Ignorance can sometimes help innovation....

A great little story in the news today with a couple of insights for those of us interested in knowledge management (KM).

This Telegraph news article here tells how a 16-year old schoolboy on work experience helped address the problems encountered when a heart by-pass surgery patient's records are unavailable and there is no way of knowing what work has been done before.

Observing his father (a cardiologist) dealing with a patient in this situation, he asked whether there was some way of writing a code inside the patient, so that future surgeons would have the information they needed straight away, enabling further surgery to take place without undue delay.

This innocent question sparked an idea, which resulted in his father developing a system

Two observations:

• The schoolboy was not part of the surgical team and had no direct or relevant experience that might have been helpful in this situation.  However, this 'ignorance' was to his advantage, as it meant he approached the problem with a fresh outlook.  In many day-to-day activities at work, there are times when a new perspective can help a team tackle a problem or improve performance and KM activities like a Peer Assist can help bring different perspectives to a team and new insights to a problem.
• Thankfully, the surgical team did not suffer from the 'not invented here' syndrome, whereby people resist external initiatives or suggestions simply because they came from an outsider.  This is sadly the default workplace condition and all too often leads to 'groupthink', preventing or inhibiting innovation.  Teams that have developed a learning culture are more likely to be receptive to new ideas.

For a chat about bringing new perspectives to your team, innovation or knowledge management in general, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

San Francisco, here we come...Bird Island at KA Connect 2017!

The KA Connect Conference provides a forum for the AEC industry (i.e. architecture, engineering and construction) to discuss knowledge management (KM) and is held in San Francisco annually.

I'm delighted to have been invited to speak there this coming May, when I'll be running Knoco's Bird Island game, which powerfully demonstrates the link between knowledge and performance.

The Bird Island game requires teams to build towers using a standard set of equipment, and invites participants to compare their towers' respective heights before, and then after, their introduction to 3 key KM tools:

• After Action Reviews - teams discuss how they did and where they can improve
• Peer Assists - each team offers up one member to offer and receive knowledge from others
• Knowledge Assets - everyone is shown the latest 'best practice' design and how it's done

The exercise relies on participants' initial lack of knowledge so, without giving anything away, the increase in height achieved for the 2nd tower build usually ranges between 100 and 250%!

The full list of KA Connect speakers, headed up by the famous Larry Prusak, formerly of IBM, McKinsey and NASA, is available here, with the full programme here.

If you'd like us to run the Bird Island workshop for you and your colleagues, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Growing up - maturity, credibility, attribution and far knowledge transfer

My last post introduced the concepts of 'near' and 'far' knowledge transfer.  To recap:

• Near transfer - this is used for relatively simple knowledge transferred between teams doing the same tasks in the same context (i.e. same region, market or, in the military, operational theatre).  It covers things like procedures, processes, tips, hints and 'how to' guides.  Think of a recipe book, as examined in this post here.
• Far transfer - this relates to more subtle knowledge and/or where it is transferred between teams doing the same tasks but working in different contexts (i.e. new markets).  Consequently, this includes stories, 'rules of thumb', examples, case-studies etc.

[A reminder, these concepts were first introduced by Nancy Dixon, in her influential book 'Common Knowledge'.]

When you are looking at knowledge transfer as part of your Knowledge Management framework, it’s important to think carefully about the context in which the knowledge will be re-used. Near transfer and far transfer are 2 ends of a spectrum, and you will find that your knowledge needs to be packaged differently depending on where you are on that spectrum. It’s therefore important for you to understand the difference between the two.

Much of this blog's content to date has explained, and described examples of, 'near transfer' so I'm now going to look at 'far transfer' in greater detail, and will explore the pros and cons of anonymity and attribution in due course.

A learning loop

Since 'near transfer' deals with knowledge that can be replicated within the same context, its relevance and validity can be established more quickly than 'far transfer' equivalents.  Indeed, it gains credibility quickly because of the speed both of its application and the comparison of performance across a number of iterations - in other words, 'shorter learning loops'.



