Knowledge Management Thought of the Day
This is an archive of the second series of KMTOTD. The first series is here. The third series is here. The fourth series is here. The fifth series is here.
Getting them to do what we want
[Mon 22 Mar 2021] I'll admit I have said it.?"How can we get people to..."?followed by something like?"take a lead role in a community", "fill in their online profile", "run a lessons learned session".?I've said it, but more important, I've?heard it?so many times in this KM business. It comes up so often. I have two thoughts about this, one is about the 'why' - why is this such an issue? and the other thought is about what the language seems to betray about us. But the answer to the two issues might be the same -?it's about voluntary will rather than coercion.
So the argument about the language is that it's a language of coercion or persuasion, rather than a language of listening, engagement and empowerment. In short, it's the kind of approach that will turn anyone off. Coercion has limited good applicability - perhaps in safety-critical situations it might be valid (but not the first choice approach). Persuasion is seen as far more legitimate, of course, but it's still short of actually engaging someone on-the-level. I think we can be too hard on people (on ourselves) about this; the language you use is the language you've learned and we may be wrong to infer bad intent from it. However, it's worth checking ourselves every time we hear, or reach for?"How can I get people to do x?",?that we're not being manipulative.
The other part of this, the 'why' part, is about why these people aren't doing the good thing they should be doing. This is a bit complicated, but overall I think it's lack of?association?or?connection. We've noted many times that KM often requires someone to do something 'just in case' some other person has the possibility to benefit at some later time; that it asks for altruism and delayed gratification (sometimes infinitely delayed); that it's often something separate from and in addition to the core work tasks they happily (or at least obediently) do; that it's seldom the thing their manager or customer is most pressing them for.
So I think we could do a couple of things here. First, find ways to make an association or connection between the KM thing and the core work task so that the KM thing has more of a chance of just getting done as part of it (I'm very keen on embedding KM). And second, we could check any manipulative streak and instead engage with people on the level of what they really care about doing or having done, and help them make that possible by removing barriers and so on.
Certification
[Fri 19 Mar 2021] No, this is not me adding to?the rants against CKM?(actually a good article). Our KM perspective of tacit and explicit helps us understand one of the more profound problems with certification in any skill or practice which is that they are generally focused on short-term recall of explicit knowledge?only, ungrounded in practice. The certification I took in Lean Six Sigma was a two-year programme with weeks of formal training, an exam, and three projects overseen by a master, followed by oral defence, before being certified. That was a better programme that incorporated a substantial level of experience and tacit knowledge acquisition as well. We need to be able to see trusted badges of knowledge, skill and experience - and we need to learn in substantial programmes.
An extended model
[Thu 18 Mar 2021] Today's thought is about extending the model from two days ago's #KMTOTD by sub-dividing the different degrees of tacit and explicit and also the main classes of knowledge ('show how' was a new one on me found here):
I find that considering the different areas of the 'map' provokes many different thoughts and ideas about what we are doing, should do, could do - and some areas we perhaps struggle to address as well.
Clever people and dabblers
[Wed 17 Mar 2021] KM isn't brain surgery/rocket science. I mean you don't have to do a course or have a certificate to do KM. It's an 'open profession' like consulting. And we haven't been very good at defining our body of knowledge. But what you do need is a bunch of skills, passion for it, and experience and learning. But that's invisible some of the time. So, a lot of time, someone wanders up and they're the kind of person who knows they're not a brain surgeon or rocket scientist, but does think they might be a knowledge manager .. or a web designer (they've been on the Internet, after all) .. or a comms expert (yes, I know these same problem situations afflict other areas as well). Lots of them are clever people, and confident with it, too. Clever people quickly come up with the same simplistic or complicated solutions that you've seen fail before - the trouble is, they're confidently delivered by clever and successful people and they make logical sense - but it's the wrong logical sense. Some of the common ones that make logical sense include ideas about people filling in forms, following mandated processes or 'submitting' content or ideas (who want to 'submit'?). [Not really today's subject but some of these fallacies are due to assuming people are econs/automata rather than humans who obey a different behavioural logic - but that's another topic.] Well, despite appearances, perhaps, this isn't a rant - because I always want to seek peace, not conflict. I'll tell you these clever people's ideas do a couple of things for me: First, they do shake any complacency I may have and always make me re-think and re-consider my assumptions and look to see if I'm really right about what does and doesn't work and whether they have a new perspective that might fix the problem. And, truly, on rare occasions they have done. But second I see someone who might be interested in teaming on a solution -- I see a potential buying signal and that is always something to engage with. Of course, some are just dabblers looking for a quick fix that may look good on the surface and that's all that matters to them - not whether it actually pulls through value and results in the longer term. The trick might be to recognise and engage the clever people and the ideas that can help, vs the dabblers who you just need to deal with and not invest hope in. And, yes, I know this isn't just KM, but if you work in web not everyone really wants to engage in the serious work of analytics, UX and SEO; and if you work in comms some people really just want that all staff email sent. But I don't think many of them are up at the hospital asking the brain surgeons "I have an idea I think might work - maybe I could have a go?"
Catering for different knowledge forms
[Tue 16 Mar 2021] Consider the different kinds of knowledge we're dealing with, as depicted here, and what we're doing or should or could be doing for each:
My most exciting consulting project ever
[Mon 15 Mar 2021] I heard this question recently; "What was your most exciting consulting project ever?". The context was a cohort of trainees new to consulting, keen to hear what kinds of things might lie ahead. In that vein it's a decent question. It did make me think for a few minutes about which ones I remember and for which reasons - and that reflection is good to do - perhaps the same question will help you now?
What I did know instantly, though, were two things: 1. 'Most exciting' just isn't how I generally think about things (I have the same problem with "What are you most proud of?" - pride doesn't sit too well with me either, overall.) Well, that's 50% just me, I know, and 50% a worthwhile thought not to constrain your answer just to 'exciting' (or 'proud'). 2. The second thing I knew instantly was that, yes, there is a story about 'exciting' (and 'proud'), but the projects I think of first are the ones that stretched me without straining or breaking me, and that taught me something from a different field. Being asked to write that plan for the privatisation of Northern Ireland Airports the day after project management training - which led to a 2-year, part-time engagement. Working for a year with the Highways Agency on their strategic plan for managing the C.￡90BN UK road network. Improving sales performance in a $1BN turnover business for a couple of years. These weren't the engagements I was particularly looking for - but they were the work that the great fish that swallowed me made sure I was delivered to. At first they all felt a bit outside my core knowledge - both in terms of sector and practice. But I had consulting skills, plus project management and change management, and, I think, the special perspective of knowledge that allows you to enter a new domain and put shape and interpretation on it quickly. We got the projects done successfully, but I didn't become an expert in airports or roads, nor a hotshot salesman. What I did do is really practice and improve my skills to new levels, and, by reflection and lessons learned, took back into my general business knowledge, and my work in KM, abstracted patterns and templates from these other domains that I found I could specialise and apply to new problems. So, whilst I do need a straight answer to 'exciting', it's worth passing on that you can really learn new things about the thing you want to get good at even by immersing yourself in something quite different - and the thing you weren't looking for can still be a great experience for acquiring new knowledge - - and might end up being amongst the first engagements you think about when you look back. So, for improving knowledge, skills, capability and performance, yes, sure it matters to practice and practice the thing you want to get good at: and it's also great for the consultant (and any employee), as well as convenient for resourcing managers, to be flexible and open to the unexpected 'other' where you will find and learn the unexpected, unsought-for, but valuable and memorable.
[Footnote: This was a #KMTOTD rather than a straight answer to the question, but, by way of an answer: I don't know if they're the most exciting of my projects ever, but: (1) AI-based fraud loss reduction and Barclaycard - it was thrilling to do the knowledge acquisition with their fraud investigators at the start and learn about detecting crime, and later to see the solution working and preventing losses. (2) Managing a 3-year, ￡3m marketing campaign that I designed and sold to the client - one of my earlier PM experiences and very successful - also thrilling to be trusted with it and to deserve that trust in the end. My desert island disc? Probably the second one. I was young and was affirming to get it right.]
Out of control
[Fri 12 Mar 2021] It suddenly occurred to me, as if from nowhere, one night as I worked on my diploma studies in internal communication a few years ago. It's all about control. It was that feeling you get when you suddenly, as if for the first time, feel you really 'get' and idea - and it's very exciting. Well, because it's hard to actually convey that feeling it's likely to sound trite and obvious when explained. And it wasn't the first time I'd encountered 'control' like this either. On reflection, it suddenly made sense for me of my disquiet about what was the prevailing orthodoxy in project management (the field I had very nearly decided to make my career about). What I'd often seen in project management was the sense that any divergence from the original plan was an aberration - a 'variance'. The plan was about control - and if you were not following it to the letter you were 'out of control'. I and my colleagues had a different approach which was that the plan was amongst the tools that the project manager had to deal with uncertainty in order to get the project done. And so it seemed in my studies in internal communication where I surveyed, interviewed and studied the literature. But in comms, as in projects, what really shone out everywhere was that, despite the general agreement that there was a set way of doing things, there was an equally strong experience that it never goes like that. So my feeling is - and the more I reflect on what I've seen in business life it just seems more and more like this - that there is a very strong, orthodox ethic around control. Being in control, self-control, controlling others and events, seeming in control. The thing is, though - and this is where we bridge to knowledge management as well - these kinds of endeavours take place in the real world where there are novelty, unforeseeable events, different points of view and competing demands. And I think I'd have to say that on a scale I'd put KM way out towards the 'uncontrollable' like the weather, and away from the finite and controllable such as a mechanical process. If we're judging ourselves against the standards of 'control' we're either likely to come up short or else dumb-down our KM to km until it is something small and controllable. But this doesn't make me despair of plans or planning (nor of KM!) - in fact I am an arch planner! Use the tools of project management and change management to control what is controllable and as your surfboard on the shifting waves beneath you - because we are on the waves, not on a path, critical or otherwise.
