Piloting my way to the Gulf....

It’s been a while.  Too long, in fact…

Since I last blogged I have started a new job as a Knowledge Management (KM) Specialist at a large utility organisation.  I began in May and have 2 main roles:

• To provide KM input and advice to senior managers and others running various initiatives
• To help introduce new KM capabilities and improve existing ones

To support this latter role, we are running a complementary initiative, which is taking up the majority of my time at present – namely, the planning and execution of KM pilot projects.  

The aim of KM pilot projects is to generate quick value, win senior management support and maintain momentum for longer-term capability development.  They are also valuable KM training opportunities and will teach us what kind of KM will work in our organisation, and what won't.

What does 'quick value' mean?  Simply put, it's about achieving one or more of the following benefits:

• Working faster
• Working more cheaply
• Working more safely
• Working better

Focusing primarily on the core, technical divisions, we have run a series of exploratory workshops with management teams, to understand their work and identify any challenges or opportunities where KM interventions could help.

This produced a shortlist of potential pilot projects, which we then assessed against a set of criteria, including:

• Impact
• Senior management support
• Feasibility
• Transferability of knowledge

This enables us to prioritise and sequence the pilots, and then allocate one each to different KM department colleagues for planning and execution. 

We have identified the training requirements and divided these up amongst ourselves, with each colleague researching, and preparing training material on, a different topic.  These training modules include:

• Introduction to KM pilot projects
• Knowledge capture
• Knowledge organisation & synthesis
• Knowledge transfer
• Access & retrieval
• Performance management

We will deliver this training to ourselves, offer one another feedback, then revise and improve the materials.  Then we will train the relevant Divisional colleagues who will be involved on each pilot, including both Knowledge Champions and those from the business teams within the pilot scope.

The plan is for us to begin the first pilot project together, then for others to follow on a rolling basis, with each department colleague peeling off to initiate and run their own pilot project in turn.  The idea is that after 18 months or so, we will have completed 5 or 6 pilots in the core divisions and the KM skill and experience levels will be greatly improved.

I will update on our progress over the coming months.  Obviously I won’t share confidential details but am happy to discuss what I’m learning as we go along – what is working and why, as well as what isn’t and what we are doing about it.

In the next blog post, I'll explore some of the potential pilots in detail, and explain what a KM response might look like.

How in the world do you do KM?

Hot off the press, the Knoco 2017 Global KM survey is now available!

The survey revisited the topics first surveyed in 2014, such as:

• Reasons for doing KM
• Maturity levels
• KM scope
• Challenges
• KM skills
• Implementation and governance
• Value created
• KM budgets
• Technology
• KM processes
• Best practices
• Lesson learning
• Culture
• Communities of Practice

In 2014, we had over 200 responses - this time the number surpassed 400!

For a copy of the survey results, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website. 

Let's chat....I'll show you mine if you show me yours....

In a recent blog post, I mentioned my current interest in discussing knowledge management (KM) ideas and experiences with people from different organisations.

I wrote about what I called 'world class KM', based on a conversation I had with a former military colleague, who now works for a consultancy firm.  Whilst what he described was indeed impressive, even he conceded that there areas where they could improve, and we shared ideas on how that might happen.

I'd very much like to have further such conversations with anyone, either someone with a tale to tell or keen to hear how others 'do KM', or both.  As knowledge management consultants, we at Knoco have been fortunate to see, hear and experience KM across every sector, so we have a lot that we can share.  And I have now seen and worked on KM in technology firms, manufacturing firms, aerospace firms, rail companies, engineering companies, oil and gas companies, project management companies, the financial sector, the not-for-profit sector, the healthcare sector, regulatory bodies, pharmaceutical companies, political parties, the Civil Service and the Armed Forces.

This is not a sales pitch.  I'm not seeking payment for anything.  All I'd like is a mutually beneficial chat with people who have KM stories to tell, and who would like to hear some in return.  There might be a nagging problem that you'd like some informal advice on, or maybe you want to run an idea past someone who is outside your organisation, beholden to no-one and can therefore give you some truly honest feedback before you raise the suggestion internally. 

We can do this face-to-face, online or over the phone - whichever works best.