Consequently, it 'matures' quickly also, which means it is likely to move from advice or guidance (i.e. "you may wish to consider this method") to obligation (i.e. "you shall use this method and this alone").

By contrast, 'far transfer' involves taking knowledge from one context and making it available for re-use in another, wherever this is helpful.  The activities from which this knowledge has been captured are likely to be less frequent than their 'near transfer' equivalents which means relevance and validity cannot be established as quickly. This is because fewer iterations mean fewer performance comparisons which mean fewer opportunities to learn - or, 'longer learning loops'.  Therefore, it 'matures' slowly, which means it is likely to remain advice or guidance for longer, perhaps forever.

Some examples of both kinds of activity, at different stages of their own timeline, and the form their respective knowledge assets might take, are shown below:

• 'Near transfer'
• Drilling oil wells - regulations, procedures, manuals
• Handling a weapon - weapon drills training, manuals
• Baking a cake - recipes
• Compiling a weekly financial report - procedures, 'how-to' guides
• Building a house - regulations, plans, procedures
• 'Far transfer'
• Exploring for oil in a new region - business intelligence, advisory procedures
• Conducting a military patrol - tactical aide-memoire (TAM), historic patrol reports
• Launching a new cake product - advice, case-studies, market research
• Setting up a new hedge fund - peer advice, market research
• Marketing a new housing development - precedents, market research

Performing an activity in a new context brings many variables into play, the effects of which may be difficult to predict - another reason for 'far transfer' knowledge being closer to the 'advice' end of the spectrum than the 'obligation'.

Therefore, those in need of 'far transfer' knowledge have to read around a topic, drawing advice and ideas from different sources and contexts, in order to form a broad understanding of the activity in general, before seeking to perform it in a specific context.

Furthermore, the lack of certainty of the validity of a particular piece of knowledge in a new context creates 2 conditions that do not apply so readily to 'near transfer', namely:

• The source or synthesis of the 'far transfer' knowledge needs to be credible - i.e. a known expert has been consulted or, where multiple sources are used, a robust and trusted assurance method exists to control quality;
• Users of 'far transfer' knowledge may wish to follow-up with those whose knowledge is being used, in order to:
• Ask questions
• Seek advice on a particular issue
• Suggest updates or edits
• Provide feedback on the validity of the knowledge in the new context

Therefore, 'far transfer' knowledge that is attributable is more credible and helpful than that which is anonymous.  Indeed, attribution is almost always preferable to anonymity but there are some isolated instances where anonymity is appropriate, and I'll examine these in a future post.

Of course, knowledge assets are just one of the many KM tools or activities that can be used when starting out on a new(-ish) venture:

• KM plans help identify what knowledge will be needed, where it currently resides and who will be accountable for finding it and bringing it into the project;
• Peer Assists can help a project at any stage, involving the facilitated transfer of knowledge from an experienced project team to another one facing a particular issue;
• Knowledge exchanges bring together people with many experiences of a particular topic and enable both knowledge transfer at the event, as well as the subsequent creation or update of knowledge assets relating to the topic;

For a conversation about knowledge maturity, credibility or indeed anything else KM-related, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Near and far knowledge transfer - it's all about context

Some weeks ago, I was invited to the offices of a potential client and 'pitched' to the senior leadership team.  I explained knowledge management (KM), its benefits and how it might help them in their work.

Before I had finished, the CEO questioned the relevance of KM to their line of work since, in his view, much of it was 'bespoke' and not easy to replicate.  Indeed, when faced with a new problem, selecting options for a client required judgement and experience that couldn't simply be 'captured' and 're-packaged'.

In response, I mentioned high-level enduring principles and concepts and then, on the train home, thought of dozens of things that I wished I had said as well.

Of course, I could have referred to Nancy Dixon's concepts of 'near' and 'far' knowledge transfer thus:

• Near transfer - this is used for relatively simple knowledge transferred between teams doing the same tasks in the same context (i.e. same region, market or, in the military, operational theatre).  It covers things like procedures, processes, tips, hints and 'how to' guides.  Think of a recipe book, as examined in this post here.
• Far transfer - this relates to more subtle knowledge and/or where it is transferred between teams doing the same (or similar) tasks but working in different contexts (i.e. new markets).  Consequently, this includes stories, 'rules of thumb', examples, case-studies etc.

