What stops us from putting knowledge into action?

Our BMW is nearly 8 years old now.  It’s been brilliant, and it’s had to put up with a lot from a growing family, and now a dog with an affinity for mud and water.

It’s about this age when cars generally - regardless of the manufacturer -  begin to reveal some of the longer-term glitches to owners and manufacturers send letters to notify people like me that “there is an extremely small chance that you may experience a problem with the battery wiring in the luggage compartment, and please would I contact my local dealer at my earlier convenience where they will be glad to examine and fix any potential problems without charge…”

If I wanted to sell my car (probably to someone who doesn't read this blog!), then I have a choice:

• Sell them the car, and give the new owner the keys and a small pile of vehicle recall notices.  These represent all of the lessons about the 535D Touring that BMW and their customers have learned over the past 8 years, so they are, of course, invaluable to the new owner…
• Take the car to the dealer, get the problems fixed for free and the vehicle record updated on their systems.  Throw away the recall letters which now have no purpose. Give the new owner the keys.

It’s clear which is the better option.  Now let's park the BMW analogy and think about knowledge management (which, coincidentally, BMW are also very good at).

In my experience, many organisations sometimes treat lessons learned like they are an end in themselves – as though the value has to remain in the document - rather than where possible leading to actions which embody the learning.  These actions might include updating a process, policy, standard or system has been updated to incorporate the learning, which  removes the need to promote the lessons or recommendations to future teams.

So why do some organisations settle for a pile of lessons rather than a set of improvements?

Some possibilities:

• It’s much easier to write a document than see a change through to completion.
• It’s too difficult to find the owner of the process which needs changing.
• I’m measured on how many lessons our project captures.
• We have invested in customizing SharePoint to capture lessons learned documents, and need to show that we’re using it.
• Although I wrote the recommendation, I’m not 100% confident that we should change the process for everyone.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not decrying any kind of activity to capture lessons learned. Sometimes the learning is such that there is no obvious process or standard which can be changed, and there is no immediate customer for the knowledge.  In those cases we need to preserve it in such a way that our learning is expressed as a recommendation for the next team, and is supported with the reason, the narrative, any relevant artifacts and the contact details of the person behind the recommendation.  These things all add context to what would otherwise be a recommendation in isolation.  The next team then have more background to assess whether this particular recommendation is relevant in their world.  I wrote about this on my February posting on dead butterfly collections.

However, I do think it's worth looking at the barriers which prevent people from from translating their personal or team learning into an improvement for everyone.   Perhaps we're not selling the idea of lesson-learning in the best way?  Hearts and minds, or just minds?   Commitment or compliance?  Value or box-ticking?

Let's not let the tail wag the dog!

The ultimate Knowledge Management recipe?

I grew up in Devon, (south west England), surrounded by fields and sheep. A beautiful area, but sadly too remote to be a practical base for a much-traveled management consultant! One of the things about sheep is that you can see where they've been on the hillsides.  Their propensity for following each other leads to paths being worn away over the generations of sheep - becoming, quite literally, the path of least resistance.

We can identify similar patterns in our organisations.  We can discover who the go-to people are, and we can reveal how they interact with their colleagues, how technical advice flows, how requests for help are requited and where ideas are incubated.  That’s basis of organisational network analysis, which can be an excellent tool for determining the focus of a KM strategy or Community of Practice plan.

Of course, if you’re a sheep, and your landscape is unchanging, then a well-worn path is a good thing.

In most cases though, parts of our business landscape are changing.  Yesterday’s hill is tomorrow’s valley. However, it’s easy for sheep-like behaviour to persist, because the tracks are entrenched.

Contrast the behaviour of sheep with the waggle dance of the honey bee.   There’s an excellent 7-minute documentary about this on YouTube, but here’s a quick summary:

When a bee identifies a source of pollen, it returns to the hive and performs a ‘dance’ in the presence of the other bees.  The dance follows a figure-of-eight pattern and includes a pronounced waggle.  The direction of the waggle relates to the location of the pollen source – a precise angle in relation to the sun (even when cloudy) in relation to the hive; the duration of the waggle indicates the distance to the source.  It’s an amazing piece of design, and the documentary explains it very well.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U]

In contrast to the sheep, the sources of pollen are short-lived - perhaps just a few days, for a few hours of the day. This action of discovery-broadcast-sign posting reminds me of the way in which organisations are using micro-broadcast tools like Yammer.  I was privileged to get some insights into the way Deloitte (UK) are using it recently, and was impressed by the buzz(!) of discovery and sharing which it had generated.

So reflecting on the sheep and the bees,  I'm left with a belief that:

i) we need to understand the sheep paths on our organisations.  They may be positive and worthy of reinforcement, or they may be historical patterns of a "ghost" organisation, rather than a current picture of where the optimum knowledge flows should be.

ii) we also need to encourage the bee-haviour (sorry!) and enjoy the discovery of resources  - and subsequently the discovery of shared interests, expertise, passions and ultimately informal networks.