If this appeals, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

The Story of Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody

This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. 
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it.
It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

The issue at the heart of this well-known tale is 'accountability', or rather, the lack of it.

Regular readers of this blog will know that the 4 key enablers of knowledge management (KM) are:

• People with specified roles and accountabilities
• Processes to enable consistency and quality
• Technology to store and share huge amounts of 'stuff'
• Governance to encourage, require and support people to manage their knowledge

All of these are essential if we're going to define, implement and maintain a knowledge management framework.

However, over recent month I've been coming to the conclusion that the first one is perhaps the most important.

When I explain what we mean by the 'people' part of a KM framework, I usually say that it means that people have specific KM accountabilities, and that they acknowledge those accountabilities.  In other words, it's not enough for something to be written on a job specification (although that would be a start, admittedly).  No, the accountabilities are not just written down but accepted by someone as part of their role in the organisation.

To be 100% clear, with proper accountability it's not enough for 'the Boss' to say "that is your job" but employees need to respond with "Yes, that is my job and we have a shared understanding as to what that entails."

If effective governance is missing, KM will always be patchy, with isolated pockets of good practice surrounded by the bulk of the organisation all but actively mismanaging its knowledge.

If technology is absent, KM takes longer and can only ever reach people who share the same office or, at a stretch, the same building.

If processes are not in place, KM will be random, prone to error and quick to lose credibility.

But it is the absence of proper accountability that will prevent KM ever taking off at all.  People will always think that KM sounds like a 'good idea' or 'common sense' but will always assume that someone else is doing it, like the four fools in the story above.

For a conversation about creating or updating the KM accountabilities in your organisation, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

What does world-class KM look like?

Since we can always continue to learn from one another I am currently seeking conversations with anyone who would be happy to share how their organisation ‘does’ knowledge management (KM).  In return, I'm willing to offer reciprocal insights into some of the best KM practices we at Knoco have encountered in recent years.

In this spirit of mutual support, I recently caught up with a former Army colleague who now works for a consulting firm and, over a very enjoyable breakfast, he gave an overview of what excellent KM looks and sounds like.

He gave me permission to share his account on the condition of anonymity, so what follows is a simplified version.

He identified 6 distinct features that combine to enable world-class KM, namely:

·        A shared understanding that ‘knowledge’, for the purposes of KM, means ‘know-how’, NOT merely information;

·        A sophisticated knowledge base, wherein users can search for knowledge relating to the current project on which they are working. All content is tagged and can be ‘marked’ by other users according to its helpfulness;

·        An internal ‘people-finder’ tool, where personal profiles include past experience and the knowledge topics in which each person might be considered an expert;

·        A discrete and defined cohort of staff whose job it is to capture, organise, review and update all the firm’s knowledge – if you need to know how to do something in the field of construction in South America, and are unable to find it, they will do it for you;

·        A clear system of accountability, whereby all knowledge products need to be reviewed, approved and given a ‘stamp of approval’ by the firm’s relevant experts in the field;

·        A culture where there is no internal competition, little evidence of hierarchy and a system of compensation under which people are rewarded developing others and for creating and sharing knowledge – silos, tribalism, politicking and the ‘knowledge is power’ concept are simply forbidden.

My former colleague then shared a brief anecdote about his first day in the job: he had been added to a team working on a client project and was expected to brief the client the following day.  Using many of the features described above he produced and presented 15 slides and the client agreed the proposed project the following day.

This wasn’t a KM assessment interview but old habits die hard....as he spoke, in my head I was assigning scores (out of 5) to the various components of our KM framework model: 5, 5, 4.5, 5, 5….etc!

It was a real privilege to talk with someone from a company that not only ‘gets it’ with KM but is so clearly an example of how it’s done.

For a conversation about how your organisation manages its knowledge, and then perhaps how it might do it better, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted - KM assessments

A Knowledge Management (KM) assessment involves speaking to people across all parts of an organisation, at all levels of seniority and with varying levels of experience.  We ask about daily work, trying to find out how people create, capture, share, organise and access knowledge and what they have to help them in this:

• Who is accountable for identifying (and then learning) lessons from project, if anyone?
• When do people get together to share knowledge, if at all?
• Where does 'good practice' get stored, if anywhere?
• What kind of IT tools are used, if any?
• How is good practice updated, if at all?
• Who's in charge of this, if anyone?