Crucially, whilst all knowledge transfer needs to be credible, in far transfer the need is greater, in order for teams to have faith in applying the guidance in their own context.  This means the advice, lessons or overarching principles need to be attributed to established and respected experts, or to have come from a well-known and authoritative synthesis process (Note: Wikipedia's initial USP was that anyone could update it; well-known errors and/or malicious edits ensued, so assurance processes were introduced to aid quality control).

This attribution also enables the readers of a 'far transfer' knowledge asset (a project team, for example) to follow up with the author(s) with queries or suggested edits.  Alternatively, it might enable the initiation of another KM process, such as a Peer Assist, to address a specific problem that the project team is facing where direct input from a team that has faced similar challenges in the past would help.

Far transfer and the specific issue of anonymity vs. attribution will be examined in future posts.

For a chat about knowledge transfer, near or far, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

How can KM consultants help? Let me count the ways...

Knowledge management (KM) consultants can help their clients in several ways:

·        Helping them to understand their own KM strengths and weaknesses;

·        Identifying KM and knowledge gaps and areas for improvement, in order of priority;

·        Pinning down which knowledge topics need to be managed first (because you can’t do it all at once);

·        Designing and implementing KM frameworks, to manage the knowledge;

·        Setting up pilot projects in priority areas (because you can’t do it all at once);

·        Identifying lessons from the pilot projects and using them to adjust the KM framework before it is rolled out more widely;

·        Creating KM strategies and policies, giving senior leaders the ability to drive KM programmes forward;

·        Interviewing experts in critical knowledge areas so their know-how doesn’t leave the firm when they do;

·        Creating knowledge assets so that critical knowledge becomes available to everyone;

·        Facilitating lessons capture meetings, to help project teams learn from their experience;

·        Facilitating Peer Assists, to help new project teams learn from experienced ones;

·        Shaping and adjusting the culture from one where ‘I know this’ to one where ‘we do’.

There are plenty more, but those will do for now.
The last point, about changing the culture, is both the hardest thing to do but yet the one thing that will have the greatest effect, if done properly.
There are many tools and activities that help reveal an organisation’s culture and provide evidence that things need to change – surveys, interviews and workshops can all provide an overview of the culture.  In the next blog post, we’ll look at one to help individuals alone.
For a conversation about KM with leading management consultants in the field, please visit the Knoco website or contact me direct.

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 down on the farm - or, have tent and KM, will camp!

A few weeks ago I went camping in Dorset with my family and that of my brother. He and his wife have been camping a few times and have a lot of the necessary gear.  My wife and I have not, so we borrowed loads of bits and pieces from a friend – I wasn’t going to spend a small fortune on the latest tent technology only to be informed that we would not be camping again.

As things turned out, the week was a great success, despite the pouring rain for much of it.  Furthermore, the whole experience proved a useful vehicle for demonstrating the value of knowledge management.  A few examples:

Knowledge is most useful when recent and relevant – I served for over 10 years as an officer in the British Army and have spent more than my fair share of nights outdoors, under canvas, under trees and under nothing else but the stars.  Now, some of my experience was, and will always be, useful for a domestic camping trip but I will be the first to admit that my brother’s more recent and directly relevant experience was far more useful.  This should be borne in mind when planning a Peer Assist, for example.  Having him on hand when it came to erecting and collapsing our tent proved invaluable and, whilst both operations were time-consuming, they’d have taken far longer had I not had his knowledge on hand or, worse still, had I wanted to ‘do it all myself’;

