These things don't happen on their own, you know....

At university, I read Politics and Philosophy, which included a module called, 'Space, Time and Infinity'.  It was awesome.  I loved irritating my housemates by pretending not to understand vague terms such as 'this morning' or 'tomorrow night'...

Various theories have been put forward to show that time is a real phenomenon, as opposed to a construction of human thinking to help us make greater sense of the world and our place in it.

One of these is the 'entropic theory of time', which I shall simplify, if only to spare my blushes and retain your attention.

Entropy means 'disorder'.  Most things in our world, free from outside interference, will become disordered, thereby showing greater entropy.  It is this direction, from order to disorder, that shows the passage (and direction) of time.  Think of the untended, increasingly weedy garden, the neglected, muddy car or indeed any room in the house recently visited by small children....

So far, so what?

Much of human existence has required our 'interference' in things, to create and sustain the things that enable us to live the lives we enjoy today.  The food we eat, the clothes we wear and the transport we take have all been developed through our deliberately choosing to do things and to continue doing those things.  Some discoveries have been accidental (e.g. some vaccines, hot air balloons, Post-it notes etc.) but our exploitation of them has only been possible through our continued, deliberate efforts.

As it is with human history, so it is with knowledge management (KM).

Without KM, organisations remain in states of entropy, to greater or lesser degrees:

• New ideas don't take hold and spread without the energy with which (or the channels along which) to move them - which means innovations remain isolated;
• Lessons don't get identified and DEFINITELY don't get learned, without people making the necessary effort - which means the same mistakes get made, over and over again;
• Best practices don't get developed, let alone embedded, without a system of creation, review and update - which means performance is inconsistent and the quality varied;
• Knowledge doesn't stick around when people leave without a system of retention and transfer - which means those left behind have to start from scratch, all over again.

Without a deliberate KM approach, far too many organisations resemble the unkempt garden, the dirty car or the sofa with crayon scrawled all over it:  mistakes are repeated, over and over again; business continues to be lost from failed bids; time is wasted tracking down the guy that did this thing before.

So, KM is not 'natural' and will not happen by itself.  It requires a deliberate decision from senior management to investigate, design, test and implement a KM approach.

We don't have inviting gardens by accident; we don't have clean cars by accident and we don't have tidy houses by accident (nor, for that matter, presentable children) - so why on earth would we expect our knowledge to be managed by accident?

If you'd like a conversation about deliberately choosing to manage your organisation's knowledge, 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.

Negotiating with a 4-year old (or, how knowledge assets can help us all)

Everyday knowledge assets

Regular readers of this blog will know that a 'knowledge asset' is a term used by those of us working in knowledge management (KM) to describe a tool containing key knowledge on a critical topic.  We create such assets using knowledge capture processes (i.e. Interviews, Retrospects etc.) and then display and structure the knowledge in as 'user-friendly' a way as possible.

The aim of a knowledge asset is not to create a record for posterity or for knowledge-holders to 'dump' everything they know into one place.  Rather, it is aimed at the 'knowledge customer' - i.e. the person who needs certain knowledge in a format that will help them when they need it.

The following are examples of everyday knowledge assets:

• 'How to' guides
• Assembly instructions for newly-purchased tools, toys, equipment etc.
• Recipes
• Etc.

We can all think of examples of when we have used such resources and found them to be unhelpful.  Often this is because they:

• Lack sufficient detail
• Contain only text where images would help, especially on key processes
• Use terms that don't make sense to us, the user

In short, these issues all have the same root cause - namely, that the guidance material has not been produced with the end-user in mind.  Or at least, has not been proof-read by someone that knows nothing about the topic.  This 'ignorance' is helpful because it reveals any hidden assumptions on the part of either the person with the knowledge or the person creating the asset (they are often not the same person - did you think Gordon Ramsay wrote his own recipes?!).

You will recall that I described the main beneficiary of a knowledge asset as "the person who needs certain knowledge in a format that will help them when they need it".  This is a broad definition and rightly so - knowledge assets can be vast, complex, structured works that take a project team from a bare piece of land to a complete and full-functioning new airport, or they can simply save someone a bit of time and a bit of stress - it depends on the need, the value, and the resources and time available.

Below is a simple example of how a knowledge asset can be used to save a bit of time and quite a lot of stress....

'Pictures paint a thousand words'

Picture the scene - a family getting ready for a day out, to meet far-off relatives:

Mother: "Come and sit down and let me do your hair!  How shall we do it today?  Shall we do the fish-tail plait?"

Daughter (aged 4): "What's that?  Doesn't sound very nice..."

Mother: "It's lovely.  You like it.  It's where the plait has two sides to it that meet in the middle....come and sit down, we haven't got much time!"

Daughter: "What does it look like?"

Mother: "I've just told you.  Sit down!"

Daughter: "Show me...."
Mother: "I can't show you!  I can only do it and then show you in the mirror.  Sit down!"

And so on for far longer than one would want, with everyone getting frustrated....

It was at this point that I had a brainwave (he adds, modestly).  Once my wife had finally negotiated the finishing of
said fish-tail plait, I took a photo of it for future reference.  Since then, each variation of hairstyle (i.e. plaits, pony-tails, bunches etc.) has been photographed such that now, it takes only a few seconds for Mother and Daughter to agree on the style of the day, without the noise and commotion and disagreement that we all suffered before we used this very simple knowledge asset.

Of course, for the analogy to work 100%, we would need to add guidance notes, diagrams, FAQs, videos etc. all of which would help others perform this 'essential task'.

Now, remove hairdressing scenario with a four-year old daughter and replace with any high-pressure situation where details need to be communicated to a workforce lacking fluent English - diagrams, photos and other imagery can help convey methods, finished products and variants thereof.  It's not hard to see how a little bit of effort up-front can make things so much easier further down the line.