An assessment offers clients several benefits:

• It provides them with an overview of what KM capabilities are present in their organisation
• It assesses these capabilities against a benchmark of leading KM organisations
• Where strengths are identified, it recommends ways to embed and broaden their reach
• Where weaknesses or gaps are identified, it recommends ways to improve performance

Together, these ensure that any subsequent KM investment is cost-effective and targeted on those areas where its impact will be greatest.

Sometimes, organisations seek to 'skip' this vital step and just want to 'do KM' any form of preliminary assessment.  In my view, this approach is wasteful and risky because:

• They do not yet know what KM capabilities are, and are not, present in their organisation
• They have no idea what 'good looks like'
• They may procure training, tools, software or coaching that duplicates things already in place
• They do not yet know where their need is greatest

In keeping with several recent blog posts, I think analogies can help here.

We've looked at the 'KM as cooking' analogy before, so imagine preparing the weekly shopping list with reference to a cookery book but without checking the cupboards or fridge.  I hold my hand up to this wasteful oversight - you get to the store and end up buying things 'just in case' you don't already have them at home.  Which means that, with fresh produce, you now have double the amount of bacon, beans, broccoli, cheese etc. that you need, which either needs to be eaten or gets wasted.  And with dry goods, you simply add yet another packet of ground ginger or mixed herbs to the back of the cupboard, alongside the two already there.

Cooking not your thing?  How about building?  You've just won the lottery and want to build a new house.  Are you going to get a builder to just do as they want, or are you going to get an architect to design something first?  In fact, before the architect come along, shouldn't you get a survey done, to make sure first that the ground on which you intend to build is solid?

Not in a building mood?  Then how about joining me in battle?!  A famous saying from my former profession is that 'time spent on reconnaissance is seldom wasted'.  Regardless of whether you're planning on destroying an enemy compound, or distributing aid to starving refugees, or helping to evacuate civilians from a civil-war-torn country, you need to get 'eyes on', through surveillance systems and/or people on the ground.  The more information that can be gained about the enemy, as well as the ground on which you will have to operate, the greater the chance of success - which means killing the enemy and saving everyone else. 

In all of these examples, intelligent planning involves finding out the current situation, before deciding how to change it.  As with shopping, building and battle, so it is with KM.

For more information about KM assessments, or for a free 'KM self-assessment tool', please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Have you hit the KM roadbump? 2 cracking analogies and one more killer quote to get you over it.

Knowledge management (KM) remains unknown to most organisations and the people that work within them.  Consequently, those of us working in the field sometimes use analogies, anecdotes and case-studies to explain KM to others. 

Early conversations often start well but we can all benefit from ways of countering the queries, doubts or even fears raised by those that don't yet "get it".

Two analogies that I like to use at the moment are those of safety and heating:

Safety
Whilst KM may sound like 'common sense' to some, all too often it is not that common.  Indeed, it is NOT the natural, human condition.  Managing anything at all requires deliberate effort, time, money and resources - managing knowledge is no different.  Safety is like this also.

As I blogged recently, we can't work safely without deliberately choosing to do so and we can't manage knowledge with equivalent efforts.

Think of everything that has gone into making factories, offices, shops and building sites safe places in which to work. In order to work safely, organisations have developed policies, committees, guidance, reporting procedures, training, metrics, teams, managers, champions, tools etc. Why?  Because we have learned (all too often the hard way) that the removal of danger requires action on our part.

As with safety, so with KM.  Knowledge won't move around an organisation without significant assistance from KM policies, committees, guidance, reporting procedures, training, metrics, teams, managers, champions, tools etc.

Furthermore, the 'safety team' are NOT the ones that work safely.  Rather, they require, encourage, enable and support the rest of us to do so.

As with safety, so with KM.  The KM team are NOT the ones that manage knowledge.  Rather, they require, encourage, enable and support the rest of us to do so.

Heating
A significant challenge facing KM practitioners as a discipline is the ever-present mistaken belief that technology is the answer, or even that technology somehow is knowledge management.  I think this may be largely down to what I call the 'magpie attraction' of technology.