So perhaps the ultimate knowledge-sharing dish is roast lamb glazed in honey?

Food for Thought from TED - JP Rangaswami

Thank you to @susanfrost for sending this my way. Some great food for thought - literally - from JP Rangaswami, using Food as a metaphor for our relationship with information. It's an interesting and stimulating comparison, and you have to chuckle when he extends the metaphor to Fox News to McDonalds at the end!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3A1LvXRnpVg&feature=digest_wed]

Wanted: Knowledge Assets - Dead or Alive?

There have been a few threads on LinkedIn KM groups on the topic of “knowledge assets” recently. It’s one of those words which gets thrown around by KM people without any agreed definition.  For many people, they are interchangeable with the term “information assets”, but sound sexier.  (Much like databases became “knowledgebases” a few years ago.)

Now I’m not going to assert definitions here – rather to give my view on the different perspectives, and share the way I distinguish between knowledge assets and information assets, building on the descriptions that Geoff and I wrote in “Learning to Fly”.

Speaking of flight, there’s something about butterfly collections which always leaves me feeling slightly saddened.   The colours and fragility are still there, but of course the life has gone.

I think we do well to remind ourselves that when we capture knowledge and write it down as information, we kill it. That’s not to say that the information is not immensely valuable, and may even have a long shelf life.

But it is dead.

Knowledge is information with the life still in it!

For me, the role of a knowledge asset is to consolidate the learning from a number of activities, and produce a distilled set of guidelines or recommendations, with (importantly) a clear and well-linked signpost to contact the source, to drill down into more detail and examples, and to contribute further stories to build the asset further.  Oh, and there’s some kind of mechanism for validating the input – ideally via a community of practice.  They keep it alive.

I've seen a lot of examples which start out as "knowledge assets", but quickly become "knowledge graveyards" because there is no community to own and refresh the content, and the links between the information and the authors/sources are not clear or maintained. Once you lose the connection between knowledge and the person who provided it, it's a bit like switching off its life support machine...

• There is an "extractionist" school of thought out there which focuses on separating knowledge from an individual, then combining, distilling and packaging in into a convenient and accessible products.

• And there's a "connectivist" school of thought which seeks to turn information into an advertisement for a conversation with the source.

I think the best knowledge assets combine these perspectives.   Too much extractionism (is that a real word?), and you can end up a logical but inflexible, self-reinforcing summary of the views of the editor-in-chief.  Too much connectivism, and you can get endless repeating, diverging threads and snippets which can be frustrating to draw insight from, and require too many phone calls to answer the all questions they elicit.

There are some topics which lend themselves to something approaching a “single version of the truth” (we call that known area “best practice” don’t we?), and for them, the logic of an extractionist-oriented knowledge asset will work.

Then there are topics which are more complicated, and benefit from the constant iteration and interaction of a connection-rich asset. (That’s knowable “good practice” in the Cynefin framework).

Cynefin framework, from MBAworld.com

I suspect it’s in these two quadrants where knowledge assets add value. Shifting further to the left takes us on a journey into emergence and chaos where pre-packaged knowledge is unlikely to fit the bill, although the fragments and stories they contain may well be informative.

One of the LinkedIn discussions asked: "Is a cookbook was an example of a knowledge asset?"

My answer was:

... a cookbook isn't really a very good example of a knowledge asset because it represents a snapshot in time of a particular recipe, and doesn't usually provide me with an easy way to ask questions of the chef, or other cooks who are learning/experimenting/adapting... I would say it's really an Information Asset.  That's not a bad thing - I have a kitchen full of them!

However, a recipe *blog*, which has all the benefit of the book, but which is socially constructed, grows and develops, commented-on added to by other cooks and enthusiasts who ask and answer questions...  Now that feels more like a *knowledge* asset to me.

School. On reflection.

We spent some time with extended family over new year, and I overheard one of the younger boys, Ted, recounting his tales of mischief at school – and the subsequent punishments he had received.

I was perturbed to hear him say that the school no longer uses the word “detention” because it has negative connotations (Guantanamo has a lot to answer for...),

No, instead labelling staying late after school or missing break as “detention”, the children in this particular school  are threatened with.....                  wait for it...

Reflection!

Yes, the biggest threat that you can hold out to an eleven-year old is that of Reflection!

So Ted gets caught copying someone work, and is sentenced to a period of reflection until he’s learned his lesson.

In ten years time, Ted may well enter the corporate world where (if he chooses his employer wisely) he’ll be expected to copy the work of others, encouraged to take time to reflect, and to actively seek out lessons learned!

We don’t make it easy for them, do we?