Plumber micro narrative
[Thu 11 Mar 2021] Our favourite plumber/gas engineer replaced the water main stopcock/tap inside our house. The old one was furred and wouldn't shut. When he showed me the new one in place he said "So turn it all the way on, and then turn it a little bit back again so there's some wriggle room in case it gets stuck or furred again otherwise it could get jammed open" I love that kind of real-world, experience-based knowledge. It's the kind of fortune-cookie-sized knowledge we could aim to add, incrementally, each time we handle, use, consider or pass on something. It should say that on a sticker or something on the tap. The other day we were talking about house painting and I said how I'd found it works better, with masking tape, to press down firmly on the edge that you care about being sharp and protected, but leave the opposite edge loose - for easy removal. It doesn't say that on the tape - but it should.
Lean wastes #4 – Transport
[Wed 10 Mar 2021] The 'Lean wastes' are factors that impair a process. Remove the wastes to improve the process. One of these wastes is Transport, which is when work is needlessly moved around from site to site - the transport itself is held to not add value. There are two aspects of this relevant to knowledge work - commuting to the workplace and travel for collaboration. As we've noted before, there are few instances where pure knowledge work requires plant or materials that are in a specific location you need to go to in order to do the work - which was the case in the industrial era - yet the habit and also I think moralistic ethic about travelling each day to the workplace (probably an office) persist and many people exhibit clear signs of guilt or ritual excuse when not doing so. This last year many have been forced to adopt 'remote' working patterns (resisted since the 1970s) and it is to be hoped that we will emerge with a more balanced and thoughtful approach to commuting vs working anywhere suitable. Steve (Dame Stephanie) Shirley, one of my heroes, was one of the very first to see the potential for 'telecommuting' and how in particular that could better accommodate female employment. It must now be clear that more flexible working arrangements, which don't cling to non-value-adding cult values such as 'the workplace' could give companies a tool to help attract a more diverse workforce, and possibly share in the savings as well. It will be interesting to see whether we have broken from this artefact of the past or whether that culture will re-assert itself. The second case is travel for collaboration and my feeling here has always been that 'going to the gemba' is important for relationships and tacit knowledge - but overall we should hope that there will not be a resurgence of needless business and air travel to the levels of before, with the waste and pollution that brings.
KM, L&D, Project delivery
[Tue 9 Mar 2021]
Plan for knowledge
[Mon 8 Mar 2021] Project based organisations struggle with KM, chiefly because the focus on optimisation in-the-now can be at odds with the longer-term and persistent effort to know better and perform better through better knowledge, which are KM goals. Projects are almost always under the triple pressure of deadlines, budgets and resource limitations. They face critical-to-customer must-dos - which is delivering the project - and critical-to-process must-dos - which is all the vital admin. It doesn't leave much space for KM. Of course, paradoxically, because projects are about doing something novel and one-off, rather than an established process, and because they are about combining many skills and disciplines to achieve an objective, it is in projects that the demand for knowledge, the application of knowledge, and the creation of new knowledge and learning are all at some of the highest levels. I reflect that it has been when I have had to do new things, in a project environment, that I have needed the most input of other knowledge, have applied my knowledge the most, and have learned the most. So how do we square this paradox of an environment that is both a knowledge hothouse and a hostile environment to KM at the same time? Well, we could suggest a lot of things: Have a good KM foundation running across and supporting all projects; prepare; embed KM. But the thought today is about planning for knowledge. Recognising the need and also the difficulties, at least include KM tasks in the project plan from the start. A plan for knowledge will include the research, the innovation, the collaboration, the knowledge sharing and learning tasks necessary both for the specific project and for the longer-term development of capability. And make sure those tasks are executed and that the time allowed isn't misused to cover overruns in other areas. A final thought - taking this further - is that some projects not only use and create knowledge - but are about knowledge. Of course, many projects are about some capital infrastructure. But many are actually really learning endeavours. Really, any kind of planning or strategy project, any kind of study or research project, and also any kind of project that is about providing a working service are either wholly or partly knowledge projects - and might be better thought of - and planned for - in terms of what is the knowledge they need to produce.
Lean wastes #3 – Delay
[Fri 5 Mar 2021] The 'Lean wastes', in Lean Thinking, are factors that impair a process. The idea is to remove the wastes to improve the process and one of these wastes is delay or waiting. In manufacturing, which is of course where Lean comes from, this is about when work is in a queue just waiting for its turn to be processed or for some component or assembly to be ready. When I've studied processes that involve organisational knowledge sharing and decision-making I've been surprised just how much total elapsed time in an end-to-end process is added due to waiting. In a sales process I looked at it could be weeks - and I'm not talking here about the person-hours' time the work took to do, but the time spent waiting for decisions, waiting for answers and information, and also waiting for resources to be assigned. There's also actual work time added as a result due to the need to chase, follow-up and re-do requests for input, decisions, information and resources. Just making this visible was staggering and eye-opening. There's a very great deal we could say on this subject, but the point of a #KMTOTD is just a starting thought. Of course, knowledge processes are a bit different to manufacturing, and often things need a bit of time to be thought over, but, the point of today's thought is this - oh yes - delay can be a big issue in organisational knowledge sharing and decision-making processes.
The KM vanity project
[Thu 4 Mar 2021] Ha ha! Sometimes it's something that happened that day that makes me write a #KMTOTD, ... and sometimes I put a bit of distance between the trigger and the thought! I promise this is the latter! In the long past, but repeatedly, I've come across instances of "the KM vanity project". It's when a sponsor wants to have a KM project of some kind - but it's quite clear that it's for them, and not for the users of the KM service, nor for a meaningful outcome. It's easy to get excited about a new senior sponsor suddenly taking interest in KM - and you probably do have to do something for them. If you're cunning and lucky you can engage their energy and influence into supporting something really meaningful. If you're unlucky it will only make them happy, have no lasting effect, and, I promise you, their interest in it will quickly wane as well once they've had the chance to show it off in glory. So what are the signs of a KM vanity project?
You may well be able to use these opportunities positively - but do recognise them for what they are.
Lessons learned and L&D
[Wed 3 Mar 2021] We thought before about how L&D is mostly focused on the skills of the individual and KM on the capability of the organisation - but that there's overlap and complementarity between them as well. And a great opportunity for gaining value from this could be in linking lessons learned to L&D. If we include in our 'end of the matter' lessons learned process the identification of learning elements to re-incorporate into programmed L&D then we have a good mechanism for helping to put those lessons into practice - because L&D will help deploy them. Questions in the final review that we might use for this include:
Create a need to create content
[Tue 2 Mar 2021] We recently (Wed 30 Sep 2020) thought about the "just in time, just in case" issue - how even busy people will find time to help when there's an urgent need, but experts seldom get around to sharing expertise when there isn't. You can use this knowledge to get the knowledge artefacts you want - the write-ups you want - created. The least effective way is to exhort people to write up and share their knowledge - because that relies on a 'just in case' motivation that we know is weak. Best is to embed yourself - as KM - in at the point of need, for example, where new business proposals are being written, because that is where there is a strong 'just in time' motivation to write things up - and harvest the new content there. What today's #KMTOTD is about is the middle path - creating a 'just in time' need to get written up the things you'd like to get written up. You can do this by getting the people and subjects you'd like to motivate signed up as speakers or presenters on a big company or community meeting. Even busy people will make the effort and find the time to make a good showing if they're on the bill to speak or present. So work with the organisers of those events and the people who put the agendas together to get those choice subjects and experts on the agenda - create a need for them to create the content.
Lean wastes #2 - Overprocessing
[Mon 1 Mar 2021] The 'Lean wastes' are part of Lean Thinking which has inspired many organisations' approaches to process improvement. The idea is to remove the wastes to improve the process and one of these wastes is overprocessing - which is doing more than you need to and providing a product or service that exceeds the required specification or need. This could mean using more or better materials then needed, or adding features not required, or spending more effort and time on a product or service than it requires. I instantly think of PowerPoint which I feel is (partly, to some degree) quite likely a tale of unintended consequences. 'Slides' used to be hard to produce when they really were A4 sheets of acetate that you wrote on or printed on in order to project them to an audience using a curious gadget called an overhead projector. I suspect many people under 30 would not readily be able to tell what such a gadget was, when presented with one. We had simple drawing tools and we didn't have the time to make many, nor the time or resources to re-do them: They had to be few, simple, and right first time when printed. Tools like PowerPoint made it far easier to produce nice slides with less effort, and yet, I'm confident that vastly more effort is wasted (because that is what I am suggesting it is) in producing PowerPoint slides than ever was in the acetate days - because the bar and the possibilities have both been raised. This is not a call to go back to the 'good old days'! It's a thought that maybe we should keep it simple and cut back overprocessing that adds no proportionate customer/consumer value and spend those savings in other ways that do add value.
Dasgupta Review - because everyone needs to know
[Fri 26 Feb 2021] Everyone needs to know about The Dasgupta review on the economics of biodiversity. This is a major piece of work that clearly lays out the fundamental failure in economics to account for the loss of value experienced due to the degradation of nature on planet earth during the carbon consumption era. Whilst we few in the developed, 'first' world have experienced growing living standards, this has been at a huge cost in the immense loss of natural capital - value in the natural world - where the loss of species, landscapes, habitats and the resultant emergence of global warming, pandemics and other ills threaten all life on earth. And also at the expense of the many who have seen the places where they live and the lives they lead bitterly impacted. As I often say, it's not really a case of a cry to "save the planet" - the planet will get along just fine without us - but it will be a silent planet without intelligence and without knowledge once life is gone. Dasgupta traces this failure to the omission in economics to account for the value we have lost - disregarded as 'externalities'. And this reminded me of something else: Intellectual capital. In the 1990s the concept of accounting for intangible asset value, including intellectual capital, seemed to be a real prospect and seemed to hold the possibility of capturing a more representative 'balance sheet' for where value and value-creating potential really sat in knowledge economy businesses. Dasgupta goes beyond this and shows how we need a fully more comprehensive view of the value of the whole planetary ecosystem that we not only depend on but of which we are also a part. Everyone needs to know this. This is the vital future knowledge. If life and intelligence survive our species may yet travel infinitely between the stars. Who knows what they will learn when they do? Our own individual deaths are a certainty - the end of history itself is not a certainty yet. What we do this decade may be conclusive.