For a chat about how knowledge assets can help save you time, money and reduce stress, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

You can't manage it all, so don't try. Focus on where the need (and value!) is greatest.

Where should we start?

When an organisation starts to investigate knowledge management (KM), it can be both intimidating and bewildering as to where to start.  Having made that vital leap in recognising that "this is something we should be doing", some clients get scared at the thought of how much work lies ahead of them, how long it will take and how much it will cost.

In these circumstances, a risk-based approach can help focus resources on those areas where the need is greatest.

At Knoco, we use a 'knowledge scan' to help clients identify the areas of knowledge where their KM programme should start, as well as what kind of KM interventions will help.  Sometimes the term 'Knowledge Audit' is also used.

Using either interviews or workshops, a 'knowledge map' of the organisation is created, which shows the numerous functional areas (i.e. departments, programmes, teams etc.) and the knowledge topics used therein (Note: some will cut across different areas).

Knowledge scan workshop underway

Then, the interviewees or workshop participants rank each topic against criteria, some of which are shown below:

Criticality

• Criticality now – how critical is this knowledge topic to success at the moment?
• Criticality 3-5 yrs – how critical is this knowledge topic to success in the near future (3-5 years)?

Documentation level

• Documentation level – how well documented is the know-how associated with this topic?

Knowledge spread

• Spread now – how dispersed is the knowledge of this topic within the company?
• Spread 3-5 years – how dispersed does this knowledge need to be in the near future?
  

Maturity level

• K maturity level – How mature is this knowledge (from brand new, to fully mature and well established)

Level of in-house knowledge

• Level now – How much does the company know about this topic at the moment, from “we are global experts” to “we know nothing”?
• Level in 3-5 yrs - How much does the company need to know about this topic in the near future (3-5 years)

Replaceability

• Replaceability – How easy will this knowledge be to replace if we lose it (eg can we buy it off the shelf)?
• Process owner and experts – Who is the company subject-matter expert (SME)? Who are the back-up experts?

Retention Risk

• Retention risk – How much is this knowledge at risk of loss through loss of personnel?

Some significant 'number-crunching' follows, which enables us to identify which topics are of greatest value to the organisation and which KM interventions would be most appropriate:

• For example, for those topics considered critical, but with low levels of documentation, the creation of Knowledge Assets would be helpful.
• For topics that are hard to replace and where the risk of knowledge loss is high (i.e. through retirement of key experts), a Knowledge Retention and Transfer project would be worthwhile.
• Finally, for topics where there is a high-level of in-house knowledge and a high future criticality, Communities of Practice might be worth considering.

So don't panic and think you can manage everything or even need to - you can't and you don't.  However, what you do need to do is work out which topics are of greatest value, and then start there.  These will also be the areas where 'quick wins' can be won - meaning those which demonstrate great value, build trust in KM and create excitement as word spreads, thereby building momentum for other work that may require senior sign-off and/or investment.

I recently held a webinar on Knowledge Scans and Audits and would be happy to re-run this for anyone interested in learning more about this topic.  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.

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.

How can organisations stop forgetting?

This morning, a Linkedin connection pointed me towards this BBC article about the issue of institutional memory loss and I look forward to listening to the programme it mentions later on this evening.

However, I was struck by the article’s lack of any formal mention of knowledge management (KM), which has been addressing the problems of knowledge loss for over 20 years now.

Regular readers of this blog will be aware that we at Knoco work as knowledge management consultants, helping organisations to identify critical knowledge, through knowledge scans, and then help them develop knowledge retention strategies.  This is done through knowledge retention interviews and the creation of knowledge assets. 

We have some freebie downloads on our website with template and guidance notes on some of these and other tools.

I recommend blog readers to read the article, listen to the programme and, for those that find the problems therein familiar, feel free to contact me for a chat about how KM can help prevent (let alone address) these problems!

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.

 

 

'Tis the season to be knowledgeable - KM at Christmas

This Christmas, we had lunch at my Mother’s house, with siblings, nieces and nephews all over-excited and loving every minute of it.  My contribution to the main meal was the stuffing.  I had watched a Tom Kerridge cookery programme a few days earlier and his pork, sage, onion and chestnut stuffing (wrapped in bacon!) looked fabulous so I had to give it a go.

I found the recipe online, using my phone and went out to buy the ingredients.

When it came to some of the details, the recipe was somewhat vague, so I re-watched the programme clip, again on my phone.  I also read some of the comments left by others, noting a couple of warnings about one key element in the recipe.

The result?  Amazing stuffing, complimented by all that tried it – my stepfather even told us twice how much he liked it which is rare praise indeed.

So what?

Well, it struck me how here was a simple example of knowledge management (KM) at work.
A cookery recipe is a ‘knowledge asset’, designed to tell us how to make a dish in the absence of the chef that created it.  Recipes are more useful if they are clear and detailed, ideally with diagrams and photographs throughout.  In the case of the stuffing, I was fortunate to re-watch the relevant clip, again adding further detail and context.

A further point – reading the comments made by others that had already tried the recipe both gave me confidence and highlighted things I should look out for.  These benefits are just 2 of those gained by membership of another KM tool, the Community of Practice (CoP).  Being able to ask questions of others that have gone before us is immensely powerful and whilst all I was doing was reading others’ experiences, it reminded me of what CoPs offer.

Now, delete cookery and stuffing and insert ‘sales pitch’ or ‘branch opening’ or 'well drilling' or ‘airport construction’ and we can see how powerful KM can be for those that want to try something new but want to benefit from those that have done it before.

I think I might go and try to persuade my stepfather….

For a conversation about how KM can help you sell, buy, design, construct, operate, dispose, recruit, train, employ or retain, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.