Innovate: KM

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Sunday, 8 August 2010

EDO 2010 International Congress

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I had the privilege if being invited to present at the EDO 2010 International Congress in Barcelona at the Centre for Legal Studies and Specialized Training on 12, 13, 14 May 2010. The conference theme was “New training strategies for oganisations” and I did a session on ‘Cultivating Knowledge Through Communities of Practice”. The slides I used are available for download from Slideshare and embedded in this post.

My sincere thanks to Jesús Martinez Marin and the organiser for the exceptional hospitality I received.

The following is taken from the EDO website and has been translated from Spanish to English

More than 350 experts and specialists in the subject mostly from Spain and America have actively participated in the five international conferences, the ten symposia and four tables of communications, analyzing and discussing the more than 75 selected contributions. The general conclusions:

The current society considers the knowledge and training of workers as strategic elements of organizations. Thus, intellectual capital has become one of the main resources that are available to institutions to achieve their ends.
The organization is an association of persons, governed by a set of rules, to be able to create, develop and disseminate new knowledge to increase its innovative capacity and competitive. Therefore, knowledge management should focus its attention on the possibility that members of the organization share the greatest number of sources of information and collaborate in the creation of new knowledge.
Knowledge management promotes organizations create intelligent, able to transform information into knowledge through collective learning processes. Included in this connection to distinguish between "managing" and "stacking" the knowledge of the organization between the various technological support
Organizations need to understand and manage the existing knowledge or which may be created from an impulsive reflective practice of co-construction of knowledge. The co-construction of knowledge involves not only a dynamic work that is scheduled and help to move from the informal knowledge to formal knowledge, but also requires experience in which you want to work.
The organizations have expressed new forms of living on the virtual network, which becomes an essential tool for the exchange of information, knowledge and experiences. The virtual communities of practice are considered in this connection, a good practice that encourages learning and promotes the integration of informal learning, in line with a change of training model.
Collaborative work is successful when it occurs among peers, there is a mutual commitment, the organization is flexible and e-moderator exercises its role effectively. It's about the content and learning processes that take place in virtual communities of practice, being the Information Technology and Communication (ICT) are just a tool that helps make communication more effective.
Organizational learning theories agree on the existence of certain internal and external factors that facilitate or hinder learning. Such factors include, among others, collaborative culture, leadership, collaborative and / or the existence of a flexible structure. Change does not preclude the assumption of error, nor problem-solving and competent incompetence.
The self has a high attitude component. Thus, self-learning experiences and networking are built among all participating members with the community and in the context of uncertainty. Is stressed in this connection the words of M. Benedetti: "When we thought we had all the answers, they changed the questions."
The importance of identifying informal learning has increased in recent years. In fact, there are already systems and methodologies, European and Spanish level, certifying skills acquired on the job. It is envisaged, therefore, other ways to access traditional knowledge related to the formal processes established.
The creation and management of knowledge in the educational system implies a paradigm shift which includes the participation and experimentation of new scenarios by inducing agents of change. In this regard, there is talk of optimal conditions for their development as transformational leadership and sparse, teamwork, collaborative culture and flexible structure, if and when they occur simultaneously and seamlessly.
It stresses the need to create models in the education system, combining knowledge management and quality management, address the objectives of the education system and teacher not only in itself.
Managing knowledge is synonymous with a continuous cyclical process of identification, modification, use and evaluation of that knowledge. The EFQM model or similar can help this by emphasizing its usefulness as a tool for self-evaluation. Barcelona, June 2010 contributions and specific conclusions can be analyzed in the book of Acts of Congress to which reference is: Gairín, J. (Ed.) (2010): New training strategies for the organizations. Madrid: Wolters Kluwer Education. à Review available in: http://edo.uab.es/PDF/FichasActividades/Formacion/Pub_CIEDO.pdf

Conclusions: http://edo.uab.cat/JornadasEDO2010/

Video

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Tuesday, 6 July 2010

The Knowledge Hub (part 2)

It’s taken a while for me to get around to posting an update to my ‘Knowledge Hub Part 1’ post, mainly as a result of being fully immersed in the technology procurement process these past several months. This phase is now almost complete and we will shortly be starting on the actual development of the Hub, so now seems to be an opportune moment to remind everyone what this ‘Knowledge Hub’ thing is, and to give a first airing of the accompanying video (commissioned from Learning Pool – thanks guys). The following is brief summary, partially lifted from an explanation I produced for http://www.local.gov.uk/knowledgehub - and in plain English as far as I’m able:

What is it?

The Knowledge Hub is essentially the next generation development of the highly successful local government CoP platform (a previous project of mine). It will replace the existing infrastructure with new open technology facilitating integration with mainstream social media applications (for example Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN) and the rapid assimilation of new applications and web services as they emerge. This will enable, for example, much better personalisation and permeability of content. In addition Knowledge Hub will provide facilities that allow data on performance to be combined and shared (so called "linked-data") potentially providing the framework to deliver the wider move to transparent government

Why is it important?

As the UK moves towards economic recovery it is expected there will be greater demands on local government to:

continue to demonstrate cost-effective delivery methods
be ‘fleeter of foot’ in gathering and using sector knowledge – not only to learn from others' experience but also to accelerate the development and implementation of innovative delivery.

The strategy is based on the premise that knowledge of ‘what works’ and ‘what doesn’t work’ can be found within the local government community. Unleashed, this knowledge can be collectively focused on excellent public service delivery.
The overarching outcome of the Knowledge Hub programme is that by 2012/13, the culture of local government will be one of collaborative knowledge generation. This will involve everyone learning, sharing and problem-solving using a technology platform provided by LG Improvement & Development but owned by the local government sector.
While a working title of a ‘Knowledge Hub’ is being used it is perhaps more appropriate to use the metaphor of a dynamo-powered light, which shines brighter and illuminates the way more clearly the more involvement there is from participants and users.