How do you get everyone to take a role in KM?
[Thu 25 Feb 2021] There are probably three reasons you want to get everyone in the organisation to take a KM role. First, there's a lot of work to do and it's unlikely you'll have the full manpower you need for it - so you've got to get other people to do some. Second, you can only really fully embed KM once everyone is doing their part and has internalised and actualised it. And third, well, knowledge itself is distributed and so KM cannot be all centralised - so you need different people to take care of the different knowledge they have - and possibly in different ways. But how do you do that?
I do believe it might help to try all the formal approaches as part of this: Adding it to job role descriptions, adding it to processes, performance measures, review and reporting, and so on. But don't rely on that approach alone - or even primarily. We want our KM to be self-sustaining, so you need to tap into people's natural passions, abilities, situations and motivations. Listen to what they are interested in doing and try to fit that into your plan (or re-cut your plan with a place for them and their passion); try to get recognition for what they are doing on their behalf; speak well of them and what they are doing; ask them before telling them. Things like that. And then thirdly work on the system that either encourage or discourages these people to step forward and take these roles. For instance, if there is a recognition scheme but its terms would never allow such efforts to qualify, then work with the scheme to change that. The directly formal, the personal/cultural, and the society/system.
Need to know, need to share
[Wed 24 Feb 2021] "Need to know" is an accepted governance principle in organisations. The underlying thought is that the least risk, and probably most value, are to be obtained by restricting access. This principle of exclusivity runs through much of the apparatus of competition: IP, copyright, patents and so on. I'm not going to say these ideas are wrong: having the means to protect the future value and income stream are amongst the things that make innovation possible - so they're no less important to KM than the reverse: openness, inclusivity and "need to share" - all of which we, in KM, more readily embrace. It might help to consider which point of view we start from, try to see things from the opposite side and then negotiate the "win-win" solutions that preserve as much as we can of what we value about each.
Lean wastes #1 - inventory
[Tues 23 Feb 2021] The 'Lean wastes' are part of Lean Thinking which stems from the Toyota Production System and has been copied or has inspired many organisations' approaches to process improvement. One part of the thinking is to remove 'waste' from the production process in order to best serve the customer need and make a more rewarding working environment for the people in the production process. What new ideas do the seven classic wastes give us for KM - or what would it mean to review a knowledge process through a lean lens? Let's take 'inventory', one of the 'wastes', for example. This refers to the waste of capital in having lots of supplies and part and partially completed work in various buffers and states in the process. It takes up space and money, is the actual manifestation that the process isn't running smoothly to address customer demand ("pull"), and risks being spoilt the longer it sits around. The obvious analogy in KM is knowledge content products such as documents that aren't being used. Old, out-of-date, documents; different versions or copies of the same document are all excess 'inventory' consuming attention and resources. But more subtlely, any kind of KM work waiting to be started or carried on is wasted inventory as well. Accumulating knowledge - for instance papers - that are not being used nor are ever going to be used is storing up excess inventory. Now, it's good to remember that Lean is firmly on the 'exploit' side of the 'explore/exploit' continuum, and so emphasises efficiency - and there may well be a place for knowledge 'inventory' that is there for innovation. But if it isn't used for that - it really is waste.
Famous for something
[Mon 22 Feb 2021] Marketing wisdom has it that a business needs to be "famous for something" in order to differentiate itself and stand out competitively. I studied marketing planning as a knowledge domain in some depth with Professor Malcolm McDonald and I remember him describing moving into a new market with a new product as moving into the "wally box". It's why there is so much focus in sales on whether an opportunity with a new client is a single deal or a real new stream of future work. Many companies "chase deals" rather than mine rich seams where they are the natural winners - which I know from my time in sales operations. You need to speculate a bit, and have a balanced portfolio, but in the main be strategic. But there are often different points of view about what a company's real strategic strengths are. And I think this is an area where KM can really help, esp. in the most advanced "optimising" stage of KM maturity when the basics are in place. KM can see the actual evidence of where does the organisation have stand-out capability: Where does it have real solution, customer and market experience? Where does it have real insight in the form of models and data? Where does it have actual experts? Where is it developing new knowledge rapidly? It's the not whole story because there are other elements to these strategic choices such as market attractiveness, but there is a role for KM in being able to look at the whole of the organisation's knowledge in order to say where it really is strong and where not so much.
No shortcut from zero to hero
[Fri 19 Feb 2021] There are still organisations coming to KM for the first time and some of those - just as there have always been some - want to leap from 'zero to hero' in one go. The theory seems to be that, if we know what the solution is now, can't we just implement it? Well, putting aside for now a discussion about their merits or demerits, these days we do have the KM ISO standard and schemes like Chartered Knowledge Manager, which we didn't 20 years ago - and of course we have a lot more experience. So we know the answer, right? My own personal view is, no, you do need to go through the learning, and that will take a little time, but it's a benefit, not a penalty. We may well be able to move faster through the stages than before, but there are important change management processes and customisation of the basic ideas to the culture and situation of the specific organisation to be addressed - and this learning journey is part of what will make it all work.
I was working with Deloitte when the firm introduced a quality management system, all in one go, across all services. That's supposed to really not be how to do it - the wisdom being you do it in stages - but it was very well done, very well supported and kept simple and effective. I thought it was a model of an internal project done well. I don't take anything away from saying it was done well when I say it's equally true that the bedding-in, adoption and cultural/behavioural change and commitment to the new system took longer (and was probably still going on when I left the firm). And that part would be a necessary catch-up, I think, before that system could be taken even further to a higher level of maturity. That organisational learning needed to be done. And so it is with KM - but the learning is a positive thing, not a drawback, just as in the Deloitte quality management system story.
The other bit of good news (aside from the fact that the learning journey is a good thing - not a bad thing) is that KM isn't a project you have to implement all of before it provides benefit - like a bridge that has to all be built before the first car can drive across the river - KM is a journey that will deliver benefit all along the way, in each stage of maturity.
Community -> holocracy
[Thu 18 Feb 2021] I remember hearing étienne Wenger speak about communities of practice in organisations a couple of times when we met at Henley many years ago. A phrase of his I really liked was "the multi-membership organisation". What I took from it was the idea that, as well as being part of a vertical hierarchy or matrix structure, people in organisations with communities of practice were also members of one or more of those, as well as task forces, project teams and the various committees that large organisations tend to set up for different themes (employee consultation, works councils, D&I etc.). In effect, any person could have a unique mix of 'memberships' and roles in these various structures. Wenger was suggesting, I think, this was an evolution beyond the hierarchy-matrix organisational structure progression. I'd say we often set up communities to 'fix' groupings that have value but that don't fit the hierarchical or matrix structures, and that these tend to be around knowledge subjects of common interest to these different verticals or horizontals. At one time holocracy, where the dominant organisational form is this ecosystem of many self-organising teams, was considered a far-out idea. But it has stuck around. I wonder if we can in fact see the movement towards communities of practice as being a transitional step towards holocracy - in which communities are no longer 'fixing what's missing' in organisational structure - but are the structure.
Tony Buzan, 2001
[Wed 17 Feb 2021] From the same old papers (2001) as yesterday, extracted from my notes on a session by Tony Buzan:
" ...Buzan then went on to speak about corporate habits and how ‘knowledge unfriendly’ they are. For example:
"Buzan’s big challenge to us seems to be: If you really believe that knowledge is important then you must work in a knowledge-friendly way – which means changing your personal and corporate habits and working in a way that respects the natural strengths of the mind."
Knowledge Deficit
[Tues 16 Feb 2021] Going through some old papers (2001) I find a note about a Datamonitor report at the time estimating the cost of the 'knowledge deficit' (lack of or deficiency in KM) to be $3k per employee. Well, it begs more questions than it answers - which is good! I do a quick search and the first relevant result I find is this one from 2018 which suggests that better KM could save companies $2,400 per head. Of course, without context these figures are not much use - and a deficit may not be the same thing as an amount you 'could save' (rough wisdom would suggest that the potential savings against a deficit are probably only about half the deficit). But it is a thought: what is the value of whatever's lacking; what proportion of that could you get back and at what cost? I can recall many discussions with KM clients and with personnel in the organisations I've worked in in which others readily suggested figures much higher than these - without the data, but based on their 'feel'. I recall triangulating data from several different sources - probably around the same time as the Datamonitor report - that gave me some confidence that, in an "unimproved organisation", the value of improving basic KM was 4%-5% of turnover. I don't think such figures should be surprising given just how much time and effort is devoted to information, messaging, collaboration and so on. When I worked for Unisys and it was turning over roughly $8bn did I believe that KM could be worth $400m (something more like $10k per head)? Certainly. All of these potential and actual losses and gains are, of course, on the 'exploit' side by which I mean they're about addressing gaps in the efficiency of present knowledge: lessons not learned, best practices not replicated and the attendant re-work, delay and waste. The innovation gains on the 'explore' side are likely ten times greater to infinite.
Green KM
[Mon 15 Feb 2021] One of the pleasures of writing #KMTOTD, which is a blog-like thing, is the informality of it. So today I'm indulging some early and not-very-tested ideas about 'Green KM' which is imagining what form KM would and should take in a more 'Green' organisation. Last Friday's #KMTOTD, just below here, provides a bit of background.
When it comes to its culture and its approach to KM in particular, the Green organisation builds on its foundation of being good at the formal stuff and good at achieving an impact to also care very much about the needs of people and nature globally:
Just as in the agile manifesto, it's not so much that the older, right-hand-side matters are not valued, it's that they are not so highly valued as the newer, left-hand-side ones. The Green includes the former achieving orange and formal blue capabilities ... and has transcended them to move to it's new. higher level.