• Lessons are not learned until you change something – throughout the week, we all noticed things that either did not go as well as we had hoped (e.g. an inflatable mattress with even the slightest hole in it will leave you lying on the cold ground come morning) or far surpassed our expectations (e.g. portable ‘fire pits’ (i.e. the inner metal rim of a lorry wheel) are excellent and well worth the small charge to hire them).  When this happened, someone would invariably sing out, “Ha, a lesson learned!” only for me to boringly respond, “No, a lesson identified. It’ll only be learned if we change things next time round.”
• Clothing and equipment lists can be valuable knowledge assets – this first time camping as a family was a bit of a leap in the dark as we weren’t 100% sure what we needed and ended up with far more stuff than necessary.  I need to create a list based on: what we used and was invaluable; what we had with us but never used and what we lacked but would really like to have with us next time around.  The problem is, I’ve not yet created this list and already my memory is fading, demonstrating my next point, namely:
• Wait too long to capture knowledge and its gone – when we got back from our trip: tired, in need of a decent shower and still just about on speaking terms with one another, the last thing I wanted to do was sit down and write up the lessons of our trip.  But I should have done it there and then because with every passing day my recollections become less reliable and I run the risk of filling in the gaps with rubbish, as sometimes happens when project lessons capture sessions are held far too long after the project is finished.  Perhaps I’m being harsh, most projects don’t capture lessons at all so some late and inaccurate ones might be better than nothing.

So there we are: camping holidays – not for everyone but as a way of demonstrating how KM helps us save time, stay dry and have fun, they’re great.

Now, I wonder if I can book a beach holiday in the Caribbean on the company, just to compare and contrast….

For a conversation about KM, Peer Assists, lessons learned (or otherwise) and Knowledge Assets, do contact me direct or visit the Knoco website.

Collaboration in an idyllic, rural setting - how KM frees us up to do more with less

Regular readers of this blog will recall last year’s post about my local village fair.  Key people were away the night beforehand, meaning that those of us left behind had to struggle to work out how to put up the marquees - which poles went where and then into which holes etc.

The end result was that we spent far too long putting them up when we could have been enjoying a drink in the warm evening sunshine.

So how did we get on this year, I hear you ask?

True to my word, I used photos I had taken of the finished products to make rudimentary ‘Knowledge Assets’.  This meant we could quickly identify whether it was the ‘spines’ ‘ribs’ or ‘legs’ of the marquees which required the short, medium or long poles and so could lay everything out with minimal waste.

Moreover, 2 key people (whose absence last year had left us flailing around with little idea what we were doing) were instead available to advise on the best construction sequence to follow.  They could also point out little tips - like how many ties were needed for each length of pole – which helped reduce waste and ensured we were able to put up all the marquees, despite it appearing that we didn’t have enough equipment.

Their assistance was akin to that of a ‘Peer Assist’: an effective way of bringing new project teams up to speed with the tips, good practice and critical know-how that have been hard-won on previous projects.  Of course, what I now need to do is update the Knowledge Asset (i.e. in this instance, a diagram with guidance notes) with these experts' insights, thereby reducing our reliance on them next year and freeing them up for more valuable tasks.

The end result?

Faster, safer, more efficient marquee construction followed by greater, more prolonged and better-deserved beer consumption. 

By some.  Apparently….

Let us help you do more with less through KM tools such as these and more.  Contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

 

 

When will they ever learn? How KM can help our politicians....

Here in the UK, the dust is settling after the most surprising general election result for over 20 years.  All pollsters, commentators and the politicians themselves thought we were heading for a hung parliament.  But they were wrong.

The media had even set up studios opposite the Houses of Parliament that were thought necessary to cover the anticipated negotiations between parties that had not managed to win an overall majority.  The awnings and scaffolding are being taken down this weekend.

David Cameron, the Conservative Party has won a majority whilst the Scottish National Party (SNP) has taken all but 3 parliamentary seats in Scotland.  The Labour Party lost 10% of its Members of Parliament (MP), including several senior figures that had thought they would be Cabinet members by now.  The Liberal Democrats lost 47 MPs, retaining a paltry 8.  The UK Independence Party (UKIP), punished by the first-past-the-post electoral system, polled nearly 4 million votes yet now has only one MP – a perhaps unfair quirk of FPTP requiring concentration of votes more than numbers alone. (For example, the SNP polled a third of UKIP’s number of votes yet added 50 MPs to its numbers because of this clustering).

The obvious fall-out so far?