Some organisations see something new and shiny and say, "We want that!" without properly thinking about the problem to which a so-called 'knowledge management platform' or 'knowledge management system' might be the solution.  Indeed, without the right people, processes and governance, the 'KM = technology = KM' approach achieves absolutely nothing.

To reinforce my point - last week I blogged '6 killer knowledge management quotes' (my most popular post this year, by the way).  Since then, I came across one more on LinkedIn - the ultimate killer KM quote to beat all killer KM quotes. 

From Larry Prusak (ex-IBM, McKinsey etc.) at last week's KM Legal Conference in New York:

"All the technology in the world will not make people collaborate.  Obama is not going to take my call just because I have a telephone and the number for the White House."

Quite.

Now, about that heating analogy.  When we need to heat a house, we don't point to a brand new boiler and say, "We want that!", do we?  We recognise that we need radiators, a thermostat, piping, insulation in the loft, perhaps air conditioning as well. 

As with heating, so with KM.  We don't just need a portal, lessons management system, enterprise search, discussion forums and so on.  We need people to be accountable for their correct use, processes in order to create, update, organise and share the knowledge in them and a system of governance (indeed, a learning culture) that encourages and expects us to do this, and recognises and thanks us for so doing.

Don't waste money on buying only a boiler otherwise your house will stay very cold this winter.

For a conversation about magpies, boilers, safety or indeed, knowledge management, please get in touch direct or via the Knoco website.

6 killer knowledge management quotes

"Knowledge Management is not an end in itself.  Companies do not exist for the purpose of propagating and advancing knowledge - they exist to sell products and services. But to the extent that competitive advantage relies on informed decision making within the business - knowledge management has a crucial role to play."  Bechtel Corporation

"It is the attempt to recognise what is essentially a human asset buried in the minds of individuals, and leverage it into a corporate asset that can be used by a broader set of individuals, on whose decisions the firm depends."  Larry Prusak, IBM

"Most activities or tasks are not one-time events. Our philosophy is fairly simple: Every time we do something again, we should do it better than the last time.” John Browne, BP          

"Sharing knowledge occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new capacities for action; it is about creating learning processes."  Peter Senge

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." Charles Darwin

"Knowledge is experience; everything else is information."  Albert Einstein

More KM resources, tools and templates are available on the Knoco website.

6 connections between good cookery and KM

I cooked a Sunday roast dinner for my family at the weekend - something of an (all too infrequent) family tradition now that the autumn is upon us here in the UK.

As I cooked, much like when I went camping last year, I was reminded of several things about knowledge management (KM):

• In conversations with clients, I often use a 'cooking analogy' to explain the difference between information and knowledge.  For example, a recipe in a cookery book usually contains 2 main elements - a list of ingredients and a method.  The list of ingredients is 'information'; the method is 'knowledge'.  Both are essential to cooking a good meal.  If all we do is share information with one another, people will certainly learn 'about' stuff but not how to do stuff, which of course is at the heart of KM.  Analogies like this are handy when explaining what remains KM which, for most organisations, remains an unknown discipline.  Other tools to explain KM that this blog has already covered are the infographic mentioned here, and the video that I put together, linked here.
• Again with regard to recipes - these are effectively 'knowledge assets' and the best of them contain plenty of photos to help the would-be cook to understand the techniques being described.  As with recipes, so with work - when creating guidance material for ourselves and colleagues, we should use plenty of pictures, diagrams etc. to help convey the knowledge. 
• Wikis and blogs are great ways of communicating new knowledge with colleagues and should always contain attractive and relevant visuals to encourage the reader to continue to scroll down - a friendly and funny cookery blog, for example is this one by up and coming cook, Olivia Potts, with stacks of high-quality photos that show us all what the dishes look like.
• Having cooked a particular dish, I always seek feedback from the family, perhaps not in the formal sense of a Retrospect or After Action Review (that would be a bit much!) but there is certainly a learning loop in play, with their comments and my own thoughts giving me a great chance to improve next time.
• I have many recipe books but am increasingly drawn to finding a recipe online; I tend to print one off and then, having gone through the learning loop mentioned above, I scribble notes on the page and keep it for next time, so as not to forget the knowledge that I've gained.  This is an example of knowledge synthesis, explored by my colleague, Nick Milton, in his blog here.
• Finally, there are some aspects to cooking that are not well reflected in a recipe.  For example, knowing how long to parboil potatoes before roasting them or, indeed, what a good roasted potato looks like - these are examples of tacit knowledge that is acquired with experience and harder to unpick.  Mentoring or a thorough knowledge harvesting interview might enable the finer details to be revealed and the recipe updated accordingly.