It's a blue world
[Fri 12 Feb 2021] One of the influences on my thinking about organisational culture is the Integral Theory of Ken Wilber (it and its application to KM are explained in this reference - but you can easily read on without reading that). I think an organisation's culture will completely colour the way it approaches KM - but you may not be able to tell the difference because of the dominance of the orthodox business culture giving rise to a single, dominant, orthodox kind of KM.
Part of Integral Theory is its developmental levels, of which the relevant ones are:
I'd say the majority of larger organisations fall into the formal-achieving part of the spectrum right now, and I think I’d say most are more towards the formal end as well - which in Integral shorthand is 'blue'. It's a blue world that values being formal above achieving and way above what's good for people - I mean if you judge by deeds rather than by words - it's easy to claim to be driven by this or that value but look at the actual behaviour and mostly you'll see an obsession with rules and roles and process and everything formality-wise. That's not even to say that organisations are generally good at that stuff, either! You can be formal without being good at being formal.
What organisations think knowledge is, is for, and what KM should be concerned about are coloured by their culture. How would KM be different in an organisation properly more aligned with achieving an outcome, having an impact? How would it be in a green co.?
One example of the orange achievers might be the major investment banks, or a leading Formula 1 team. True they have to be very good at the formal stuff like process and you might mistake that formal skill for a formal culture - but they have transcended that with a higher focus on winning. A Formula 1 team might make hundreds of changes between Grand Prixs that involve everyone from the driver to the kitchen cleaner. That's rapid and purposeful learning from experience. An investment bank has to be excellent at the formal stuff such as compliance, but their real focus is on the knowledge that makes a difference to their financial performance.
We'll think about 'Green KM' next week.
Learn a new search skill
[Thu 11 Feb 2021] I wrote before about my slight frustration about web users' (i.e. all of us) reliance on search, frequent disappointment with the results, yet failure to learn and practice new search skills (many searches are just one word with no use of any kind of advanced search). It's understandable human behaviour, to be fair. Well, today, a more positive return to the same subject: Why not learn a new search skill or technique today, in our lunch hours? Something we can start to use right away that will help us get more satisfying search results, and also re-kindle that 'growth mindset' and the confidence to go on learning and improving? To get us started, two simple sources of information about better search:
1. Google's own guide on how to search on Google (but there are skills you can use elsewhere here as well) - esp. see the expert tips at the bottom.
2. A Microsoft guide to search (they have lots of other pages and resources on searching in their various products - Google them.)
Neither of these is the whole story - but our aim first of all is only to learn one new technique we can start to use.
LISA tensions
[Wed 10 Feb 2021] I often summarise the key areas of KM as Learning from experience, Innovation, knowledge Sharing and Applying best practice (LISA). There's clearly a tension between some of these:
There's broadly speaking a tension between, on the one hand, Exploiting the knowledge you already have and, on the other hand learning or creating new or improved knowledge. I like that. It's a thought to consider what shape your KM activities would look like, mapped over this territory. Mine might be a bit like this (first quick go):
Broader imagination
[Tue 9 Feb 2021] A number of years ago I did some research with some colleagues at Henley which, when we presented it at conference we did an interesting exercise. We first asked the group of 50 or so managers to list the KM solutions they were familiar with. We then outlined the research and repeated the exercise. Now, the research was about looking at different perspectives that could be relevant to KM: the individual's personal motivations, the group's culture, the individual's behaviours, the group's 'society'. Here's the interesting part that we predicted and that did indeed occur: Before we outlined the research the solutions cited by the audience were overwhelmingly IT-based - that is, they fell within a sub-area of what I have termed 'society' meaning the "external/collective" perspective. There's a lot more in 'society' than IT - for instance there are policies and processes - and 'society itself was just one of four main perspectives our research looked at. After we presented the model and asked again the managers came up with many more different solutions from the other three perspectives: the individual's interior thoughts and external behaviours, the shared culture of the group. It's not conclusive nor scientific, but an additional piece of evidence to suggest that if we widen our perspectives we can imagine more different kinds of KM interventions. Don't be restricted by an IT telescope.
Discover communities in the orthogonal
[Mon 8 Feb 2021] I wonder really whether it might be one of the key roles of KM in large organisations to organise or support the knowledge sharing in the orthogonal direction to the main organising principle. Putting aside the discussion about hierarchies, matrices and holocracies, there is usually one 'prime' organising principle in major organisations at any one time. It might be regional, it might be product line, it might be market sector - and other principles are possible as well. Major organisations have the habit of changing what it is every so often as well (which is usually a big pain for the staff and a costly change to make). So what was maybe regionally organised suddenly switches to global service lines, for instance. I've lived this a few times! Of course KM will have a role in supporting the prime vertical structure - but that will be aligned to people's main work focus so is bound to fall clearly within people's main activities. And of course KM has a role in supporting the key knowledge that will be persistent however the organisation is shaped unless or until the actual business changes in a fundamental way. I just wonder if we, as the KM movement, have not clearly grasped and not clearly articulated that one of our key functional roles is to organise the cross-cutting, horizontal knowledge sharing, orthogonal to whatever is the prime vertical organising principle of the time? We've talked about cross-cutting communities, of course. I'm not so sure we've firmly anchored KM with this one clear, legitimate purpose that is needed in all large organisations - and KM needs some firm anchors lest it be seen as optional.
Managing user/stakeholder demand
[Fri 5 Feb 2021] Short #KMTOTD on a big topic. Stakeholder management matters to anyone delivering projects or services. I truly believe it's esp. keenly needed in KM for the following reasons (and I know many KM leaders feel the same): KM is such an 'elastic' term and what people might expect from KM is very broad and seemingly limitless; users and stakeholder are free with their imagination when it comes to KM whereas with more formally established functions they tend to expect things to be carried out in conventional ways; they've seen Minority Report; they have little idea how much work is needed to produce something that is, in the end, so simple to use (like the Google home page); KM teams and budgets tend to be small in comparison to other functions - and already covering lots of stuff. So, when the user asks "could KM do x?" - be careful which question you're giving which answer to:
If your 'yes' was a #1 yes - be sure they don't take it as a #3 yes. You gotta be clear.
Blogathon
[Thu 4 Feb 2021] In a previous organisation, four or five times - roughly twice a year - I set myself and my team the challenge to blog once a day, every day for a month on one KM topic. These were our 'blogathons". I was happy that if I had a list of ten or so subjects to blog on to start with, then the other ten or so needed (working week days only!) would emerge during the month. So we did one on search (something like "Search Sensei September") and one on knowledge sharing and so on - that sort of level. It really isn't hard to write twenty short pieces, one a day, sort of length of these #KMTOTD, on a topic like search. Think about it - scopes, refiners, booleans, people search ... so on. We made sure these were really actionable things as far as possible (although I'm sure I allowed myself a rant about why intranet search isn't like google [an utter must-read, BTW]). The focus for one month on one topic always gained a bit of attention; elicited feedback and engagement ("What on earth have you still got to say about search next week, Rob?"), some ideas from the audience that we featured, and left the legacy of a collection of short, informative 'how to' articles on the intranet blog, that we might not otherwise have written, all linked by the topic tag (e.g. 'Search'). I think there was also the magic of 'make a promise, keep a promise' - the fact that we said on the first of the month that we'd blog every day about topic x meant that we actually did follow through. It's that psychology. And the more you jot down your ideas the more ideas you have. Also, doing it in a blog excuses all the need for polished writing and presentation - you can do it quick and that's OK. One tip: Usually I published in the morning the blog I wrote the day before - which left me warm to draft the next day's one. It takes around ten minutes if you're quick. If Eddie Izzard can run a marathon and do a show every day for a month - you can do a blogathon.
KM GOSPEL
[Wed 3 Feb 2021] Two thoughts in one #KMTOTD today. I have put GOSPA down on record as one of the best things I ever learned at work. GOSPA - standing for Goals, Objectives, Strategy, Plan, Actions - was a strategic project planning approach that I had the opportunity to put into action straight back from the training - always the best way*. So thought #1 today is, in KM, we must use models, methods, tools and techniques from elsewhere in order to 'do KM' otherwise there isn't enough of all the knowledge we need in order to do this available to us in whatever 'KM' is. So, for one thing we need project management and I have applied GOSPA every time I started a project in all the years since I learned it. But thought #2 today is ... I have evolved GOSPA into GOSPEL. The meaning of the 'GOSP' part has deepened and evolved, which is invisible, whereas the obviously-new 'EL' is Execution and Learning: Adding learning was an important addition for the sake of KM - and also an example of embedding KM into PM - and ... is itself my learning from experience of applying an approach, repeatedly over time, and evolving the method and the practice.
* That was thought #3. 3 in 1.
Using email as a content repository
[Tue 2 Feb 2021] There are some good reasons not to use email as a content repository, chief among which is that it's a personal store, rather than a shared or company one. Chances are, nobody else can get to content hidden in someone's email, and it could all be lost if their account is wiped when they leave. So, most of all, get content out of email and into a suitable shared store for collaboration. Even so, as a personal store, sophisticated email apps like Outlook provide a heap of ways for retrieving items that are often overlooked. Consider these - some might even translate effectively into when you use shared mailboxes to create a shared repository:
[Left and centre are the options when searching from the top. Search folders is in the left hand side navigation, lower down.]
Six kinds of content tagging
[Mon 1 Feb 2021] 1. First there's the tagging the content originator might add to their content when they upload it. They know the content the best, but some are tempted to 'land-grab' as many tags as they can tenuously claim in order to attract clicks and downloads - but that will just result in more, more disappointed users.
2. Then there's the content tagging done by subject matter experts. They're in the best position to judge the relevance, quality and 'fit' of content within their fields.
3. Cybrarians are the ones who best know the tagging schema, so will be the most disciplined in applying it.
4. End user tagging is good for getting the really user-centric judgement on the applicability of content.
5. Maybe AI will soon be able to do it all - not just leverage human-originated tagging, and then we may have...
6. None at all that is any different to the cataloguing, indexing and filing of the content - and so browsing and search are unified at last.
