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.

Knoco newsletter - KM value

The latest Knoco newsletter - on KM value - is out now!

If you'd like to discuss how knowledge management creates value with a KM consultant, please get in touch, either 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.

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!

The NHS is starting to learn - keep it up!

This blog has previously looked (here, here, here, here and here!) at the various ways in which the British National Health Service (NHS) has grappled with knowledge management in general and, specifically, has sought to learn from both managerial and clinical mistakes.
Today brings some new developments to the story that began with the ‘Mid Staffs’ scandal a few years ago.
The Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, will today be announcing a series of measures aimed at encouraging both openness and honesty about mistakes, as well as demonstrable learning from them.
Details will no doubt emerge later today but this article on the Huffington Post website summarises the expected announcements, with the key points, and my comments thereon, being:

·        Legal protection for anyone coming forward with information relating to hospital mistakes – this is a welcome move that may yet embed the elusive ‘just culture’ approach to handling error and balancing the need for accountability and learning;

·        Independent review and confirmation of the causes of all deaths in UK hospitals from 2018 – whilst this sounds a good idea, more details are needed as there remains the risk that good governance is simply being outsourced and that another adversarial interface has been created;

·        A so-called ‘Learning from Mistakes League’ that will measure the level of openness across NHS organisations – again, more details are needed but this sounds good as it is making it clear that learning and openness are expected; however, this needs to be managed carefully as inter-organisational learning will not happen if such a league is used as some form of internal competition – nothing kills the sharing of good practice dead more effectively than rewarding people for what they know, rather than what they share.

Effective lesson learning requires a framework within which lessons are identified, analysed, managed and then implemented.  Such a framework requires 4 enablers:

·        People with defined roles and accountabilities;

·        Processes by which lessons are identified, captured, shared and embedded in daily practices;

·        Technology through which lessons are captured, shared and managed to completion;

·        Governance by which managers clarify their expectations for lessons to be learned, reward good lesson learning performance and support such activities through the allocation of time, money and people.

The presence and effectiveness of these enablers is best measured through some form of audit or assessment, like the one we offer at Knoco.
Let’s await further details with interest and perhaps also think about how well our own organisations identify, manage and implement lessons from experience, good and bad alike.
For a conversation about lessons learned, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.