Of course, the main thing is that my efforts went pretty well and my daughters went to bed with full tummies, having cleaned their plates twice!

For a conversation about introducing KM tools into your workplace, kitchen, school, factory, hospital, barracks, airport, hotel, office, trading floor or charity please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

8 signs that you're not managing your knowledge

Ever said or heard these phrases at work? 

1. “Why do we keep having to re-learn this?”

2. “How do I know where to find this knowledge?”

3. “Someone must have done this before - but who?”

4. “When that guy left, he took all that knowledge with him.”

5. “It was a complete fluke that I met Kathy – she had just the answer I was looking for!”

6. “I’m sure I heard someone mention that to me the other day, now who was it?”

7. “That went very well – how can we keep doing it like that?”

8. “We made this mistake in our other office as well.”

If so, they're usually a sign that knowledge isn't being managed effectively, if at all.

This means they're also a sign of wasted time, money and effort.

Perhaps they're also a sign of unnecessary risk to our colleagues or vital equipment. 

Can you think of any more?

For a chat about knowledge management (KM), please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

We don't work safely by chance so why would we manage knowledge that way?

This morning, dropping off my daughters at school, I had a brief chat with another Dad about knowledge management (KM).

He works for a local engineering company and has been investigating KM over recent months, using the toolkit we at Knoco produced for the aerospace industry for guidance.
He's planning on producing a KM policy but has yet to put pen to paper.

Our chat went something like this:

Him: Haven't got round to it yet...I need a cost-code from my Engineering Director as I'm not doing this on my own time.
Me: Ah, that old chestnut...cost-codes.
Him: Yeah.
Me: Yes, some companies do have cost-codes for KM, where they've allocated a specific budget.  But what you really want is to go the whole way and just accept that KM stuff is part of everyday working.
Him: Part of the culture, you mean?  We're a long way from that.
Me: Of course you are, but that's where you want to be headed. Think about safety, as an example.
Him: I don't follow.
Me: Well, you don't use a separate cost-code to don your safety equipment, perform safety checks or tests or do any other safety-related activities, do you?
Him: No....
Me: That's because that argument has been won.  We all see that safety is an integral part of everyday working.  That's what proper KM looks like also.
Him: That's a good analogy.
Me: Yes, I use it sometimes when people say "But surely we manage our knowledge anyway? It just happens...it's common sense."  But nothing at all gets managed without deliberate effort, does it?  People don't work safely unless they are trained to work safely, equipped to work safely and expected to work safely.  So it is with KM.  That's why it takes the time, money and effort to get to the stage where it just becomes part of everyday working.
Again, you don't work for 7 hours a day and then do an hour of 'working safely', do you?
Him: [laughing] No!
Me: And you don't have a safety team that are the ones that do 'the safe working' either.  They're the ones that help, encourage, support and require everyone to work safely.  So it is with a KM team.
Him: Yeah, that's a great example.  Thanks! 

So next time someone says they don't have time for KM, ask whether they have time for safety and, if they fail to see the connection, explain that it's all about making better ways of working, not more work.

For a chat about how to win the argument for more KM, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Leading the way - latest Knoco newsletter - KM and leadership

The latest Knoco newsletter on the relationship between Knowledge Management (KM) and leadership is now out!

Follow this link for:

• How does leadership affect KM?
• What do good and bad KM leadership look like?
• How to manage leaders in lessons capture meetings
• How to win leaders' support
• The power of the 'CEO video'
• KM tools to deliver good leadership
• News from around the Knoco family

For a conversation about KM leadership, please get in touch direct or visit the Knoco website.

Help! Someone has asked (yet again) "What is KM?"

How often do those of us interested in KM get asked, "What is knowledge management?"

