Dilbert, by Scott Adams
Two questions I’m most often asked by people just given responsibility for Knowledge Management in their organizations:
- What
KM projects are most likely to achieve 'quick wins' -- to get something
out there quickly and inexpensively that will impress management and
users and get more attention and resources for KM?
- What longer-term KM programs are likely to offer the best value for money?
Most
people are surprised that none of my answers involves creating big
central 'knowledge bases', or websites, or community of practice
'collaboration spaces'. While every organization is different, my
experience is that these types of initiatives tend to produce
disappointing results. As the top cartoon above suggests, these are
easy to do, and often fun, which is perhaps why they’re so tempting.
Again, it’s dangerous to generalize, but I think programs that focus more on context than content, and more on connection
than collection, often pay the biggest dividends. So here’s a list of
possibilities that I think would apply in most organizations:
Six 'Quick Win, Low Hanging Fruit' KM Projects
- Make it easy for your people to identify and connect with subject matter experts: Create
focused, managed directories of acknowledge experts in subjects that
matter to a lot of people in your organization. Don't try to create a
directory of everyone and everything, because the maintenance and
quality control involved are likely to be disproportionate to the
return. And be careful of self-appointed experts: the list should come
not from the organization chart or what people self-identify as their
areas of expertise, but from who other people
have identified as accessible experts both inside and outside the
organization. It's a reputation system, so the names of the people recommending
each expert should be shown as well, and updated frequently based on
feedback. You will probably find that some people will be very anxious
to get on this list. That's a good thing, but don't compromise whatever
standard you set for peer recommendation being the basis for inclusion
on the list. Make sure the directory lists phone number and e-mail/IM
contact info, and advises which is the expert's preferred way and
preferred time for receiving calls and requests for information. If the
expert has a blog or personal web page, link to it too.
- Help people manage the content and organization of their desktop: Most
people are hopeless at personal content management but don't want to
admit it. Provide them with a desktop search tool and show them how to
use it effectively. Provide 'cheat sheets' to users that show how to
organize (and name) documents on your hard drive and messages in your
e-mail folders flexibly, memorably and consistently.
- Help people identify and use the most appropriate communication tool: Give them a one-page cheat sheet on when not to use e-mail
and why not, and what to use instead. Create a simple 'tool-chooser' or
decision tree with links to where they can learn more about each tool
available. Make tools like IM and desktop videoconferencing available
(they're virtually free). Use every device you can to facilitate more
context-rich conversations.
- Make it easy for people to publish their knowledge and subscribe to the information they want:.
Use RSS to make all the essential information your people produce and
use subscribable, and set up an aggregator 'news' page for each person.
Encourage people to publish their information on blogs (or at least on
personal web pages inside the firewall), and make these pages
RSS-subscribable too. Likewise newsletters – don't allow them to be
sent by e-mail or to clutter up your Intranet or Extranet. The number
of voluntary subscribers will tell you which ones are really valuable.
- Create a facility for just-in-time canvassing for information:
Drawing on the expertise directories from project #1 above, and on
existing mailing lists of communities of practice, create a template
for requesting information that is needed in a hurry where the
requestor isn't sure who to ask for it. Make the template simple and
easy to complete, and allow the requester to check which lists of
experts and community members to send the request to. Whether you
transmit the resultant requests by e-mail, IM or other routing system,
make sure the subject makes it clear that it's an urgent, targeted
canvass and what exactly the requestor is looking for. Ideally, have a
follow-up 'information found' message that the requestor can send
once’s they've got what they're looking for, so others who were
canvassed don't keep looking for it.
- Teach people how to do research, not just search: This skill isn't just for information professionals (though there are many cases where the IP specialist really should do the research instead of the generalist), but if people are going to do their own research, they need to learn how to do it competently. Most of the people I know can't.
Six Longer-Term Big Payoff KM Programs
- Make your information professionals anthropologists: Get them out of the library or research centre, and have them observe and interview
users of the organization's knowledge and technology resources, and
show users how to use these resources more effectively. Just a 2%
improvement in effectiveness of using these resources can provide a
huge return on investment, and teach information professionals more
about the organization's business in the process, which will help them
do their jobs better as well, as they learn what's needed, not just
what's available.
- Embed intelligence in systems, processes and tools:
Most of what we learn we forget before we use it. Exactly how you embed
learning and knowledge into what people do at the point they do it
depends on your organization and industry – in hospitals, for example,
it could include putting posters showing proper procedure for putting
on and taking off protective devices and clothing right beside the
shelves containing those devices. In data entry it could include
context-sensitive help. Whatever the business or application, make it just-in-time, instead of the less effective just-in-case.
- Teach your information professionals to be sense-making specialists:
Upgrade their skills from rip-and-ship data managers to distillers,
analysts, interpreters, visualizers, modelers, synthesizers. Most IPs
have a natural flair for adding meaning and value to information, that precious few get the chance to exercise.
- Use knowledge to drive innovation: If KM elicits a yawn from management, just show them how innovation is impossible without it.
- Canvass the wisdom of crowds: Develop and institute tools that engage and elicit information
from your organization's employees and customers. It will help your
organization make better decisions, predict the future more accurately,
gather all the pertinent facts better, and better understand cause and
effect in the market's dynamics.
- Collect, and attract people to use, stories and anecdotes:
Most information that is collected and stored in anonymous, central
repositories is context-poor. Stories and anecdotes take longer to
read, but they provide the missing context that can prevent people from
misusing and underutilizing the organization's information and
experiences. Except for hands-on practice experience and demonstration,
there is no more effective way to learn something useful than by
reading stories. And they're often fun to read, so they're a painless
and low-risk way to learn as well. And they're subversive – you can get
people to change their approach or behaviour (for the better) using
stories, by essentially making the readers think the change was their
own idea. What's more, stories can provoke remarkable creativity and
insight, because they can reveal patterns, sometimes serendipitously,
from disparate experiences and ideas. Finding patterns and applying
them to problem-solving is something we're all surprisingly good it.
If
you're new to KM, or an ambitious information professional striving to
make a difference, you have a real challenge ahead of you. I hope the
lists above can make your task a little easier.
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