Knowledge retention when colleagues leave
[Fri 29 Jan 2021] ... there are approaches for 'knowledge continuity' such as handover that you can use. But better by far we seek to make the new knowledge we learn and the new knowledge we create part of our shared capability, culture and practice each day as we go along, rather than a scramble to do this when people leave.
KM employee proposition #2
[Thu 28 Jan 2021] #KMTOTD considered the KM employee proposition a few days ago: – "Lend us your skills and effort, and we will grow your knowledge and experience like nowhere else." There's a second string to the KM employee proposition which is the offer that "you’ll be more successful here because we have good KM". Whereas the first one is about building personal competency, this second one is about delivering personal results. It's the proposition that your knowledge capabilities and assets and, above all, knowledge services, resources and culture make it more likely people will succeed with you than in other environments.
Personal vs shared filing
[Wed 27 Jan 2021] Sometimes when we collaborate, we may need to give up some personal preferences for the sake of an effective collaboration - and one instance of this is personal vs. shared filing. Actually it's much more than filing - it's about the different ways we individually conceptualise of matters - but filing is one hard-edged place that we're going to see this manifest. I find that as part of my learning I just have to reformulate whatever I've been told in one way, into a different format and structure that better suits my thinking. The tools that best help me do this are mind mapping tools because I can put all my notes into them and them group and structure the notes into a format that better suits how I see things. For instance I have a couple of huge mind maps based on three weeks of Lean Six Sigma training which are what I would refer to - rather than to the three big lever arch files of notes I was given. But today's #KMTOTD isn't about that but about collaboration and the point of all that was - we humans obviously have different preferences to each other about how we organise knowledge. One reason I think people love their Windows Files and Folders on their PC is that they can organise it however they like. We can each remember our own mental map of what is where. It only has to suit us ourselves. This translates a bit to small teams of people who work closely together and share, say, a Windows File Share on a network - - although I've witnessed and listened in to may an office conversation between such teams trying to help each other find stuff and negotiating the structure between them. One does everything by file type, another by date, another by geography and another by project. Once the teams get bigger, work less closely together, or are separated by time (I mean someone else will need to pick up what's been left for the first time at a later date) then it becomes important to have more explicit, shared ways of doing things, and this means giving up some personal preferences. KMers can help in at least two ways I can see: 1) Make people aware of the psychology of this so they can confront it properly; 2) help them make a sensible shared file plan, guided by standards and their work needs and using more appropriate technology in a better way.
Chinese whispers
[Tue 26 Jan 2021] When any kind of knowledge content is shared for re-use by others, there's a risk of the story gradually changing each time it's repurposed until, one day, the story is no longer true. People's career histories (CVs) sometimes have to be recounted when recommending a team to a client. Past project successes are showed off. Data might be summarised or cut in different ways to make a point. With no ill intent, little by little the new version can deviate away from the source. Then, picking up the most recent version and treating as an original source opens the likelihood that the next little change may just go over the edge of reality into fiction. Some strategies: Whilst more recent versions of the item might be the more useful ones to you - for example the language, presentation or branding are more up-to-date, still try to truth-check them against the original source. With CVs, ask the person to check that the way their particular skills are being highlighted is still valid. Keep and check the 'metadata' and 'collateral data' alongside the item - the version history and changes, and other documents and notes made about the item, ...so on. We have to keep the content honest.
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The change in the coffee-shop counter bowl
[Mon 25 Jan 2021] Knowledge managers are very keen that projects should conduct lessons learned and knowledge harvesting exercises so that what they have discovered is put back into the organisation to benefit future projects. Some of the hard things about this include that it depends on altruism and delayed gratification: the payoff is for someone else and just who, when or where that will be you maybe can't see. This all makes it less urgent and a sort of 'just in case' exercise. And typically projects will look to do this exercise - if they do at all - at the end. And the problem with that is that the end of the project is often a tight time. There may be overruns and the time and budget allowed for the contracted work are running short. Resources may have already been deployed to start their next projects so they're all under pressure. So right at this time along comes the KM suggesting a lessons learned activity. It's not always this bad but it often is. Your 'just in case' task is going to be the easiest cut to make when everyone's under pressure. One strategy - and this is just one - is to think of this as a very small task that, minimally at least, is more like leaving your coffee change in the bowl on the shop counter for anyone who comes along and needs it (the next project). Your whole project is a ￡20 note*, and all we're asking is the couple of dirty pennies change you got* from your coffee as a kindness to someone you will never know, at a cost you won't feel. So if we have a small minimum requirement, seen as an act of kindness, maybe we have a chance.
* when there used to be coins ... and notes.
Knowledge platform fragmentation
[Thu 21 Jan 2021] A specialised version of yesterday's #KMTOTD - this time about fragmentation across different KM (content and collaboration) IT platforms.
Everyone has their favourite and some are indeed better for some users and uses than others. Hipchat, Slack, WhatsApp, Teams, Zoom, Wrike, Evernote, SharePoint ... there's a long list. I acknowledge that some people genuinely do prefer one over others. I also acknowledge that some really are 'better' in some sense or other for different users and users. However. However, I've rarely found the difference to be so salient as to over-ride the far more compelling benefits of being together on one platform where you can share as one community.
Sometimes I've been with a group of people who've chosen to eat in a restaurant with a cuisine I wasn't really keen on, when there's one I really do like just across the road. Is it better I go eat alone or with maybe one other person who also prefers my choice, or better we all stick together as one group? Which is the better evening out?
Knowledge fragmentation
[Wed 20 Jan 2021] A tale of how knowledge fragmentation can occur ... and what this means. There are many different reasons for different people wanting to know different things about the same subject. For example, colleagues' knowledge, skills and experience: the HR dept. might want to know what the shape of the workforce's skills are for, say, workforce planning (and other reasons); Operations wants to know for project resourcing; L&D wants to know for training and development planning; Sales wants to know for bidding (recommending people for work); and all colleagues want to know about their co-workers skills so they can find the right person to advise or help them. This isn't all of it, but enough to be getting on with. So there are strong drivers to want to be able to know what knowledge, skills and experience people in the workforce have.
However. It turns out that that what they may want to know about this, how they might want to term it, group it and slice it, differs. People care very much, I have found, about having their skills reflected properly. Not just that they're a programmer, but a Python programmer (and it get far, far more fine grain than that). Resourcing just wants to know if they're a programmer. L&D may want to know exactly what level they're at. Sales wants to know if they have a recognised certificate. And so on. One groups wants to lump them as 'IT', another as 'Programmers' and they see themselves as 'Engineers'. The fact is that the same thing may well, for very good reasons, have to be categorised, grouped or labelled as different things for different needs and situations.
This isn't limited to skills information, either. This is ubiquitous. For example the different information that different departments and people want to record about contacts for different purposes. It becomes a problem when we don't know what we call things that we get not only different copies but different versions of the truth - and different versions that might not reference one another. A wrong term fails to trigger an alert that the correct one might have; search fails to find expertise hidden under an unexpected label; people are doing double work. Ultimately, and in real life, two teams from the same provider turn up to pitch the same work to the same customer, unaware of each other [The customer, having a sense of humour, wants to see if they both propose the same thing!].
My favoured way forward is always to seek the superset of use cases and find one meta-framework for all, in which the roles of different owners and users become complementary. Either that or at least identify each version to the others and manage the interfaces and boundaries. I think this integration of knowledge and combatting fragmentation (duplication etc) is a useful role a KM can play in an organisation. Usually, each party can benefit from the others' work and there can be a synergy, where there could have been waste.
KM employee proposition
[Tue 19 Jan 2021] KM should be a big part of an organisation's employee proposition. In order to attract and retain employees companies offer things like brand affiliation, status, a culture, career development, different work patterns and benefits and other things aside from pay alone in their bid to be an 'employer of choice'. An organisation's KM employee proposition could be along the lines of: a learning organisation, innovation and supportive communities: "Lend us your skills and effort, and we will grow your knowledge and experience like nowhere else."
Knowledge is a component of capability
[Mon 18 Jan 2021] An organisation's knowledge is a component of its capability. An organisation's capability is the sum of its co-ordinated hard, firm and soft abilities. Hard abilities such as its facilities and tools; soft abilities such as its people's skills and firm abilities such as processes and, yes, knowledge. Maybe looking at KM as an aspect of capability management helps show us some new possibilities.
Knowledge in The News
[Fri 15 Jan 2021] Most days, The News is a rich source for a #KMTOTD. One big story today is Wikipedia's 20th birthday (happy birthday). What would we want to replicate from Wikipedia and what would be difficult to replicate? I'd like to replicate their success in crowdsourcing knowledge and also the design/community process that manages that almost on auto-pilot. However that might be difficult because one other thing Wikipedia reminds us is what a tiny proportion of its vast global user base ever edits or contributes an article. In most company environments the equivalent would be a very small number of people indeed expected to document the company knowledge. Of course, it's not a like-for-like, but it's a thought, which is all #KMTOTD promises.
Furthermore ... Encarta might also give one pause for thought. As might the curious case of Ronnie Hazlehurst.
Broad and shallow or deep and narrow?
[Thu 14 Jan 2021] How should we prioritise the different kinds of needs there are for KM in an organisation? Should we go 'broad and shallow' and address generic processes and content - such as generic IT needs and standard content? Or should we focus efforts of specific programmes, subjects and organisational problems and opportunities and go 'deep and narrow' to really fix them and bring out the value? I feel many organisational KM programmes provide a 'broad and shallow' service, and specific functions and users want a 'deep and narrow' solution to their issue. It has to be a balance - maybe start by dividing your focus 50:50 between the two. In the end each will complement the other. The broad solutions and services will provide vital support and enablement to the deeper initiatives; which in turn will be where the valuable content and innovations are more likely to originate from, fresh for broader deployment and replication elsewhere.