Wouldn't it be really handy to have a short, sharp introduction to the subject, with the key ideas displayed in a smart, simple way?

Well, my clever colleague from Knoco Poland, Ewa Stemaszek, has helpfully produced an infographic that does just that.  You can find it on her website, at this link here.

Well done, Ewa and thank you!

How can KM help Brexit? Filling gaps, that's how....

Last week, the United Kingdom (UK) voted to leave the European Union (EU).  The consequences of this decision will be felt around the world for many years to come, for good or bad.

Amongst the tumult of media stories about the various ramifications, I spotted one that will resonate with those of us interested in knowledge management (KM).

One of the more significant changes to come is that the UK will regain the right (and responsibility) to negotiate trade deals with other countries.  However, having joined the (then) European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973, the UK lacks the requisite knowledge on how to do so.

It no longer knows how to do something that it once did; the UK has forgotten something that other nations probably take for granted.

This reminds me of the story about NASA realising that, through retirement of the people with the necessary knowledge, it had ‘forgotten’ how to put men on the moon. NASA responded by initiating a programme of knowledge retention, to minimise the risk of other capabilities going the same way.

So what can be done?

Organisations can use a Knowledge Gap Analysis, to identify what missing knowledge will help deliver the desired product, service or outcome.  A Knowledge Scan enables them to identify which types of knowledge are at the greatest risk of ‘walking out the door’ and a Knowledge Retention & Transfer strategy is used to retain this knowledge and make it available to others.

Such KM activities can help organisations anticipate knowledge loss and prevent it.  But what if it’s already gone, retired or died?

Indeed, what will the UK do now?  Well, it appears the New Zealand Government is keen to help, through ‘lending’ the UK some of its trade negotiators, as explained in this article here.

And again, KM tools can help: a Peer Assist is a structured event to enable controlled and rapid knowledge transfer between 2 teams – one lacking key knowledge and the other willing and able to share it.

So, whatever so-called Brexit means for the UK (and wider world) over the coming years, it seems KM will have its part to play.

For a chat about these KM tools and others, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Get the right tools for the job here....

For the past year, we at Knoco have been helping an aerospace consortium to create a KM toolkit.

We ran a series of workshops, each covering a separate topic area, the output of which became a chapter for the toolkit.

The chapters are:

• What is Knowledge Management and why do it?
• Retaining Critical Skills
• Building Best Practice
• Learning from Projects
• Enabling Collaboration
• Finding and Structuring Knowledge 

The toolkit has now been published online and is available to download (for free) from the page at this link here.

Whilst the case-studies and context are drawn from the aerospace-industry, many of the issues discussed, and almost of the tools themselves, relate to all sectors.

Please take a look and, if you’d like to have a chat about the toolkit itself or knowledge management in general, do contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

KM UK 2016 - Come and learn about learning...

I'll be speaking at the forthcoming KM UK Conference on 16th June.

My old boss, Colonel Ian Tinsley (Retd) and I will be talking about how the British Army learned from both the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and how it managed the knowledge it gained.

Frequent readers of this blog will have read the article linked at this post in which I examine the ways in which the Army increased its learning capacity from 2009.

Building upon some of the material in that article, we'll cover:

• What does 'good military KM' look like?
• What does it take for a lesson to be actually learned?
• Why does the Army do KM?  What should anyone?
• Top tips and things to watch for when managing lessons.

The agenda for the conference is listed here.

Come along and let's learn about learning.

If you'd like to chat about knowledge management, or 'lessons learned', please get in touch direct or via the Knoco website.

Let's compete with those outside, sure but not with our team-mates, colleagues etc...

I recently conducted a KM assessment at a multinational chemicals firm, interviewing over 20 people with varying levels of experience, seniority and from across all functional teams.  The aim is to understand what KM capabilities are in place, how well they are doing and what’s missing.  One of the things we look at, when assessing a client’s KM governance, is the culture of the place.

What is it like to work there?  What do people think about KM?  What do senior managers think about it?  How are mistakes and errors viewed?  Is there a ‘blame culture’ or a ‘learning culture’?  Also, is there any internal competition between individuals, teams or departments?  How willing are people to share knowledge and information with one another?  To what extent does the maxim, ‘knowledge is power’ hold sway?

