I was at KM UK last week where I spoke a little about Knowledge Creation. While in London, David Gurteen and I sat down for dinner in a wonderful little Italian restaurant off Regent Street, and that is where I started pondering over the whole idea of conversations, and the use of it for knowledge sharing.
Both David and I made the effort to have dinner together - and the fact that we are friends obviously helped. This is not my first, and will not be my last dinner with David - who as an individual I find extremely engaging and interesting. In the course of our dinner conversation, many ideas were surfaced, and the potency of conversation became apparent to me.
After dinner, it became increasingly clear to me that the modern organisation would need to consider reestablishing conversation as a knowledge sharing practice. Obviously this is easy to agree with, but rather difficult to implement. After all, conversation is inherently social, as it was with David and I, and requires commitment, trust and relationship. The question is, how might we introduce conversation between a supervisor and his subordinate, within an assigned power relationship, to be able to benefit from regularly conversing with one another?
From a philosophical point, we can all agree that a healthy organisation will promote people working with one another rather than doing things to people, as expounded by many including Alfie Kohn. However, business schools appear to think otherwise, with the whole notion of managing people to deliver. The Tayloristic foundations still dominate MBA education today, and the setting of work objectives is seen as a sure and safe way to ensure the optimal use of man-hours.
Organising meetings around agendas and discussions are productive, and the capture of minutes and action item registers focus manager attention. Such language and attitude cannot possibly promote conversation, unless for some reason or the other both the supervisor and his subordinate manage to develop relationship outside of work that is social in nature. Simply put, this means going to the pub together for a couple of pints after work, and not discussing the football game, but actually discussing work. Like the dinner with David, this can turn into conversation that is engaging if both the supervisor and his subordinate are authentic and genuinely interested in thinking together.
Another KM thought leader whom I first met in KM World 2009, Nancy Dixon, promotes conversation as the most effective tool for knowledge management. I will have to agree with her that the "words we choose, the questions we ask, and the metaphors we use to explain ourselves..." will be the determinants of knowledge creation. This means that while we may take to conversation like fish take to water when we meet up with friends for dinner, it might be well worth the effort to think about building conversation skills in both supervisors and subordinates at work, as a form of a communicating to influence competency.
Building the practice field for knowledge management will nclude getting people to learn how to build and participate in effective conversatons. This might come more naturally at dinner with friends like David, but even I might require some schema or structure on how to conduct myself in conversation at work.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Architecture
It still is that the Infra team/ IT department would dictate architecture based simply on what was to be puchased and linked together. For example, if we were to puchase Sharepoint LMS, then sharepoint LMS would enable file sharing etc.
System Architecture is important to any knowledge management effort - but only insofar as technology provides the REACH - not the richness. So all that technology can do is to capture and hold data and information. I think we need to constantly keep reminding ourselves that IT systems cannot create knowledge - early and enduring attempts at AI in the 80s/90s and DSS in the 90s/2000s will provide justification for what I am saying.
The RICHNESS is provided by Information Architecture. Definitions abound - but the simple connecting piece between System Architecture and Information Architecture is Taxonomy - or in simpler terms, how content is managed. I continue to be stupified by the attempts of techologists to explain that the platform will self-organise for the user.
When the Taxonomy is in place, then we can start talking about Knowledge Architecture, which despite what some might regard as a overarching concept that binds both infra and systems, is an extended and detailed attempt at linking process to workflow, and skills to practice. If those in our team refuse to talk, then we are going to have very little success with managing knowledge.
Very simply, if we do not build the practice field on the ground, and ensure that it is sustained by process, and supported by systems, then the premise and promise of knowledge management is not attainable. This is KNOWLEDGE ARCHITECTING.
However very little is available on information architecture - because it is the bread and butter of anyone who dares call themselves KM consultants, and much lesser still, in knowledge architecture - simply because it is so context sensitive.
Best Practice stops here.
System Architecture is important to any knowledge management effort - but only insofar as technology provides the REACH - not the richness. So all that technology can do is to capture and hold data and information. I think we need to constantly keep reminding ourselves that IT systems cannot create knowledge - early and enduring attempts at AI in the 80s/90s and DSS in the 90s/2000s will provide justification for what I am saying.
The RICHNESS is provided by Information Architecture. Definitions abound - but the simple connecting piece between System Architecture and Information Architecture is Taxonomy - or in simpler terms, how content is managed. I continue to be stupified by the attempts of techologists to explain that the platform will self-organise for the user.
When the Taxonomy is in place, then we can start talking about Knowledge Architecture, which despite what some might regard as a overarching concept that binds both infra and systems, is an extended and detailed attempt at linking process to workflow, and skills to practice. If those in our team refuse to talk, then we are going to have very little success with managing knowledge.
Very simply, if we do not build the practice field on the ground, and ensure that it is sustained by process, and supported by systems, then the premise and promise of knowledge management is not attainable. This is KNOWLEDGE ARCHITECTING.