Community of practice purpose
[Wed 13 Jan 2021] I want to first say that communities of practice don't have to start in a planned or engineered way - - just to avoid the interpretation that I might be saying that. Often they'll start organically, usually 'middle-out' with some loose plan agreed by the founders, and, yes, sometimes in a planned way. By whichever path you come to it, likely you'll come to the question of "what is the community for?" at some point - if not via a planned design then likely via a disagreement exposing the question. Part of the answer to "what" is it for is contained in "who" is it for, and, at least in an organic, spontaneous community, the who will be self-defining. The who get to say the what is my main point. Communities of practice are groups of people in a business or professional (etc.) environment who come together to share and develop their subject expertise and skills. It turns out that, whereas the otherwise default might be to start from what the business wants from the community, it's equally - if not more - important to look at what the members want alongside that - and to forge from that an agenda that best supports both sets of needs in an aligned way, and is a realistic set of aims for a community to undertake.
Always link to a person or role
[Tue 12 Jan 2021] Many people talk about things like "ensuring [we] capture all the knowledge ..." and the like; and many times the demand-pull of knowledge is looking for some kind of recorded (or 'captured') information - usually a document of some kind (for example people looking for reading recommendations - books - as their gateway into a new subject).
It's a simple fact that we wont ever "capture all the knowledge" into documents even if we wanted to. Knowledge sharing is a conversation in which each party learns more about what the others know or want to know and the path and focus of the conversation, and the depth of explanation, adapt according to need and interest. So always maintain a link to a person (or to a persistent role, given that people are mortal and role holders change) in any kind of documented or listed knowledge, because we can only have that conversation, elicit and exchange what we truly need to, if we can reach the right person. That link to a person or role might be a name, a title, a contact or a hyperlink. It may be organiser, the author, the editor, the librarian, the subject matter expert, the project manager ... it can be different in different contexts - the important thing is to make it possible to have a conversation with a person to properly share knowledge beyond what is captured and shared in documents alone.
Learning the lessons of Covid-19
[Fri 8 Jan 2021] The covid emergency isn't over - but we don't need to wait for something to be over and done with to learn the lessons from it and in fact in any long-running matter we should review and reflect after major stages or events and also regularly on a periodic basis. For individuals and teams/sub-teams the cycle can be as tight as several times a day, but more formally it's going to be over longer timescales and event-driven.
Covid-19's a case we all know quite a lot about and have our own views and experiences of so it's a good example to use to think about lessons learned and learning from experience in general.
The main thought I have and the main point I always want to make is that learning the lessons means making a change in our capability or performance. The lessons themselves are in the intellectual, reflective 'thinking world'. There's no actual learning unless we move to the action-oriented 'doing world'.
Covid-19 clearly illustrates a number of KM points. Just one I'll pick here is how strongly this demonstrates, once again if we needed it, that learning and innovation happen in the 'doing world'. For me this is an important point because KM always risks being a purely reflective and backroom functional endeavour rather than a front line action-learning one - which is where I think it belongs. We had to learn by doing and we've clearly seen governments, health authorities, the pharma industry, companies, schools and families (etc) having to innovate massively and on-the-fly in response to the emergency. But this was a 'learning in performance' and the point of lessons learned/learning from experience, is, I think, to learn from performance and put those learnings back into strengthening competence and capability so that next time we start our performance at a higher level than before.
The lessons and the required learnings from Covid-19 are too numerous to ever list. Rather than that I think it matters that the process is executed in a more distributed way by all groups in their own spheres. But just a couple of obvious key ones include:
The lesson about being prepared with enough personal protective equipment (PPE) in readiness for situations like this that had been identified as a hi-impact, hi-likelihood risk on a global level, and that will re-occur. This was a key failure. The required learning is not just to note that lesson but to actually do something about stocks, lines of supply, quality assurance (remember that gaff) and distribution in readiness. And we should think more broadly about what other, similar needs we should pay the same attention to.
The lesson about accelerating the drug development and approval process. This has been a key success. The required learning is to look to see whether and how we can accelerate the process in normal times as well. Maybe we can't - people cannot sprint all the time - but maybe we can, maybe there are wastes in the current process that we have found can be dealt with, e.g. by concurrent engineering, as seems to have happened.
There will be lessons to learn on a grand scale. I want to pick just one more that fascinates me which is we have the lesson that society in general expects a clear, orderly and linear approach, even when the situation is complex and emergent. The cult values of 'clarity' and 'control' run deep and this is a problem when governments and authorities are constantly accused of not having clear and simple plans - when in fact the situation is massively fluid. This isn't to say there haven't been failings as a matter of fact - there have been (and mostly we need not to blame people for these if we are to learn). But my point is that we have seen demonstrated the unreadiness of the populus to deal with ambiguous and unknown situations. Provisionally, what can we learn (by which, remember, I mean "change in our capability and performance") to deal with this? Probably a lot to be said on this but I'll only mention communications. I'd suggest we would make it a clear theme of communications in future similar situations that the picture is emergent and responses may take different directions - that rather than make pledges on numbers and targets and dates which inevitably are outwith our control. The media can learn here as well, by not following their script that authorities should always have a clear plan and be in control. The big media organisations are full of hyper-clever people who understand life isn't like that - but still need to change their behaviour accordingly as well.
Too busy for knowledge
[Thu 7th Jan 2021] Some days I miss doing a #KMTOTD. Whilst it's a good discipline for me to try to do one a day (well, I think so) I'm also resolved not to stress about it. I love that paradox: be disciplined but let it go if you want. So my last minute thought is the same as just before Christmas but it's a big enough issue to think about every day. We need to make time for knowledge work, because, otherwise, we'll always be too busy with the 'priorities'.
I have, on numerous occasions, encouraged colleagues to prioritise things that are low priority (I told you I like paradox). The prime example is training. Health is another. Family too. These are things that can easily go 'by the way' if not prioritised. Some days really are deadline days and you have to focus. Most days aren't, so, paradoxically, if you ever want to do those things that are unlikely to be anyone's priority, just make them a priority on a non-deadline day. KM falls into that space. It does work. The KM won't take long out of your day, but you'll have done it, still have 80-90% of your day left for the 'priority' thing and all will be well. If you'd just started with the real priority there would never have been that 10-20% of the day left at the end of KM. Yeah, to magically create time for lower priority things, sometimes put them ahead of higher priorities and you wont notice a bad effect on the priorities, but you will have got done something that you otherwise never might have.
Turns out I did do a #KMTOTD today!
Work/life lattice
[Wed 6th Jan 2021] In the world of 'knowledge work' our lives-outside-work and our work are interlaced. But it remains a challenge in the workplace to adapt industrial-era-like habits such as time recording, office hours and 'the workplace' to this reality. Back when most people needed to 'go' to work to be with the assets and materials there was a somewhat clearer separation between 'life' and 'work' and adaptations such as overtime pay. I think most workers in those systems were alienated from their work in their hearts in much the same way that they separated work and life. Most of these industrial habits persisted into the knowledge era. Then in the post Big Bang era of the Yuppies their slogan was "live to work to live to (work...)". If I think back 23 years to my big firm consulting days there was definitely a feeling that where you should be was (a) with your client or (b) in the firm's office. But just a short few years later in corporate life it was the norm to work from wherever - since all the people you needed to speak with were in the four corners of the planet - not in your office. We must have been on the cusp of a change of attitude just around then. Back then we spoke about work/life balance and then work/life blend: Organisations were bringing in services (have your personal parcels delivered to your work address) and policies (flexi-time) to try to recognise this. We're all too aware now that the questions are about where and how to draw the lines in this blended world of technology-enabled 'always on'. But rigid time-recording remains as a corporate norm - and it's really that fact that is the KMTOTD today.
Remind yourself
[Tue 5th Jan 2021] ... of the original passion you had for KM. Mine was quite simple. Right at the start and before I knew anything much, really, I was aware of a lot of things being done in notional ways when in fact there were already established 'best practice' ways of doing things. I figured that if we could just connect the people looking to do something they didn't really know how to do with the already established recipes then we could save a lot of wasted effort and increase effectiveness. So, at the very start, for me, it was 'know how' where I first saw the potential. It didn't end there ... but it started there.
Over the years I've often thought that we must have the most well-educated management workforce ever - I mean educated in 'management' with all the MBAs and short courses and so on - and yet there's clearly still a need to get some of the basic well-known expertise out there: how to chair a meeting, how to specify performance standards for a product, how to review a draft document (the list is endless). There's still work to be done here. In better news, I've been able to do many little odd repair jobs around the house with the help of YouTube videos kindly left by the more knowledgeable.
The niche
[Mon 4th Jan 2021] Like all organisms, the Knowledge Manager finds a niche in her environment. Sometimes that may be more to do with helping people use content and collaboration IT, sometimes it may be to do with professional capabilities or individuals' skills ... or many other things. I figure it's good to take a look at the niche you've found or made and appreciate it. Exploit it, and also consider what's over the hill - what other niches for a broader KM.
It takes time
[Wed 23 Dec 2020] I believe there's something different about the nature of time in 'knowledge world', and we may need a different relationship with time to succeed in learning from experience, innovating, sharing knowledge and developing our art than we need when purely performing, executing. It's the difference between the explore and exploit world. Why this matters is that successful exploitation/performance depends on 'explore' work.
The closed-world-view of process improvement focuses on meeting what is desired by the customer of the process, and what is demanded by the process itself. The customer wants the good, wants them quick, wants them cheap, wants them consistent ... so on. So the process of serving the customer has to be optimised for time and cost and quality.
But there are vital supporting, enabling processes without which the optimal delivery process cannot be achieved, maintained nor progressed - - and these include KM. And the issue is that these processes need us to have a different relationship with time than in the delivery process, because taking time over them is necessary.
It takes time to learn and acquire the knowledge and skills to act; to prepare individually or as a team; to check the work so it's done properly; to look back, reflect and learn from performance; to look after, develop and pass on the knowledge and skills.