·        Ed Miliband has resigned as leader of The Labour Party;

·        Nick Clegg has resigned as leader of The Liberal Democrats;

·        Nigel Farage has resigned as leader of UKIP;

·        An independent inquiry will examine how the pre-election opinion polls got it so wrong.

Much of media discussion since the election has focused on these negative consequences (for those concerned, naturally) and speculation over what lessons can be learned.  Many presume that Labour and the Liberal Democrats in particular now have to examine what went wrong and try to put it right in time for the next election, scheduled for 2020.

This analysis is not wrong but it is unhelpful for those of us that use knowledge management (KM) in general and ‘lessons learned’ in particular to improve performance.  (A comprehensive look at lessons and what should be done with them to drive performance starts here.)

Why unhelpful?  Because it reinforces the idea that lessons are negative and that we only learn when we make mistakes.  We can and should learn when things go according to plan also.  Where outcomes exceed expectations there is surely an even greater need to learn why, to ensure that such success is repeated and not wasted?

It is not just the ‘losers’ that should try to identify lessons but the ‘winners’ as well.

So, whilst David Cameron is selecting his new Government, and Nicola Sturgeon (i.e. the leader of the SNP) plans how to use the enhanced influence her Westminster MPs will bring her, they should also set in train the processes by which we learn from recent events.

Team-based After Action Reviews should be held, as well as larger Retrospects.  Key individuals should be interviewed and the knowledge of highest value (i.e. how to campaign; how to record voting intentions; how to target key voters; how to win!), identified, captured, shared and any good practice replicated and embedded within party procedures.  Knowledge Assets and Learning Histories should be created or updated.  Party workers approaching retirement or those leaving for pastures new should contribute also.  There is much that can be done, although this may not seem necessary to some.  Indeed, whilst the ‘losers’ plainly see the need for change, those happy with the results might not. 

Moreover, there is the risk that obvious successes might obscure mistakes that have been made but which seem inconsequential in the warm glow of victory.  Failing to identify and address these now might mean victory is not repeated.

Real adaptive learning is hard enough in commercial organisations, with those implementing KM initiatives often needing to be ‘politically savvy’ and well-attuned to the dominant culture.  In the world of actual politics, red in tooth and claw, it might appear all but impossible.

Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen but it does mean expert advice would be useful.

If any recently depressed or elated politician wants such advice, please contact Knoco for help!

Are we building a farm or a zoo?

At the weekend my daughters (4 and 3) and I played with our trunk of Lego for an hour or so.

I happily followed their instructions – sometimes exacting, sometimes a little vague – and inwardly laughed when one said to the other, “Oh, are we building a zoo?  I thought we were building a farm.”

In fairness, the horse and chickens had appeared perfectly at home with the giraffe and elephant but, for my eldest, it just looked wrong and needed fixing.  Happily, on this occasion at least, the girls were able to settle their differences relatively peacefully. 

It’s not always like that, funnily enough.

This conversation reminded me of the numerous post-project lesson capture meetings I have run for clients and, in particular, the frequency with which ‘clarity of scope’ comes up as being at the heart of numerous over-runs and over-spends.

Frequent visitors to this blog will recall an earlier examination of differing interpretations of scope by clients and contractors here.

All too often, a client will presume that its contractor’s understanding of what it wants is the same as its own.  Just as all too often a contractor will rush to produce a proposal without ensuring that its assumptions are valid.  In both cases, time is considered a luxury and all involved, excited and enthused, just want to get on with ‘doing something’ and getting paid for it.

‘More haste, less speed’ is a well-worn phrase for a reason.  One project I worked on had an initial budget of $1bn.  The final spend was over $1.7bn.  Perhaps a bit more time discussing up-front might be an idea?

Consulting lessons from past projects at the bidding and planning stages can help the arrogant, ignorant and naïve from promising too much for too little.  Bringing people in from past projects as internal consultants, perhaps through Peer Assists, is also a good idea.

Hopefully, my daughters will come to learn that sitting down together and discussing what they want to do is time well spent.  Hopefully, companies with big projects to run will do so as well.