However very little is available on information architecture - because it is the bread and butter of anyone who dares call themselves KM consultants, and much lesser still, in knowledge architecture - simply because it is so context sensitive.
Best Practice stops here.
Friday, January 8, 2010
DINK
DINK - Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom
We are really a team of teams at work. No one can claim to work on his own, more so in this era where data and information flows quite effortlessly across. Yet we very often continue to think that the KM issues center around the individual and the organisation. I would like to propose that we insert the individual, teams, and the organisation as the 3 levels where we will need to study carefully to the extent that we are able to strengthen for knowledge transfer.
As individuals, we should be looking at growing our personal capacities for generating knowledge from information. There were early academics who presented strong arguments for the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom progression, and I support the ideas behind such a categoriastion. However, it is too simplistic to imagine that one could progress to Wisdom as a next and natural step in his quest for knowledge, especially when the uncertainty factor increases as it so often does in our workplaces today. So there are no wise men at work!!
There could be some very knowledgeable people at work. These are folks who are very experienced, and who possesses some sort of an almost mystical knowledge bank from which they appear to draw on solutions to difficult questions. Now there has been a huge amount of academic studies on expertise that seeks to dispel the knowledge bank notion. So we should be more aware that in this day and age, the chances of finding a knowledgeable person at work diminishes, and therefore we must take necessary steps to build our capcities to be able to convert information into knowledge - knowledge that is useful for us to do our work.
But of course we all know this..... But this is what reinventing KM is really about. KM in the future will involve a lot more than just the traitional create-disseminate-embed (Nonaka, 1995) orientation, or the knowledge market concept (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Even Communities of Practice (Wenger, 2001) become debatable in the growing uncertainty and information revolution at work.
We are really a team of teams at work. No one can claim to work on his own, more so in this era where data and information flows quite effortlessly across. Yet we very often continue to think that the KM issues center around the individual and the organisation. I would like to propose that we insert the individual, teams, and the organisation as the 3 levels where we will need to study carefully to the extent that we are able to strengthen for knowledge transfer.
As individuals, we should be looking at growing our personal capacities for generating knowledge from information. There were early academics who presented strong arguments for the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom progression, and I support the ideas behind such a categoriastion. However, it is too simplistic to imagine that one could progress to Wisdom as a next and natural step in his quest for knowledge, especially when the uncertainty factor increases as it so often does in our workplaces today. So there are no wise men at work!!
There could be some very knowledgeable people at work. These are folks who are very experienced, and who possesses some sort of an almost mystical knowledge bank from which they appear to draw on solutions to difficult questions. Now there has been a huge amount of academic studies on expertise that seeks to dispel the knowledge bank notion. So we should be more aware that in this day and age, the chances of finding a knowledgeable person at work diminishes, and therefore we must take necessary steps to build our capcities to be able to convert information into knowledge - knowledge that is useful for us to do our work.
But of course we all know this..... But this is what reinventing KM is really about. KM in the future will involve a lot more than just the traitional create-disseminate-embed (Nonaka, 1995) orientation, or the knowledge market concept (Davenport & Prusak, 1998). Even Communities of Practice (Wenger, 2001) become debatable in the growing uncertainty and information revolution at work.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
CRITICAL THINKING & KM
If you cannot think staright, then it would be extremely challenging. Why? Because one would not be sure whether the issues, ideas and thoughts that is so easily available these days on the internet are actually purposeful or useful for the question at hand, assuming that we are happy with the authenticity of what is available.
Richard Paul and Linda Elder's work in the field of Critical Thinking can equip us better train ourselves to think and reason critically. To me, the ability to do this is foundational to knowledge construction. Up to now this ability, which is clearly not something that anyone is born with, is largely gained when one seeks and achieves higher education levels. A simple example is that an MBA or MSc equips a person with higher cognitive abilities. Then again, there are many PhDs whom I have met who have left me wondering about their ability to think, despite their training in scientific rigour.
I have had the pleasure in attending one of the Foundation for Critical Thinking conferences 2 years ago where there was a 2-day training workshop thrown in. The 8-step model is available from their site - I like it because if gives me a working frame to build my hypothesis or argument on. Paul and Elder also move into traits and standards, and this is where anyone seeking to build some sort of a training package to kickstart critical thinking can immediately used these frames.
The KM Practitioner of the future will need to strengthen his/her critical thinking abilities - and this, unfortunately, is not attended to in schools and other educational institutes to the extent that it is necessary for the next generation economy. So a bit of self-help is going to be necessary as we better prepare ourself to use information to create knowledge.
Richard Paul and Linda Elder's work in the field of Critical Thinking can equip us better train ourselves to think and reason critically. To me, the ability to do this is foundational to knowledge construction. Up to now this ability, which is clearly not something that anyone is born with, is largely gained when one seeks and achieves higher education levels. A simple example is that an MBA or MSc equips a person with higher cognitive abilities. Then again, there are many PhDs whom I have met who have left me wondering about their ability to think, despite their training in scientific rigour.
