Thursday night saw the latest gathering of knowledge and information professionals (and librarians, in case Tina is reading this!) that is the London Information and Knowledge Exchange (LIKE). Gary Colet, Knowledge and Innovation Network Facilitator at Warwick Business School shared with us some thoughts (and exercises) to get us thinking about the knowledge transfer process, and how we might approach facilitating it in a work environment.
All talk...
Gary's intro to the session was to demonstrate the degradation of "knowledge" through the oral transfer process. He banished four reluctant "volunteers" from the room (beer and all!) and brought them back in again one by one. He told a story to the first participant, then asked her to relate the story to the next person who was then brought into the room. This process was conducted a further two times. The rest of the audience had been issued with the key facts from the story beforehand, and marked the volunteers on how accurately they passed on the story - this must have been fairly daunting for the volunteers, who I dare say weren't expecting a night in the pub to turn into exam conditions!
Unsurprisingly, this manufactured version of Chinese whispers demonstrated the gradual (or in some cases not so gradual) degradation of the knowledge that was transferred down the line as the story was passed on. [As an aside, whilst the short exercise elicited the expected response this is nonetheless a useful, relatively swift exercise that I may consider using to make a point in my own work.]
The point of course was to demonstrate how key points and facts can easily be lost or distorted. It may seem trivial in the manufactured environment described, but translate this to a corporate setting, where a senior executive or a vastly experienced professional is leaving a company, and the potential losses (on an experiential, intellectual and even financial level) could be massive. When put in these terms formalising a process for some form of debriefing in such situations seems a no brainer, and yet in my experience at least it is far from common. Gary may have put his finger on the reason for this when he pointed out that the approach he advocates (namely facilitating conversations with and between small numbers of relevant people within an organisation) can be labour intensive and hence high cost. Perhaps the initial outlay puts organisations off taking this route. However, an analysis of time/money saved by the organisation through the facilitation process might change a few minds... an argument for pushing for better ROI measurements in the KM arena if ever I heard one, though that's a can of worms to be left for another time methinks!
A little less conversation... a hit for Elvis, but a miss for KM
Back on track, and Gary expanded further on his approach to the facilitation/interview process. Essentially the focus is on conversation and eliciting nuggets of information from the individual being interviewed, or preferably facilitating the transfer of valuable information between the subject and an additional key stakeholder within the organisation. Now clearly there's more to this than just sitting a couple of people down and having a good chin wag. As with so many things in life, preparation is vital. For the facilitator this is understanding the things that are important to the organisation through a process of discussions with relevant individuals, and then mapping types of information that may emerge agains a 4 x 4 matrix with axes covering short/long shelf-life and low/high value. I think that makes it sound more complicated than it is, but I know what I mean! With an idea of what they're trying to get at, it's then down to the skill of the facilitator to nudge and cajole the interviewee/subject in the right direction.
Any questions? Well, not quite any...
Gary's questioning technique is OPEC - nothing to do with oil production in this case, but referring to the types of question to ask / the preemptive approach to structuring the conversation:
Open - often general questions that encourage the subject to talk, e.g. "tell me about your current role".
Probing - mining for valuable information, with questions such as "what went well/not so well? What were your successes/challenges?".
Examining - essentially looking for validation on relevant points that have emerged so far. Typically who, what, why, when, where, how questions?
Closing - to bring a sense of closure to the interview and for the subject. Questions such as "If there were three things that you would most like to talk to your successor about what would they be?"
Asking the right questions is half the battle for the facilitator, but Gary also identified some skills that are vital for the person fulfilling this role:
Capture - teasing out the nuggets of information is one thing, but getting them down on paper efficiently and effectively is another. Gary recommends mind mapping as an efficient approach. Identifying 2 - 3 branches of the map relating to the key areas that you are investigating before the interview, then developing the map from there.
Listen - conversations can go in all kinds of unexpected directions and the facilitator needs to hear what's being said, understand its importance (or lack thereof) and capitalise or redirect the conversation as appropriate.
Think ahead - the facilitator needs to be mindful of the brief from the employer, the approach to questioning, and the time available, then adapt/direct the interview as appropriate.
The gift that keeps on giving
As we saw from the initial exercise, the Chinese whispers effect can reduce the success of the knowledge transfer process. Therefore it was suggested that having the interview subject joined by the most relevant colleague(s) in the process to help provide the path of least resistance in the transfer process is often the ideal scenario. The importance of any tangible end product (or output) from the interviews shouldn't be underestimated either. Any report, video/audio snippet or other output should be well polished and usable, and mindful of the likely end-user/target audience to ensure its usefulness. This sentiment brought to mind Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell's "knowledge assets" from their book learning to fly (definitely worth a read), the concept of which is briefly described by Knoco on their website.