The threat comes if too much of the performing world's ethic of optimisation is imposed on the knowledge activities. If they are minimised or cut. The consequences are inevitably felt in the performing world: things take longer to do/re-do; there are faults and waste; labour is inflexible; there's a lack of understanding of context and intent which results in serving customers poorly.
So my point is that a 'culture' is somewhat defined by its values - what it places value on differently to the simple average - and a 'knowledge culture' would be one that would show its valuing of knowledge by allowing the right time for KM tasks and processes. This is really quite a big challenge to the orthodoxy. The two most common ways I see traditional time and cost accounting manage this are: (i) separate budgets for the 'offline' aspects such as L&D (training); (ii) full-life-cycle costing: You either separate the explore from the exploit and treat them as different matters with different rules, or bundle the whole lot up together so that the explore is absorbed in the exploit.
KM: Too important to leave to the Knowledge Manager
[Fri 18 Dec 2020] ... or to the KM Function. We shouldn't evaluate how well an organisation addresses KM solely on the basis of the activities and performance of the knowledge manager or KM function. When I've done evaluation exercises such as surveys what I've been asking is how well does the organisation ... learn from experience?...innovate? ...share its knowledge? ... develop and apply best practices? Asking about the performance of the knowledge manager/KM function is of course related - but the issue is how well is the whole organisation performing and converting knowledge into value for stakeholders. Not only is KM too important to leave to the knowledge manager/KM function ... it's impossible for KM to fully succeed unless it becomes part of everyone's work.
Management 'for' knowledge, not management 'of' knowledge
[Thu 17 Dec 2020] KM is management 'for' knowledge and not management 'of' knowledge. "Knowledge" is an abstract - there's no tangible thing that you can 'manage'. In a materialistic fallacy, documents rush in to fill the space left where people are looking for a tangible knowledge thing so KM can then become "management of" those documents. So, in real life a lot of what a lot of KM departments are really doing is a "management of" thing that is concerned with documents (which may be a valuable activity, btw, just not the whole story of KM). Now, KM is very likely to involve documents and use the techniques of document management - since we are a literate culture and there's a strong demand for documented case studies, guides, checklists and so on - all the kinds of "knowledge artefacts" you can imagine and that people find useful for passing on and accessing knowledge. The two key differences are (1) when KM uses document management it does it for KM purposes and not for information/records management purposes; (2) that's not all KM does.
Other "* Management" practices don't suffer this materialistic fallacy. For instance, nobody thinks that Security Management is about the management 'of' security - they know that it's management 'for' security. There's no 'security thing' you can organise and order, but there are many touchpoints for security considerations across an organisation. And so it is with KM as well, although the curse of documents is that we risk being seen as the 'managers of' them.
The scope of KM departments in practice
[Wed 16 Dec 2020] Whatever we might think should be the scope, boundaries and proper focus of KM, what, in practice, do KM departments in organisations big enough to have them actually do most of the time?
Digital workplace technology: Including content and collaboration IT deployment and user support; intranet and associated static content management; document automation; search.
External information sources and research: Managing subscriptions to external information sources and services; providing information research services. Sometimes there are specialised versions of these such as a Bid Centre or Service that manages the document process and content of competitive tendering.
Information/content management standards: possibly also data protection/privacy, document and record management and so on as well.
Internal projects: Often focused around internal content organisation for a specific set of users or a specific subject area. This is where you may find some focus on services aligned to communities (esp. events) and culture; and potentially services around innovation and lessons learned.
The ember to the kindling
[Tue 15 Dec 2020] At the heart of a knowledge community, beyond all the planning and design, methods, tools and 'hints n tips' ... what really matters most? If the kindling is the subject matter then the precious ember we must carry from thriving fires to ignite new communities is the spirit of belonging as if coming home, acceptance as if in a family, and the passion to learn and practice together, achieve results and further the state of your art.
Deploy, integrate, transform
[Mon 14 Dec 2020] Starting and sustaining a deliberate KM programme is likely to progress through three main phases: Deploy, Integrate and Transform.
Deploy: Point solutions and specific change interventions. "Quick wins". Quite likely to be largely focussed towards just one aspect of KM, be that content, process, IT or whatever. 6 months - 1 year.
Integrate: Integrating to the KM household with the organisational fabric and with itself in a more comprehensive and system-holistic way, addressing all aspects of KM as one business system architecture. 2 - 3 years.
Transform: (To use the word in vogue) 'Going beyond', optimising KM and shifting the organisational culture towards knowledge values.
Of course, this doesn't mean that you have to or even should put off integrating with the business and trying to shift its culture from the start; but it does mean that the 'centre of gravity' of the kind of intervention you make is likely to follow this pattern. There are some good reasons for not running before you can walk.
Nor does it mean that it some future there will be no more discrete, point solutions that need deploying - although, progressively, anything that is requested will ever more fit into a pre-ordained plan you already had!
Oblique search
[Fri 11 Dec 2020] I've observed that when people use search one of the things they do - obviously - is aim straight for the thing they want. Of course you'd do that - make your best punt at a search term designed to bring you back the item you want. But what about when that fails?
One of the techniques I use when a first attempt at search fails to find what I wanted is what I call "oblique search". So this is about thinking about the other attributes, properties or instances of the item sought there are and looking for them instead. Looking for a person but can't quite remember their details? Perhaps you can remember a project or organisation they're associated with - or someone who might know them. Generally, whatever you're looking for - be it a person, a project, a document, a subject, an organisation, or whatever - you can look directly for that thing, and, if that fails, look for something else about it. Another example - looking for a document? Try the author. An organisation? Try the geography or perhaps their field of work.
What sort of thing is KM?
[Thu 10 Dec 2020] We're probably using the term 'KM' to mean different things - the term is polysemic (has more than one meaning). Is it a method, a movement, a function, an 'offshoot' of some 'branch' of management practice? Well, I don't think it's a method: One thing I like is that KM is 'weakly typed' and 'open' meaning it's not in itself prescriptive. There isn't a set process and toolkit, although, when I practised Lean Six Sigma (which is a method) people were keen to compare it to KM. Is KM a movement? Yes, I'd say so. Lots of us would identify with being part of it. It's very fragmented as movements tend to be - and I'm ambivalent about that: once again, I like the openness; but I also tire of the degree to which KM' own knowledge is diffused, duplicated, confused. We really don't have much effective KM of KM. Even on LinkedIn there's easily a dozen KM Groups I know of and not much reason for the fragmentation. The ISO standard and CKM aren't the answers either. So it is a movement and a very loose one at that. That probably does for it being a branch of management practice as well. I mean, in practice, it is - but, again, it's too ill-defined and disputed. When sometime various management bodies have attempted to define KM they've dumbed it down and lost the essence. And as for a function - well, some places yes, but still not as well established as other well-known organisational functions - despite there now being thousands and thousands of people on, say, LinkedIn who have a KM job.
KM has ethics - a pov
[Wed 9 Dec 2020] In practice - whether innately or just in practice, I'm not sure, but - in practice KM is not without a point of view and ethics, values, of its own without which it's pretty hard to do or be KM. It's not like a tool that is agnostic. You'd have to say that KM believes in the good of knowledge sharing. It believes in the good of learning, innovation, best practices and collaboration. Going further than that, overwhelmingly - at least in practice if not a theoretical necessity - KM believes in order - ordering content. I do find it enlightening to try to uncover the ethics that may be driving one's work and to confront them and just question whether you're just being driven by a set of ethics that you're not questioning.
Which content types might your intranet include?
[Tues 8 Dec 2020] Here goes:
KM in induction and on-boarding
[Mon 7 Dec 2020] What are the important needs and opportunities for KM during the employee induction and on-boarding process? It's a time when the employee can start to learn about the organisation and gain an understanding of what the organisation's knowledge, resources and service are before they get too busy with their particular role. It's also a time when the organisation can learn from and about the employee. So the induction and on-boarding should include:
There's generally only a very short time before the new employee gets busy with their new role and their horizons narrow to the specific focus of their new job. During that short time it's wise to learn what we can from them and impart to them the knowledge they may one day need in future.
Make time for your knowledge ... or be forced to make time for your ignorance
[Fri 4 Dec 2020] That well-known phrase "Make time for your wellness ... or be forced to make time for your illness" featured in a meeting recently. It made me think about how an organisation would make wellness part of its mission and what the KM component might be. It's obvious, and yet (in my experience) most organisations are missing the obvious.
The obvious is that knowledge work needs time, but, like the workaholic who ignores their health until finally forced to by a catastrophic illness, organisations are too busy doing stuff to spend the small time that knowledge needs invested in it so as to save a lot of grief for everyone.
I mean that scenario, for instance, of the next project starting before the current one is really over, and, in that period where everyone is transitioning and doing two jobs, the good intentions about doing a good lessons learned exercise and leaving a knowledge legacy is an easy cut to make. And so the overall system of knowledge suffers, and what should have been an easy baton to pick up for a later team that needed knowledge from that earlier project becomes a time-consuming headache for them. Time forced to be spent with their illness or their company's ignorance. So the challenge is to make sure you make time for knowledge.
Challenged with this some years ago, a senior exec retorted to, something like "Oh, I don't think so Rob - they'll just have to work harder". Because, I suppose, we learned from an early age that hard work is good for the soul and never hurt anyone. But we know better, don't we, that we should spend time on our health and our knowledge. You know it makes sense,
#KMTOTD missed a couple of days recently due to running 31* project working out loud sessions - try it! (*Some might say "over 30"!)
Paying firemen to play cards
[Wed 2 Dec 2020] There's a saying that if you don't want your houses to burn down then you have to pay firemen to play cards. Well, if you want knowledge services and resources to be there and ready when you need them then you have to have KMs working on them when nobody is demanding them - just in case, as we say. I take nothing back from my advocacy of 'front line KM' when I say that, because people want the answer only when they suddenly want it (and not in advance): Yes, we should be in the value chain, but we also need to be concerned with building the service ready for when it's needed - unless you're confident you can always turn it around double-quick when suddenly needed.