Lessons Los

Following on from my last post comparing operational effectiveness with knowledge effectiveness, I’m reminded of the “Choke Model” from my BP days.  The choke model was a way of modelling production losses at every stage in the process, for example during the refining of crude oil to produce the raw materials and refined products which customers want to buy. Starting with 100%, every step in the process was analysed, and the biggest “chokes” were identified and targeted for improvement.  There is a belief in BP that the total of all of these small percentage production losses across all of its refineries was the equivalent to having a brand new refinery lying dormant!  Now when you focus it like that, it’s one big financial prize to get after.

I think there’s a similar perspective that we could take looking at the way in which knowledge is lost during our efforts to “refine it” and transfer it to customers.  Sometimes we are so upbeat about “lessons learned” and “learning before, during and after”, that we start believing that we’ve got organizational learning cracked.  Well I don’t believe that we have!

Let’s take a walk through an organizational learning cycle and see where some of the “chokes” in our knowledge management processes might be.

Imagine that you’re working with a team who have just had an outstanding success, completing a short project. There’s a big “bucket of knowledge” there, but from the moment the project has completed, that bucket is starting to spill or leak its lessons.  (On a longer project, the leakage will start before the project has ended, but let’s keep it simple for now and say that memories are still fresh).

So from this moment, your lessons start to leak.  The team will be disbanded, team members join other projects, and people start re-writing the history of their own involvement (particularly as they approach performance appraisal time!).

Leak!

Let's have a project review or "retrospect" to capture the lessons.  Good – but not a “watertight” process for learning everything that might be needed.

• Are the right people in the room?  Team?  Customers? Sponsor? Suppliers?  Partners?

• Are you asking the right questions? Enough questions?  The questions which others would have asked?

• Are people responding thoughtfully?  Honestly? Are people holding back?  Is there politics or power at play which is influencing the way people respond?  Is the facilitator doing their job well?  Are they reading the room,  pressing for detail, for recommendations, for actions?

Leak!

And then we try to write-up this rich set of conversations into a lessons learned report.  However hard we try, we are going to lose emotion, detail, connections, nuances, the nature of the interactions and relationships – and all too often we lose a lot more in our haste to summarise. Polanyi and Snowden had something to say about that.

Leak!

And what happens to that report?  Is it lost in the bowels of SharePoint?  Is it tagged and indexed to maximise discovery?  Is it trapped on someone’s hard drive, or distributed ineffectively by email to “the people we thought would need it”?

Leak!

And of course, just because it’s stored, it doesn’t mean it’s shared! Sharing requires someone to receive it – which means that they have to want it.  Are the potential users of this knowledge thirsty? Curious?  Eager to learn?  Encouraged to learning rather than reinventing?  Infected with “Not invented here”?  Believe that their new project is completely different? Willing to root around in SharePoint to find those lessons? Willing to use the report as a prompt to speak with the previous team, and to invite them to a Peer Assist to share more of their learning?

Leak! Leak! Leak!

So you see, it’s a messy, leaky, lossy business,  and I think we need to be honest about that.  Honest with ourselves as KM professionals, and honest with our colleagues and customers.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t work hard to address the leaks and losses - quite the reverse.  We should be anticipating and responding to each one.  Whether that means having a “knowledge plan” throughout the lifetime of a project, engaging leaders to set the right expectations, providing support/training/coaching/facilitation/tools etc.   There’s a lot we can do to help organisations get so much better at this.  They might not save the equivalent of a Refinery’s worth of value – but they might just make their workplaces more fulfilling, increase staff engagement and reduce their dependence on external consultants.

I think it starts with the business answering the question:

“Just how valuable do we really believe this knowledge is?”

If you look at the picture at the top of this blog and imagine it’s happening on a beach somewhere, then it’s just part of the fun in an environment of abundance.  You can fill the bucket up again and again...

If the picture was taken in a drought-stricken part of the world – an environment of scarcity – well that’s a different story.

Measuring Knowledge Effectiveness

A couple of weeks ago I spent a day with a Chemical manufacturing company, working with their business improvement (BI) community, 50 miles south of Milan.  The welcome was very warm, but the fog was dense and cold as we donned hard hats and safety shoes for a tour of the site.

One of the key measures which the BI specialists monitor is that of Overall Equipment Effectiveness – which is defined as:

OEE = Availability x Performance x Quality.

Availability relates to production losses due to downtime; Performance relates to the production time relative to the planned cycle time, and Quality relates to the number of defects in the final product.

It set me thinking about what a measure of Overall Knowledge Effectiveness for a specific topic might look like?

How do we measure the availability of knowledge?  Is that about access to information, or people’s availability for a conversation?

What about knowledge performance?  Hmmm. This is where a linear industrial model for operational performance and cycle times begins to jar against the non-linear world of sharing, learning, adapting, testing, innovating...