I have had the pleasure in attending one of the Foundation for Critical Thinking conferences 2 years ago where there was a 2-day training workshop thrown in. The 8-step model is available from their site - I like it because if gives me a working frame to build my hypothesis or argument on. Paul and Elder also move into traits and standards, and this is where anyone seeking to build some sort of a training package to kickstart critical thinking can immediately used these frames.
The KM Practitioner of the future will need to strengthen his/her critical thinking abilities - and this, unfortunately, is not attended to in schools and other educational institutes to the extent that it is necessary for the next generation economy. So a bit of self-help is going to be necessary as we better prepare ourself to use information to create knowledge.
Knowledge Cafes
Let me start by saying that David Gurteen is a good friend, and each time he passes through town, I try my best to meet up with him for a beer or a meal. On his recent trip over here, we sat down in a Chinese restuarant for lunch, and the topic progressed onto knowledge cafes. Mind you, David is the father of knowledge cafes - he has successfully extended the World Cafe concept started by Juanita Brown, into the KM arena.
I sat through a knowledge cafe that he ran some years ago. At our recent lunch, I shared some of my thoughts on its potency, and what I regarded were differences in the World Cafe setup. World Cafe requires a skilled facilitator to bring out the responses from the audience through a serious of carefully crafted questions, toggling between small and large group interactions. Without a doubt, it is a wonderful approach to getting people to share. However, this is only to the extent that they want to, and I cannot help but wonder how critical it would be for the facilitator to be skilled. In life, while we might aspire to be skill facilitators, in reality we struggle.
Enter Knowledge Cafes. The fundamental principle to me is conversations. Knowledge Cafes use some of the world cafe principles, except that it is led from within and not outside. The knowledge cafe format can be used by a leader from within the group, to get people talking and to build conversation flow. This is quite different from the World Cafe intent, which one can argue is most useful when soliticiting group feedback on a topic.
I like the knowledge cafe because by its very title it requires knowledge to be created - and this means that the leader who uses this format is quite like a jazz band lead - playing his own music while cueing the rest. There will be no scripts when this is done well - therefore knowledge cafes demand a certian sense of authenticity - a key principle for leadership practice.
World Cafes require facilitators to agrregate the responses and highlight the key ones through a practice of categorising and clustering. In the knowledge cafe however, the leader summarises as he paraphrases. Now I like that very much, as at the end of the conversations, we look for the true meaning behind what was discussed, instead of listing what was mostly discussed!
I am of the opinion that we have a lot more left to learn about knowledge cafes!
I sat through a knowledge cafe that he ran some years ago. At our recent lunch, I shared some of my thoughts on its potency, and what I regarded were differences in the World Cafe setup. World Cafe requires a skilled facilitator to bring out the responses from the audience through a serious of carefully crafted questions, toggling between small and large group interactions. Without a doubt, it is a wonderful approach to getting people to share. However, this is only to the extent that they want to, and I cannot help but wonder how critical it would be for the facilitator to be skilled. In life, while we might aspire to be skill facilitators, in reality we struggle.
Enter Knowledge Cafes. The fundamental principle to me is conversations. Knowledge Cafes use some of the world cafe principles, except that it is led from within and not outside. The knowledge cafe format can be used by a leader from within the group, to get people talking and to build conversation flow. This is quite different from the World Cafe intent, which one can argue is most useful when soliticiting group feedback on a topic.
I like the knowledge cafe because by its very title it requires knowledge to be created - and this means that the leader who uses this format is quite like a jazz band lead - playing his own music while cueing the rest. There will be no scripts when this is done well - therefore knowledge cafes demand a certian sense of authenticity - a key principle for leadership practice.
World Cafes require facilitators to agrregate the responses and highlight the key ones through a practice of categorising and clustering. In the knowledge cafe however, the leader summarises as he paraphrases. Now I like that very much, as at the end of the conversations, we look for the true meaning behind what was discussed, instead of listing what was mostly discussed!
I am of the opinion that we have a lot more left to learn about knowledge cafes!
Starting Points
I have thought long and hard about starting this - and I guess in the end I succumbed to the call to share what I am thinking about, and thinking a lot about. KM has been in my thoughts these last 7 years almost daily, as I have devoted quite a bit of my time everyday to seeking better ways to understand and deal with the issues in KM. I am an academic as well as a practitioner in the field, doing both reserach and implementation.
Enough of an introduction, I think. Lets start the ball rolling. I want to point out what the President was quoted as saying in the aftermath of the Detroit terrorist scare onboard the plane - that the intelligence agencies, the community as a whole was unable to undertand and interpret the information that was available. Is this indicative of the future challenge for knowledge management?
Enough of an introduction, I think. Lets start the ball rolling. I want to point out what the President was quoted as saying in the aftermath of the Detroit terrorist scare onboard the plane - that the intelligence agencies, the community as a whole was unable to undertand and interpret the information that was available. Is this indicative of the future challenge for knowledge management?
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