Regular readers of this blog will recall my review of Margaret Heffernan’s excellent book, ‘Wilful Blindness’ in which she examined many examples of organisations where leaders either don’t want to hear the truth or the led don’t want to tell it.  This phenomenon, common to many (most?!) organisations, is caused by a view that passing on bad or embarrassing news leads to unpopularity, demotion, or even getting fired.
In the excellent ‘Ted talk’ linked below, Margaret discusses how successful teams (and wider organisations) are those where there is a desire to help one another with knowledge and information.  She doesn’t mention the term ‘knowledge management’ but the positive examples she offers (i.e. chicken farming, engineering, responses to environmental regulations) would, if assessed using our methodology, get high ‘KM governance’ scores.
Four more quick points:

·        It’s not about technology – Margaret Heffernan recognises that technology is just an enabler and achieves absolutely nothing without the right people, processes and governance in place;

·        Knowing one another – She argues that people have to know one another in order to establish trust as well as knowing who has what skills, knowledge and experience.  I would argue that, whilst true, shortening this time is possible, not least by senior managers who lead by personal example rather than directive;

·        “Companies don’t have ideas, only people do” – Again, this is true but one of the key ‘lightbulb’ moments for senior managers on a KM journey comes when they realise that the ideas generated within their organisations should be at least be ‘possessed’ by the company. However, most knowledge remains locked in the heads of people who refuse to share it because the status quo has made it clear there is no incentive (or supporting culture) for them to do so.  So what?  Organisations should:

o   Reward teams for sharing their knowledge instead of hoarding it;

o   Create knowledge assets for the critical knowledge areas;

o   Build Communities of Practice around knowledge areas where there is strength in depth;

o   Retain experts’ knowledge rather than letting it walk out of the door when they do;

·        “Conflict is frequent because candour is safe” – yes, yes, yes.  Being honest is often hard, especially when discussing things we wish had turned out differently.  But in environments where honesty is rewarded over success, or dishonesty punished before failure, people can challenge old ideas, as well as new ones – in such places, real innovation is possible.

If you’d like to chat about these ideas, tools or more with some knowledge management consultants, please get in touch, either direct or via the Knoco website.

Seven things I learned in 2015

·        ‘Not invented here’ remains the default response of too many people in too many organisations to any initiative;
·        Leaders are more powerful than they themselves realise – not because of what they say but what they do, and how!
·        Initiatives survive and prosper when we first agree on the effect we wish to achieve, and then work backwards on how to do it;
·        Good knowledge management needs both the ‘push’ from those that have acquired knowledge and the ‘pull’ from those that need it;
·        ‘Lessons must be learned’ continues to be trotted out by the media, politicians, chief executives and football managers alike – almost all of whom do not know what it means or requires;
·        Brevity helps;
·        Time spent understanding the client’s needs and desires is seldom wasted.

What will 2016 bring??

What's a KM framework, I hear you ask? Well this little video will explain all....

For a chat about people, processes, technology and governance, please get in touch or visit the Knoco website.

Who'd have though a bomber could be grounded by forgetting?

In stories about yesterday’s final flight of the Vulcan bomber, a small detail caught my eye. 

As reported in the Daily Telegraph, “The Vulcan To The Sky Trust, which brought the 55-year-old aircraft back to flight eight years ago, has accepted advice from supporting companies that they no longer have the expertise to keep it airworthy as engineers retire from the industry.” 

Perhaps it is not surprising that there are few people employed nowadays with the right knowledge to keep a now obsolete aircraft flying.  What is surprising however, is that for younger aircraft still in service, there remains this issue of experienced engineers retiring and the risk associated with that.

I have written before about Knowledge Retention and Transfer programmes and how companies are using them to address this risk.  What I haven’t stressed before is that even this initiative is a ‘sticking plaster’ solution.

A longer-term, enduring approach is one that does not let engineers get anywhere near retirement age with all that valuable knowledge locked inside their heads.  That knowledge is not theirs alone since it has been created and accumulated on their employers’ time and with the help of their colleagues.  It should be treated as such.

This means recognising that knowledge is an asset and developing knowledge management frameworks to manage it accordingly.

Come visit the Knoco website to find out more.