And knowledge quality?  How do we measure that?  It is about the relevance? The degree to which supply satisfies demand?  The way the knowledge is presented to maximise re-use?  The opportunity to loop-back and refine the question with someone in real-time to get deeper into the issue?

Modelling how people develop and use knowledge is so much more complicated than manufacturing processes.  Knowledge isn't as readily managed as equipment!

If we limit ourselves to the “known” and “knowable” side of the Cynefin framework – the domains of “best practice” and “good practice” - are there some sensible variables which influence overall knowledge effectiveness for a specific topic or theme?

So how about:

Overall Knowledge Effectiveness = Currency x Depth x Availability x Usability x Personality

Currency:  How regularly the knowledge  and any associated content is refreshed and verified as accurate and relevant.

Depth:  Does it leave me with unanswered questions and frustration, or can I find my way quickly to detail and examples, templates, case studies, videos etc.?

Availability:  How many barriers stand between me and immediate access to the knowledge I need.  If it’s written down, than these could be security/access barriers; if it’s still embodied in a person, then it’s about how easily I can interact with them.

Usability:  How well has this been packaged and structured to ensure that it’s easy to navigate, discover and make sense of the key messages.  We’ve all read lessons learned reports which are almost impossible to draw anything meaningful from because it’s impossible to separate the signal from the noise.

Personality:  I started with “Humanness”, but that feels like a clumsy term.  I like the idea that knowledge is most effective when it has vitality and personality. So this is a measure of how quickly can I get to the person, or people with expertise and experience in this area in order to have a conversation.  To what extent are they signposted from the content and involved in its renewal and currency (above)

Pauses for thought.

Hmmm. It still feels a bit like an "if you build it they will come" supply model.  Of course people still need to provide the demand - to be willing and motivated to overcome not-invented-here and various other behavioural syndromes and barriers, apply the knowledge and implement any changes.

Perhaps what I've been exploring is really "knowledge supply effectiveness"  there's a "knowledge demand effectiveness" equation which needs to be balanced with this one?

Hence:  Overall Knowledge Effectiveness is maximised when

(Knowledge Supply Effectiveness) / (Knowlege Demand Effectiveness) = 1

Not sure whether the fog is lifting or not.  More thinking to be done...

The value of experience - from the King's Speech.

One of my favourite moments from one of my favourite films comes in “The King’s Speech”, when Bertie (King George VI – Colin Firth) confronts his speech therapist, (Lionel Logue, played by the brilliant Geoffrey Rush), revealing that he now knows that Lionel – who has been treating him for some time – actually has no formal qualifications.

Lionel:It’s true.  I’m not a doctor and yes, I acted a bit, recited in pubs and taught elocution in schools. When the Great War came, our boys were pouring back from the front, shell-shocked and unable to speak and somebody said “Lionel, your’ very good at this speech stuff.  Do you think you could possibly help these poor buggers”.  I did muscle therapy, exercise, relaxation but I knew I had to go deeper. Those poor young blokes had cried out in fear, and no one was listening to them. My job was to give them faith in their voice and let them know that a friend was listening.  That must ring a few bells with you Bertie?

Bertie:

You give a very noble account of yourself.                  

Lionel:

Make inquiries.  It’s all true.

Bertie:

Inquiries have been made!   You have no idea who is breathing down my neck.  I vouched for you and you have no credentials.

Lionel:

But lots of success!  I can’t show you a certificate – there was no training then.  All I know, I know by experience.  And that war was some experience. Lock me in the tower.

That’s the bit:   All I know, I know by experience.

As Knowledge Professionals, I believe that one of our most important tasks is to discover, surface, and give voice to experience.

When I’m explaining or facilitating a Peer Assist process, I make a point of emphasising the difference between people giving opinion and people sharing experience.  We can Google for opinions; they are cheap and easy to come by.  Experience, in contrast is a more precious commodity.  It’s earned, it’s won, it’s personal, and it’s unarguable.

This is why story is such an effective medium for the transfer of knowledge.  People tell stories about their experience.  If they presented or wrote them down, they inevitably filter, over-summarize, and post-rationalise with opinion and analysis – and it’s in that process when the waters get muddied, the purity of experience is lost – along with messages embedded in the tone of voice and body language.

I’m not denying that there is value in KM processes and tools which elicit opinion and advice.  Lots of discussion forums work well on that principle. Great.  Let’s bank that.  But let’s not confuse giving opinion with sharing experience.

How many opportunities do people in your organisation have to share experience, or listen to others sharing theirs?

Tools to support this include Peer Assists, Appreciative inquiry, Knowledge/World cafes, Anecdote Circles...

How many experience-sharing tools are in active use in your organisation? And do they, as Lionel Logue might have said - give you "Lots of success"?