOPS here.

How the Asian Development Bank is moving towards a "knowledge demand" model

In this YouTube video, Vivek Raman describes how KM at the Asian Development Bank is moving from a Push model (driven by knowledge supply) to Pull model (driven by knowledge demand) for its knowledge products and solutions. 

As Vivek says -

"Our challenge was complex: One, we needed to design a new methodology to string together all of ADB’s complex knowledge products and services for a country. Two, we needed to make sure this was not seen as additional work or burdensome by resident mission staff and actually, added value to their work. Three, and most importantly we needed to change government’s viewpoint that ADB is an active knowledge partner. So, for the methodology we decided to go back to the basics and approach it like a child’s problem. Nothing we designed was rocket science".

Vivek goes on to describe the development of consultative country knowledge plans, as a way of achieving a more pull-driven approach.

Read more about knowledge push and pull here, here and here

See more videos about KM at ADB

Implementing KM as if you were a business start-up (video)

As my last blog post this year, please find below a presentation I gave last month to CIEDO in Barcelona.
 

Many thanks to CIEDO for inviting me to the conference, which was extremely interesting. I was honoured to be invited.

In the video I am talking on the topic of KM Implementation, and suggesting that you approach it as if you were a start-up launching a new product into a market (which in many ways you are). I then pick five of the common ways in which start-ups fail, and suggest how KM can avoid the same failures.

Be aware, this is video lasts over an hour. The introduction is in Spanish as are the questions at the end, but my part is spoken in English. 

Other videos from the event can be found here, also the conclusions of the conference.

Thought you might like to see this knowledge product

The video below is a product of the Olympic Games Knowledge Management program, as part of their methodology for transferring experience from one organising committee to another.

The 27-minute video is introduced here, and was created during the Rio Olympics to describe the work of press photographers at the Olympic games. It won the prestigious Candido Cannavo Award at the Milan Sport Film Festival 2018. That's pretty good for a KM product!

If you have 27 minutes to spare, it's a thrilling watch.

Lessons learned in Emergencies

 In the video interview below with  Santhosh Shekar, my Australian colleague Ian Fry talks about lesson learning in the Australian emergency services, both on the recent Bush Fires, and also during the Covid pandemic. He also shares his thoughts on ISO 30401:2018; the ISO management systems standard for KM.

After Action Reviews at the World Health Organisation (video)

Here is an interesting video from the WHO about the use of various methods for debrief and the collection of new knowledge and lessons learned.

 

The video describes four types of review, which they apply to health responses and emergencies, and they use the term After Action Review as a generic cover name for all 4 processes. These are described as follows:

• "Debrief AAR" takes less than half a day, and focuses on the actions of a single team. This is closest to the classic military After Action Review which was first developed at platoon level
• A "Working Group AAR" lasts 3 days, and covers larger responses including multiple functions. These are facilitated events, and at Knoco we describe these as Retrospects.
• A "Key Informant Interview AAR" consists of a series of one-on-one interviews with people involved in the response. They use this for complex events, in-depth analysis, and for when you cant get people together for 3 days. This process is close to the Learning History process. 
• A "Mixed method format AAR" mixes these approaches, and is used for AARs of complex responses. This takes a lot of time and resources, and the KM team has to synthesis and integrate all the responses. The last one of these I was involved in (not for the WHO) took half a year to complete, and would only be used for major projects.

WHO has a guidance booklet for these events, and provides in-house training for facilitators. 

KM and Covid - an overview (video)

 Courtesy of Patrick Lambe, please find below my video related to KM and Covid, presented at the ISKO singapore meeting on KM and the Covid Crisis

ISKO SG KM and Covid Event - Nick Milton from Patrick Lambe on Vimeo.

Why deferring judgement is important in KM

Defer judgement - never drive your brain with the brakes on.

One of the ten key elements of an Organisational Learning culture is Openness, and part of the key to openness is deferral of judgement.

We see this in processes such as After Action Review and Retrospect, where the facilitator ensures that the meeting does not leap to judgement until all voices have been heard and all root causes explored.

We see this also in innovation processes, where all ideas must be examined, as sometimes the wildest ideas hold the most promise.

In the video below, Dr Min Basadur, the creativity guru, explains how we much even defer judgement on our OWN ideas, if we are to be truly innovative.

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.

Challenges for a new CKO (NASA video)

In this video, Ed Hoffman (ex-CKO of NASA) talks about some of the challenges facing a new CKO trying to introduce a new KM program. He concludes

• The KM program has to "fit" the organisation, and how people work
• The KM program should address pain points for people and for the organisation

The links above are to make the link between Eds analogy of KM being like buying a "new pair of shoes", and the analogy I have been using this week of implementing KM being like introducing a new product into a market. I said KM needs to meet the needs of the market, and to deliver value; Ed says that, like a new pair of shoes, it has to fit, and to take you somewhere.

NASA's "5 most common KM mistakes"

In a 2015 video reprise from Edward Rogers, CKO of NASA Goddard, he explains what he sees as the 5 most common mistakes in implementing KM.

All of these stem from one reason, which is that KM people too often fail to learn from the experience of the past. Edward's 5 reasons for failure are these;

1. Attempting to implement a KM system in a hurry, by "buying a KM program". KM at NASA has been a 10 year proposition.
2. "Gaming" KM; trying to manipulate people though tricks and incentives
3. Applying a KM framework "off the shelf" rather than tailoring it to your own context
4. Selling KM with an unrealistic revenue target (but also see his video on quantifying the value of KM pilot projects)
5. Letting IT and the CIO handle KM, which ends up with a data and information system, not a KM system

Compare these with our list of the most common reasons KM programs fail

The curse of knowledge (video)

When we have a lot of knowledge, we underestimate how hard it is to communicate this to people who don't know.  This is called the "Curse of Knowledge" - a cognitive bias that leads to people trying to convey knowledge in bullet points, or in fuzzy statements which are meaningless to others, or by writing knowledge assets which are incomprehensible to the unknowledgeable reader.

The video below by Jeff Walker, the Sales guru, illustrates this cognitive bias in more detail. As the YouTube caption says -

Ever have an “expert” try to explain something to you, only to be left more confused than when you started? They’d forgotten how to be a beginner… and lost most of the ability to teach along the way… here’s how to not make the same mistake yourself.

The video is aimed at sales staff, for whom the curse of knowledge is just as much a barrier to communication as it is in Knowledge Management, but the message is the same -

You cannot communicate knowledge properly unless you account for the Curse of Knowledge.