Reflections
This was a very enjoyable session that got everyone involved and trying out some of the methods that Gary described. The emphasis on the importance of conversation in the knowledge transfer process had echoes of David Gurteen's approach, and I have employed his knowledge cafe technique in my own work with successful results. The main difference in the two approaches is the numbers involved, with Gary focussing on working with individuals or small numbers and the knowledge cafe approach accommodating larger groups. The former is therefore very much focussed on learning from the experience of the individual and passing this on, whereas the latter useful for facilitating group learning/sharing, and also the observation and facilitation of distributed cognition, particularly when the boundaries of the k-cafe are pushed slightly to include either a scribe to jot down the ideas emerging from group conversations or the provision of writing materials in the tradition of the world cafe.
Clearly there are situations that suit one method more than the other and vice versa, but the principle of conversation is at the heart of both. From Gary's recollections of his work, and my own experience of the knowledge cafe process, conversation is clearly a powerful method of "knowledge transfer", though I think it's often underestimated and/or undervalued. Perhaps that's slightly unfair - taken for granted might be a better description, particularly by senior managers who are short on time and look for the extraordinary or novel when committing their time to a process that may appear to have minimal direct value to them and their current objectives.
I would therefore suggest that it's down to us as practitioners to advocate the importance of conversation in the knowledge sharing process. As we saw at #LIKE30, talk, far from being cheap, can actually be incredibly valuable.
The latest LIKE event (our 26th) saw Martin Belam, Lead User Experience and Information Architect at the Guardian, talking to our group about his route into his current role (starting with an obsession with classifying his music collection in his youth), via record shops, the BBC, and some freelance consultancy whilst based in the Greek island Crete.
Martin is a very engaging presenter, and spoke eloquently about how his interests have naturally led to a role in the developing field of information architecture. Listening to him speak brought home not only how important that work is to the experiences of information consumers, but also how powerful information management tools such as consistent tagging of content can be for connecting information and driving individuals to other relevant content both manually and automatically (e.g. system generation of Guardian website pages based on content tags). The Guardian has somewhere in the region of 9000 approved tags ("approved" being the operative word), and the positive experience that both I and others have when visiting the website are in no small part indebted to these.
I'm not going to give a full account of the evening, as there are already some excellent recollections from both Nicola Franklin and Donald Lickley. However there were some points that resonated with me personally, and which will inform some of my own thinking in future:
You aren't your end user, and so what you think works may not work for others.
The value of tags for combining content, not just for driving individuals to similar content.
Sketching wire frames of interfaces/structures with a pencil and paper can be as powerful as any fancy software, and more flexible for editing.
If you really want to understand how individuals work, and how they interact with systems, sit with them; watch them at work; work with them.
I'm currently scoping requirements for a new document management and collaboration platform for my organisation, and the intention is to develop the system iteratively whilst working closely with users to design and refine features. The aim, to build a system that meets the (diverse) needs of the business and those of the end users. My colleagues and I have had many discussions over how best to identify the information users work with, and how they work together. We have considered questionnaires, individual interviews, and group workshops as potential methods - most probably a blend of all three. However, I can't help feel there's something artificial about all of these methods. They either take individuals and teams out of their work environment, or provide content without context.
Martin's methods of watching internal users working with systems in their natural work environment to help monitor user experience is obvious when you think about it, but wasn't something that had come up in our discussions. Perhaps some of the logistical and cost implications of pursuing such an approach for our project gave us a blind spot when looking at the options. However, the more I think about it the more I feel we should engage in at least some form of observation work. Otherwise how can we get a truly reflection of how teams work, the issues they face, and their developing needs in terms of information management and collaboration?
So, thank you Martin for an excellent talk. I've learned a lot and got plenty of new ideas and perspectives to bring to my current work projects.
For those wishing to know more about the work of an information architect, why not check out Martin's personal blog, currybet.net, of follow him on Twitter?
Fictional works aren't always the most obvious place for nuggets of wisdom on common business practices such as meetings (though I suppose that depends on the fiction you read!). However, I was amused to find the following in the opening paragraph of Death and Restoration by Iain Pears:
Business meetings are more or less the same all over the world, and have been since the beginning of time. There is the man in charge; the man supposedly in charge; the man wanting to be in charge; their minions, their enemies, and those waverers who float gently downstream, hoping things won't get too choppy. And there is always a dispute, which serves the purpose of making half-felt antagonisms real. Sometimes these are of importance and justify the energy expended on them. But not often.
Pears, I. (1996). Death and restoration. Harper
How does this sentiment sit with your own experience of meetings at work?
The Community Roundtable have shared a very interesting presentation on SlideShare covering the fundamentals of community management. The presentation, by Megan Smith and Rachel Happe, should be essential reading for budding community managers, and is a good reminder to the experienced that people and not technology come first in a community.
Think about how your organisation works, and how you're a part of that. Are there things you do, or ways you do things that occasionally make you stop and think "this makes no sense"? The following video, found via @elsua, asks some interesting questions about the way organisations work, and the way we fit into a wider organisational culture/way of working. Take a look and then ask yourself... ... is there a better way of working?