A KM Business Architecture
[Tue 1 Dec 2020] A KM Business Architecture (or 'Knowledge Architecture') is the overall model and design for how KM does, or is intended to work in an organisation. It's not just an IT architecture but a complete business system architecture with purpose and measure, people, process, content, IT and cultural aspects. I previously provided a small sample example here.
A career in KM?
[Thu 25 Knowvember 2020] A career in KM is a path you make for yourself. There's really no established career path like there is in the professions, or in IT or large functional departments in major organisations or the public sector. Now and again people ask me for tips on how to 'get into' a KM job role. Now, of course there are some large KM groups in the big professional firms but the jobs in them are largely niche IT or information research roles, or generalist internal-consulting-type roles. A move into the generalist roles is probably a sideways move from a client-facing consulting role - a move into the specialist roles means gaining experience in those specialist skills and looking for an opening.
But there's another path entirely ... which is the 'just do it' path. KM is a 'open' profession and there are no barriers to entry. It sits easily as an extension to most other types of work. So, if you want to 'get into' KM, the place where you are might just be the best starting place if you can make some small space for adding in some KM activities: organising a community; running lessons learned or lunchtime knowledge sharing events; organising vital information and so on. If you just do it you can likely attract positive attention, discretionary budget for events and so on, and even maybe get your job role redefined to include KM - and possibly even eventually migrate to a new role you created yourself. Me? I started to just do it as a consultant and then moved sideways into an internal role. I later twice created an entirely new role just for me to be able to do this work. I only twice got hired directly into a KM role - so that's definitely not the only way.
Any discussion of a KM career is incomplete without mentioning two further points. First, a 'KM career' could be many different things and you'll need to shape that yourself - some are doing exactly that as self-employed consultants and contractors as well. Second, a 'KM career' can be precarious because as a function it's not statutory nor anywhere near as well established as Finance, HR, IT and so on - in tough times organisations often find it an easy cut because they wont die quickly from losing it. You might want to carry this work on under other brand names than 'KM' to make the value clearer.
How has KM changed in 30 years?
[Tues 24 Knowvember 2020] Yeah, I know, 30 years. It's probably around 1990 I first heard the term. Everything that came before then was sparse, speculative and unrecognised at the time. I'd been working with AI in 'knowledge-based systems' which entailed doing something we called 'knowledge elicitation' and 'knowledge engineering' - analysing and modelling expert knowledge and decision-making in order to make computer programs that could perform or assist with those tasks. Our group did some great work on methodology, and in the domains of marketing and fraud. We thought we were at the start - but it was actually practically the end. I also had the job of leading some of the marketing for the team and I included 'knowledge management' in our brochure - with barely an idea what it might be, except that many of us had started to see that our work in knowledge analysis threw up many different opportunities that were not all pointing at an IT endpoint.
When KM first 'broke' a few years later it was clearly positioned as a strategic, cross-discipline focus on knowledge enablement that encompassed everything from process to culture, taking in IP and intangible asset valuation too. Many of us still hold to that, but the first change happened very quickly which was the rapid reduction of KM to an IT and IM matter - usually with some mention of 'culture' (without further enlargement) and the move-in of vendors with their 'KM solution'. So from that point there's been a three-way schism in KM: Those who carry the IT banner, those who propose something that is often vehemently not IT, and those, like me, who still want to hold onto the broadest view. But the biggest casualties have been, in my view, the strategic focus and the appreciation of intangible value - Intellectual Capital has pretty much gone off on its own course and is rarely references by either the pro or anti IT sides. So in most places today KM is an operational matter and mostly dominated by IT/IM concerns. That is what you'll find in the big professional firms' practices - curious, eh? You might think they'd be the best placed to appreciate strategy, but there you are. My view is that KM as such would not have happened without the internet and then intranets and important applications such as Lotus Notes in the early days, and then (love it or hate it) SharePoint and social media. It wouldn't have happened without the huge growth of global capitalism in the late C.20th. KM rides those waves but it is nor of them.
Over 30 years KM has moved from being something that was laughed at (literally experienced that!), to being somewhat revered (ditto - also alarming), to being pitied. It became acceptable and normal so long as it was dumbed down to IT and IM. Large firms have large internal practices, but the market for KM services (outside IT) is far, far smaller than we imagined it would be. Despite the Chartered Knowledge Manager (CKM) and ISO KM standard I'd say there is less interest in doing it well than you might expect - KM has not articulated well what it has learned and what it does know how to do. I'm pleased that it's still an open movement and I'm ambivalent on how much I want things like CKM and ISO to succeed (I fear it becoming fossilised and hiring managers who know no better looking for these badges rather than people who've really studied and practised KM in the wild). But note I said ambivalent not against. The danger is that KM is viewed as a thing 'anyone can do' - which in one sense it is, and remains open to new ideas; but in another sense ignores the learning of seasoned practitioners (itself a KM observation). WWW - there is a consensus; EBI - it wasn't so 'systems and process' focused.
KM has survived many fads such as BPR (which nobody speaks about now - although it could be that 'transformation' is its new cloak). And many KM ideas have found new articulation and popularity in movements such as Agile.
When I first put up my own personal KM web page there were about five similar search results. Now there are thousands of people on LinkedIn with KM in their job title in some from, or in their CVs, but some are customer support in call centres, some doing information research and some in IT: It's really hard to tell what it means.
So I think there's a 'normal' way of doing what's now called 'KM' that is mostly harmless. But don't misunderstand my tone for pessimism. No. There's plenty of room for practising KMs to promote more strategically-aligned agendas, and to work closely with the people in their organisations' value chains to understand and enhance their real-life opportunities for learning from experience, innovation, knowledge sharing and promoting shared, ever-improving understanding and methods. Most of the best KM might well be done outside the KM department.
A model for KM practice
[Mon 23 Knowvember 2020] In this picture the central core (in red) are the main activities (logically left-to-right, but, as we have seen before, you can start anywhere and move between the activities); above that line are the main outputs and below the work you have to do. More about this here.
KM core process
[Fri 20 Knowvember 2020] Today, just 'thinking in pictures' with no narrative, about the KM Core Process. Happy Friday.
Documents
[Thu 19 Knowvember 2020] Don't feel too bad about documents, knowledge managers. As we've said before, there's a lot of confusion around document management, content management and information management vs knowledge management. Yet in many cases knowledge managers are involved in these other areas, and especially with documents. Documents are a fact of life and relevant to KM in a literate society. As KMs, some aspects matter more to us, some less. From "matters more" (at the top) to "matters less" (at the bottom):
The paper is flat
[Wed 18 Knowvember 2020] When people see me on Zoom or Teams calls they see a selection of M C Escher pictures behind me. Escher did those paradoxical pictures of things that can't exist in reality - like Belvedere which has a ladder that starts on the inside of the first floor, slopes naturally on the floor and wall but ends up on the outside of the second floor window. Escher's been with me probably since I was about ten. One thing he's always trying to say is "the paper is flat". We see a drawing of, say, a building, and we naturally see perspective, depth, weight. Escher goes to great lengths to show us it isn't deep, but flat, and just an illusion. Today's thought is pretty much the opposite, and it's this. It can be really difficult to represent complexity of knowledge or of how to do things. Methodologies present simple left-to-right step-and-stage processes, but we shouldn't be fooled just because the representation looks flat that the method cannot be used in the more complex real world: Practitioners know there's more to it than is explicitly captured on paper. There are unseen eddies and whorls in real-life practice that are perhaps best passed on by (a) a reminder that the representation is idealised, and (b) some stories about the real-life application of knowledge. We don't need to try to draw an Escher.
Your intranet can make your organisation visible to itself
[Tue 17 Knowvember 2020] Large or even medium sized organisations can be invisible to themselves. Most of the people in an organisation work in one part of it and they may grow to know this part of it very well, or to know the whole organisation from that one perspective. An intranet can expose every part of an organisation to itself for greater shared insight. Just what do they do in Procurement and how do they do it? The intranet can be a place to show that to all.
Which content types are most useful?
[Mon 16 Knowvember 2020] A useful way to open up (and often a useful way to represent) a knowledge area is to understand its knowledge subjects, knowledge content types and then other properties that are vital to the use cases. Subjects is easy to understand - what's the breakdown of the subject-matter? By 'other properties that are vital to the use cases' I mean understanding how does the user (lets stick with that as a shorthand term for all kinds of roles that might exist) want to access and apply the knowledge? For instance, they need to see it in different phases or time periods, or in different geographical (etc) settings: It helps define everything else that's practically useful to know about the subject. But today's thought is about knowledge types of content types. What I mean by these are the forms, formats and channels that the knowledge subject matter may most usefully be embodied or accessed. In terms of knowledge artefacts, some of the most useful types are: overviews, 'how-tos', learning (aka training) material, examples, templates, guides and 'further reading'. Imagining a grid with the subject-breakdown on one axis and these 'types' on the other, one could audit or prioritise for development each 'cell' of knowledge required. These are some of the most consistently useful knowlege content types. Beyond that, each domain has its own - for example on sales, whatever the product (subject), it could be useful to have sales presentations, brochures, case studies, price calculators, sales aids and competitive 'battlecards' (the key arguments vs competitors and objections).
Know the customer
[Fri 13 Knowvember 2020] There are many different layers and slices to 'customer knowledge'. Knowledge of the individual mortal customer, knowledge of the customer organisation, knowledge of the customer segment, more abstract knowledge about your customers and also about customers in general, knowledge about customer knowledge ... so on. Static information, instance/event/experience-based information and knowledge, customer processes and roles, theories about customer relationship ... again, so on. If one were to say "focus on customer knowledge" ... that still leaves many decisions about what to focus on.
This is an archive of the second series of KMTOTD. The first series is here. The third series is here. The fourth series is here. The fifth series is here.
I'm a knowledge manager. As ever, all views are solely my own and not those of my employer.?My other posts
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