What is the scope?

The Knowledge Hub will comprise three interdependent elements:
(a) Technology:
This includes the systems, software applications, hosting and service support.
(b) Data:
This will be a combination of:

user-generated content (blogs, wikis, forums, libraries etc.)
system-generated content (data visualisation, graphs, reports, statistics)
approved datasets (open and linked data)
incoming data feeds (RSS, Atom etc.)

(c) Knowledge Ecology
Support for and development of culture and user behaviours that will foster the dynamic evolution of knowledge sharing and innovation through improved evolutionary networks of collaboration.

Some of the key features

The Knowledge Hub will not replicate or replace any similar initiatives currently being used, developed or proposed by individual councils or partnerships. Rather, the Hub will bring together information about innovation and good practice from any number of these sources to help the development of the whole sector.

It will be a web-based service and will be accessible through any device with web capability, including mobile phones and PDAs.
The technology and systems will support ‘agile’ development, allowing new functionality and services to be added quickly.
It will find and follow people with same/similar interests, leading to opportunities for collaboration coproduction and partnership working.
It will provide visualisation tools e.g. ‘heat maps’ showing emerging trends and ideas.
It will enable performance data to be shared between councils for comparison and benchmarks.
It will have a 'serendipity engine' which will identify related ideas and themes.
It will aggregate and integrate conversations and content from different sources and enable key themes to ‘bubble up’ to the top.
It will support open standards and be available as an open platform with a published application programming interface (API) enabling third party developers and social innovators to create new applications, widgets and mashups.
It will be launched in the first quarter of 2011.

Now see the video!

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Monday, 14 June 2010

Knowledge Management - Measuring Return on Investment

A common and recurrent theme that I keep coming across is how to measure the value of knowledge management, e.g. the return on investment (ROI) of implementing a knowledge management strategy. This may cross over into having a social media strategy where the goal is to support knowledge sharing, so I’ll use these terms – KM Strategy and social media strategy interchangeably in this particular context.

I don’t doubt the importance of being able to measure results and it’s the job of managers to ensure they get value out of any investment in training, technology, organisational development or whatever. However, these things are notoriously difficult to measure – for example – how do you put a price on a conversation? This led to me thinking about turning all of this on its head and considering how we should measure the cost of NOT having a knowledge management or social media strategy, or NOT making any change.

Using this approach we can at least examine the current status quo and determine whether business processes, capacity, staff knowledge etc. are fit for purpose. So, rather than spending time and effort creating a business case for a KM or SM strategy, ask managers to justify why things should stay as they are.

Some pertinent questions for managers might be:

Are your staff currently motivated and inspired?
Do your staff have all the relevant information to do their jobs effectively?
Do your staff have the right tools for the work they are being asked to do?
Do your staff understand their place in the wider organisation and their input and output dependencies for the business processes they contribute to?
Do your staff have adequate opportunities to share knowledge and information with other parts of the organisation? Are they encouraged to do so?
Are you confident that you can react to rapidly changing demands on your staff?
Do you have sufficient knowledge and information to consider the impact of external events on you and your staff and to plan accordingly?
Do you know what your customers are saying about you (within and external to your organisation)?
Do current policies and guidelines support or hinder you and your staff in their work?
Does your manager fully understand what you and your staff do?

There are probably other questions that could be asked, but the key point is that any question which triggers a negative response is potentially a catalyst for change. This also means it could become a performance indicator if change is agreed, i.e. using qualitative or quantitative techniques.

So, we have the beginnings of a measurable approach to change; we know where we are now and we should know what the desired outcomes are. The difference is what we need to measure.

Of course, the problem remains that not all changes can be measured in strictly cash value terms, which is what many people consider to be the true meaning of ROI. I go back to the point I made earlier – how do you measure the value of a conversation or some information shared? The answer is, you don’t, and the sooner that everyone recognises this the better. Measuring impact can be just as important as measuring value. The impact might be things like improved customer satisfaction (measured using surveys), or less time to complete a task, or improved staff morale (measured using surveys). Any of these can – and potentially will – have an effect in terms of cash value to the organisation, but I firmly believe that converting impact to cash value is an exercise in futility, since more often than not, the formulae and algorithms have too many variables.

So, in terms of ‘ROI’, think ‘Return on Impact’ rather than Return on Investment when considering Knowledge management strategies, and develop the strategy from the starting point of getting staff to justify the present status quo. After all, change is part of life, and as Darwin once said:

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.

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Thursday, 13 May 2010

Cultivating Knowledge Through Communities of Practice

My thanks to Jesus Matinez Marin and the organising committee for inviting me to address the Congreso Internacional EDO 2010 Conference in Barcelona (12-14 May). I only hope that I didn't cause too many problems for the Spanish and Catalan translators who gave a real-time audio translation to the audience. I am particularly honoured to have been included in the official book "Nuevas estrategias formativas para las organizaciones", which (relying on Google Translate) means "New training strategies for organizations".

The presentation I gave is available on Slideshare and embedded below.

I very much appreciate the hospitality shown to me during my stay in Barcelona and look forward to continued collaboration with the Generalitat de Catalunya Department de Justicia as they develop their knowledge management strategy.

The presentation I gave looks at the phenomenon of Communities of Practice in the public sector and how they can develop into effective knowledge sharing and learning environments. Topics I covered included: