My favourite things...

Next month marks my tenth year as an independent consultant.  How time flies when you're, well, learning to fly...

As I look back over those years, and the privilege of working with 120 different organisations, there are many high spots (as well the odd moment I'd prefer to forget!).  One particular type of activity stands out as my favourite, running a knowledge-sharing and learning consortium.

Let me explain how they work, and why they are so effective.

They typically start with a conversation initiated by a client which goes something like this...

“We keep going to conferences and feel like we're hearing from the usual suspects, and seeing the same glossy presentations, but not learning anything new.   Could you find us a number of peer organisations to learn from and with - and facilitate a number of high-intensity meetings for us?”

And in a nutshell, that’s what a knowledge-sharing consortium is: a limited series of meetings between different organisations at similar levels of maturity with a commitment to openly share and learn. You could say that it’s the perfect blend of a Community of Practice and a Peer Assist, with a brilliant mix of non-competing organisations.

I have co-facilitated my consortium programmes with my good friend and consultant colleague Elizabeth Lank. It takes the energy and abilities of two facilitators to help 25 participants get the maximum benefit from their investment. You need to give it everything you’ve got. I know that both Elizabeth and I end each event with that feeling of “positive-tiredness” that comes after the last member has departed happy and the celebratory G&T has been poured, to help with our After Action Review.

So thank you to Schlumberger, Shell, BT, Unilever, GSK, Freshfields, Oracle, ABN Amro, Syngenta,  Pfizer, PwC, Freshfields, Linklaters, NHS, Audit Commission, the International Olympic Committee and others - thank you for making those events so memorable and enjoyable.

Here are my reflections...

Lessons, recommendations and design principles for a knowledge-sharing consortium.

  • Forming a consortium works best when there is a founding organization – a client with a need and a curiosity and desire to learn. Recruiting and inviting other participating companies is so much easier when you can say, for example, “Schlumberger are looking to learn from some other great knowledge companies about maximising the value from Communities of Practice. Would you be interested in joining us?”

  • We found that 4-8 member organisations worked best. Any less than 4 and members feel that they are exhausting the possibilities for learning. If you go much higher then 8 and it becomes too difficult to sustain relationships or remember what was discussed – you end up with something more like a conference.

  • Ask for 2-4 participants per company. This enables them to provide members from complimentary functions in their own organisations, and gives a critical mass for company break-out moments when they create space and time to consider “what will we do with all the good practice ideas that we’re picking up?. It also enables them to share their own story from multiple perspectives.

  • The series of meetings (usually 3 or 4 over a 12 month period) is deliberately time-bound, with a clear end in mind. This gives a focus and a helpful sense of urgency to extract the maximum value from every hour of each event.

  • Invest in forming relationships right from the start. Ensure each event has an over-night stay in a pleasant venue, great food and drink, space for informal conversations. Ensure that people have bios or social media profiles available, and include early ice-breaker events which make use of this information and get the group laughing together.

  • Ensure that there are sessions where participating organisations tell their story (as creatively as they like – you might chose to ban PowerPoint from some sessions). Balance this time evenly between telling and asking questions. Do everything you can to make it unlike a conference!

  • Solve real problems brought by the participants, as early as the first meeting. This sets the tone not just for subsequent face-to-face meetings, but creates the expectation and openness to request and respond.

  • Have fun together! We’ve incorporated treasure hunts, photo-safaris, museum trips, role-play, board games, playlists and karaoke into the designs in order to create memories, bind the group together, and, well enjoy having fun!

  • Make full use of artifacts. If every picture tells a story, then physical objects can write a book. We’ve curated displays of awards, posters, t-shirts, stress balls, card games, mugs, books, calendars and quizzes and explored their effectiveness at length. It’s been brilliant to see some consensual stealing-with-pride going on between the members.

  • Stay flexible. The best-planned agenda needs to be sacrificed if the group collectively choose to go somewhere else. We’ve learned to build in flexibility and use methods like Openspace to keep the power of choice firmly in the hands of the participants.

  • Vary the methods, techniques and tools – and debrief their use with the participants. We have found that our participants have really valued the use of new techniques. We’ve introduced reverse brainstorming, appreciative inquiry, project retrospects, social reporting, knowledge asset creation, social network mapping, speed-consulting, peer assists – and some experimental techniques which evolve on the day. Every time we use a technique, we review the outcome and the process and encourage reflection in company teams on how they can be adapted for use.

  • Focus facilitation on the process rather than the content.  Elizabeth and I are both frequently called upon to speak as experts on knowledge management and collaboration, but in a room with 25 experienced practitioners, our focus is usually on helping them to learn from each other - and just interjecting with the occasional story or 10 minute context-setting session.

  • Keep the discussion going between events. We’ve successfully used Google Sites, teleconferences, vlogging, individual telephone calls and even good old email to keep the party going between face-to-face events, and to build anticipation for the next meeting.

Stop press! We've had an approach from a large international company who want to participate in a consortium focusing on effective collaboration, virtual working and network/community building, and we have just started the search for suitable consortium members.

So if this an area that your organisation has experience with, and you're particularly interest in joining with some peer organisations to learn more, then please contact me for details.  I can guarantee it's even better than raindrops on roses...

Looking back – KM highlights from last year (part 2)

Continuing from my top ten KM consulting highlights (in no particular order!) from 2014...6. Sharing Knowledge in the Offshore Wind community

The UK is a world leader in the Offshore Wind Energy business, and with multiple companies involved in planning, developing and constructing wind farms, there is huge potential for reducing the cost (and increasing the size of renewable energy “pie”) by sharing knowledge between the industry players – who happen to be competitors! It’s a classic example of tragedy of the commons.

I have been working with all of the main stakeholders over the past year to develop a community of practice, a common language, and a series of sharing workshops to help this group of companies to trust, share, connect and learn whilst respecting the commercial limitations which exist. Where of you start? Where are the safe places to begin knowledge-sharing? It’s an unconventional community of practice – but a fascinating one to work with.

7. Communities in Copenhagen 

After nearly ten years of independent consultancy in KM, I finally managed to combine a business trip with an extra family holiday. My wife and daughters accompanied me to Copenhagen for a brilliant weekend, whilst I stayed on to work with Maersk Oil and help shape their work on communities of practice.

Slide02

Slide02

8. The African Evaluation Association conference in Cameroon.

I have to admit, I love visiting new countries, so when I was asked to speak and deliver workshops at the AfrEA 2014 conference in Yaounde, Cameroon, it didn’t take much to persuade me.

Being exposed to the sheer breadth and depth of M&E activity in the development sector – and the natural way in which Knowledge Management dovetails into this important work was an eye-opener. Meeting Rituu Nanda, who has worked so hard with the AIDS constellation, building on Geoff’s work with UNAIDS which we wrote up in Learning to Fly, was a real highlight for me.

Oh and the bread basket was certainly eye-catching!

croc

croc

9. Board Gamification in Syngenta

MAKE award winners Syngenta have been one of my longest-running clients, and I’ve had the opportunity to support their KM Strategy, Communities of Practice, Lessons Learned and Operational Excellence programmes. Whether it’s cartoons, glass knowledge-sharing awards, pocket cards or toolkits, I’ve always enjoyed their love of embedding knowledge in artifacts and their courage to innovate. One of the best examples of this was the creation of a board game about the early stages of leading of a community of practice, based on Snakes and Ladders. Of course, we called it "Snakes and Leaders". The game was used as part of an internal training programme for Network Leaders, and incorporated the ups and downs, celebrations and pitfalls of the first 100 days of a typical network, with some additional randomised surprises and challenges.

Here it is being played by fellow participants in the Knowledge Driven Performance consortium.

Snakes and Leaders

Snakes and Leaders

10.  Tearfund

Tearfund is a charity which has been important to me for as long as I can remember.  Their approach to After Action Reviews made it into Learning to Fly, and I had the chance to visit them to work on their Organisational Learning Strategy a few years ago.  Towards the end of last year, I was asked to join their People and Learning committee as an non-executive external advisor; something I really look forward to contributing towards.  What makes this extra special is that my eldest daughter Martha is also working with Tearfund on their No Child Taken campaign against Human Trafficking as a public figure, following her appearance on the Great British Bake Off (aka PBS British Baking Show), so we will be able to share knowledge over her cake experiments!

nct

nct

Looking forward to seeing what 2015 has in store...

Looking back - KM highlights from the last yea

The start of a new year is a good time to look back over the previous 12 months and reflect on some highlights – so here are the first five of my ten favourite moments of Knowledge Management Consulting from 2014 - in no particular order - I loved them all! If you ever wondered what I get up to as a KM consultant, it will give you some insights...

1. A whirlwind trip to Iran.  After a number of virtual presentations via Sharif University, I made my first trip to Iran, visiting Tehran and then flying to the beautiful, ancient city of Isfahan. What an amazing appetite for knowledge!  After presenting at the Iran MAKE awards ceremony, I ran (see what I did there?)  a number of simultaneously translated workshops for large audiences who had huge interest and no end of questions.  My host from Sharif had to spirit me away to another room during the coffee times so that I had a chance to draw breath.  Here's a shot of some of some participants conducting the Marshmallow Tower exercise to apply the fundamentals of KM.

iran

iran

2. Ethiopia with the UN.  I have had the privilege of working with the United Nation System Staff college for several years now, and visited Addis Ababa twice last year to facilitate workshops on KM and Appreciative Inquiry with the Economic Commission for Africa. We discussed networking, and learning in depth, and worked up a 10-year vision for KM in the region. The photo below was a fun physical network analysis which brought a smile to everyone's faces!

onaeca

onaeca

3. Google Glass for Knowledge Capture.  I worked with a major Pharmaceutical company on their KM strategy  and had the opportunity to visit their R&D facility on the east coast of the US to explore the connection between KM and Innovation, and encountered the use of Google Glass to capture and really understand the actions of development scientists.  I had my first chance to play with them. Not exactly Raybans, but I still felt kind of cool.

googleglass

googleglass

4. Teaching KM for Programme Managers At Skolkovo Business School, Moscow.  I have been part of the faculty at Skolkovo for two years now, and have enjoyed several trips to deliver modules on corporate leadership development programmes.  The business school was only build in 2005.  As you can see, it's one of Moscow's more innovative buildings.

5. The KDP Consortium visit to the Olympic Museum.   If I had to choose a favourite assignment, I guess it would be the work I did with Elizabeth Lank facilitating the "Knowledge Driven Performance Consortium" programme for 20 KM leaders and champions from  six different organisations. We met three times over a year to share experiences and learn lessons from a set of mature KM programmes. It was lovely to meet up again with old friends from MAKE winners Schlumberger and Syngenta, and to see the experience shared both ways with new clients like the IOC who hosted our meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland and gave us a private tour of their brilliant Olympic Museum. It's a brilliant example of a knowledge asset which you can walk through and interact with.

So there are my first five highlights; five more to follow later this week.

What a privilege to have a job which enables me to see so much of the world, and support such a diverse group of clients. I'm counting my blessings.