I first heard about the Networked Non-profit, by Beth Kanter and Allison H. Fine a couple of months ago through a post by Jack Vinson over at Knowledge Jolt, and was keen to read it. Having attained my copy I got through it fairly quickly about 4 weeks ago, and meant to blog some initial thoughts then. However, as ever, other things got in the way, so here are a few brief reflections now.
I agree with much of what is said in the publication about the benefits of using social media. Things like the harnessing of crowds, spreading the message, and reaching new audiences are certainly potential benefits in any industry, not just the non-profit sector. Many non-profits now make very good use of tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to get their message across. Certainly for smaller organisations, a well orchestrated campaign can be very effective, particularly in terms of ROI. Indeed, these services can also present a human face to an organisation, a personality (or personalities) that people can empathise with, rather than confronting people with a corporate entity, and this can be tremendously valuable in terms of gaining buy-in for causes.
The authors don't play down the potential barriers faced by organisations dipping their toe into the social media waters for the first time. The move from corporate statements and press releases to building relationships with individuals online can be an incredible culture shock, even if the shift is only partial. The authors are clear - change is hard! However, I don't think that the culture change aspect is addressed as fully as it could be here. There is talk of staff using social media themselves to help build a social culture, and this is certainly a way of increasing familiarity with these tools. However, turning these personal experiences into a way of working could be more tricky, particularly in a sector that is naturally risk-averse.
At one point it is stated that personal use of social media will invariably seep into working practice, and to a certain extent I suspect this is true. However, perhaps to truly embed the social mentality into working practices perhaps there needs to be a move to using more internal social systems, Enterprise 2.0 software such as corporate wikis, microblogging services such as Yammer, etc. This would allow staff to take advantage of the benefits of social media adoption (and the changes in mindset that this can bring) from within the firewall - perhaps providing a safety net for conversations to develop freely internally, whilst providing a familiarity with the nuances required for use of social media in public.
My own perception is that the non-profit sector is increasingly waking up to the benefits of using social media as complementary marketing/communications channels, but there may be some way to go in advocating the benefits of using comparable systems internally. Building the social culture that the authors advocate (with particular reference to the use of social media tools) is always going to require some pushing, as with all change management programmes, and ultimately the change will have to come from bottom up as well as top down. The rewards as set out by the authors are potentially great, but to reach the goal perhaps a heavier focus needs to be placed on the benefits of conversation, collaboration and engagement, and less on marketing and messages.
I saw a great quote on knowledge management yesterday, in a post by John Steen over at Blogging Innovation:"A lot of people say that knowledge management is like herding cats, but I say that it’s really like herding butterflies. You can’t make butterflies go anywhere – if you want them around you have to create a garden that attracts them.” I really identified with this quote, and it reflects the thinking that many are expressing in the KM/Orgnaisational learning fields regarding the increasing importance of information flows, know-who and collaborative working/sharing practices. Rather than designing inflexible systems and processes purely from the perspective of the business (which many will do what they can to avoid) we should be looking at how people work, what works for them, and providing ways that help them to work together more effectively. Obviously organisational needs can't be completely ignored - particularly in areas of legal compliance - but there needs to be more of a balance with the needs of knowledge workers if we want to keep our most talented "butterflies" in our gardens. Do read take a look at the full post by John - it's a good read!
There haven't been many films this year that I've been itching to see (with the possible exception of Scott Pilgrim vs. the world), but I've been looking forward to the Social Network for some time. I'm happy to say that I wasn't disappointed!
The thing that struck me first about the film was the intense, quick-fire nature of the script and delivery, a signature of screenplay writer Aaron Sorkin. It takes about five minutes to tune into the pace and the incessant delivery, but once you've switched your brain from 33 to 45 rpm you're away. Unsurprisingly given the author, the script is very sharp, well observed, and full of clever quips which had me sniggering throughout.
An excellent screenplay alone is, of course, only half the battle. Happily this is backed up by some excellent performances from the cast (including a surprisingly good performance from Justin Timberlake, portraying Scott Parker in a none too flattering light). Jesse Eisenberg's Mark Zuckerberg is somewhat detached - clearly a genius, with a lack of social skills bordering on the stereotypical for tech-geeks. The fabulously named Armie Hammer (sounds somewhat reminiscent of toothpaste to me!) does a great job as the Winkelvoss twins, and Andrew Garfield plays a great victim in Eduardo Saverin.
Funnily, most of the characters were dislikable, with the possible exception of Garfield's Saverin, with whom we are left feeling some sympathy following some dismal treatment from the main protagonists. [Apparently Saverin was a consultant for the book on which the screenplay is based (The accidental billionaires, for anyone who's interested), and whether that is a reflection on the sympathetic treatment of the character is one I'll leave to your own judgment.] Even so, the film is a very enjoyable one, with some great performances and a sizzling script.
I'd say this is the best film I've seen this year, and I'd definitely recommend that you see it if you can. It's the first film this year in which I haven't glanced at my watch - believe me, that's high praise indeed!
