Tag: knowledge management

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Since returning from Abu Dhabi

I have been back for a week and am getting over the jet-lag, I have been working on finishing up deliverables for my client in Abu Dhabi and doing a bit of marketing for my Ark Group report that was published last week 🙂 (they tell me it was selling well in the pre-publication period, so I am happy about that).

I need to review and update my marketing/business development activities based on things I have learned and done over the last 18 months.

The project in Abu Dhabi was good because I got to work with my Knoco (www.knoco.com) business partners and become more familiar with their KM model and get to know them better (thanks Nick Milton and Tom Young for the opportunity). I hope to work with them again soon.

What I learned in Abu Dhabi:

  • wear a hat if you’re going to be outside in the sun for very long;
  • after a few days of 40-42 degrees Celcius, 30 feels cool;
  • don’t walk unless you absolutely have to;
  • LuLu Hypermarket is a great place to go for groceries;
  • sand gets everywhere;
  • ask for suggestions of things to go out and do, and then go and do them;
  • learn the building names and landmarks, no one uses street addresses;
  • take a fleece for the hotel.
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Succeeding at Change in a Knowledge Worker World

The only thing that is certain is death and taxes…and change. Many organizations spend thousands of dollars on knowledge management technology solutions, focusing on the technology, because the technology is easy to focus on, it’s visible: buying the servers, installing the software, testing it, releasing it, those are activities that are very visible. Involving stakeholders in the software selection process, understanding what helps versus what hinders them in their performance, providing training, communicating, these are invisible, “soft” activities. Soft-skills/activities are often ignored, or down-played in organizations, sometimes it’s because of cost, sometimes it’s a lack of understanding of their importance, sometimes because there’s “no time.”

Projects fail because of this lack of attention to soft-skills, especially Knowledge Management projects. With Knowledge Management projects knowledge workers have already found a way to get their jobs done, it may not be the most efficient and effective way to get it done, but they get it done, that’s who they are. They may miss opportunities to share and leverage other people’s experience or create something new because they didn’t know there was a possibility to share/leverage/create, but they get their job done. In implementing a Knowledge Management project knowledge workers are being asked to do things differently, whether that’s share information in a repository or micro-blogging site, or participate in a Community of Practice; chances are it’s different than what they are doing now, and they will keep doing their “old way of doing things” unless they are given a reason to change.

Why/how do people change their behaviours? Because they have a reason to change, they understand the “what’s in it for me.” A good program manager will have included key stakeholders in the whole process from the strategy and requirements gathering stages to roll-out to the organization. Stakeholders, who include front-line employees who will be using the system, have contributed their needs and requirements to the selection of the technology, so the technology is actually supporting them, not causing more work. Connecting with stakeholders is critical, this helps them understand the change that is coming and to have influenced it so that they can feel proud of what’s being build and act as change agents with their peers, when the time comes to start using the technology.

Once the connection is made, communication has to maintain and inform the relationship. Tell the stakeholders the truth, own up to any changes in the plan or scope or functionality, the situation will only get worse if the organization tries to hide or sugar-coat changes that were not agreed to by the team.

Communication and training will drive the adoption and acceptance of the technology and process changes. The IT team can get the technology 100% right, and if they ignore the people and process side of the equation, they will fail. These people and process side often gets cut or short circuited when budgets tighten, this is short sighted. Better to reduce the scale of the project or extend a timeline than to skimp on training, communication, and involvement of stakeholders. If the organization has time to do it wrong and fail and fix it, then they have time to get it right the first time at a much lower cost than doing it wrong and then fixing it.

Involving stakeholders in all stages of the process, ensuring that the technology enables them and that they have the communication and training that they need to be successful, will ensure that the organization’s Knowledge Management investment will have an ROI to be proud of.

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Knoco.ca

Just a quick blog post to let everyone know that I am now the Canadian Franchisee for Knoco Ltd., www.knoco.com. Knoco is a Knowledge Management consultancy based in the U.K. and with franchises in South Africa, USA, India, and Indonesia, as well as training partners in Spain. They offer KM people and process consulting, and training. I am excited by the opportunities that this expansion in my network and services will bring. You will see some changes to my website over the next while, although my Missing Puzzle Piece Consulting branding will remain unchanged and I will continue to do the business-IT alignment work in the KM domain that I have always done.

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Who buys Knowledge Management?

I was going to write about Knowledge Management models, at least that’s what I thought earlier in the week when I started to write this, but I have discarded that notion, at least for now.

As some of you will know, I have been out on my own doing Knowledge Management consulting for almost 6 years, after spending 4 years implementing it in a business unit at a large technology company, who will remain nameless. During this time as a consultant I have often pondered who to target with my sales pitch and marketing strategy, business or IT?

Certainly the projects that I have done seem to turn out better when the business brings me in, and we work with IT as a stakeholder, since technology is inevitably part of the KM strategy implementation. But people are often trying to connect me to IT people as they perceive that my services are IT, not business-related.

It all became clear to me the other night at the Knowledge Worker Toronto event https://www.meetup.com/Knowledge-Workers-Toronto/calendar/11140670/, thanks goes to Graham Westwood for pointing out what probably should have been obvious to me, except that it wasn’t. What did Graham point out? That it is usually, HR, Finance, or the CEO who have the most control/say over the budget, IT usually is perceived as a cost centre so doesn’t get the same say in budget decision making.

Why was this not obvious to me? I was coming at the problem from a different direction. I focus on solving business problems by using Knowledge Management activities to improved efficiency and effectiveness. So I was asking the question, “who has business problems that they want solved?” The answer anyone and everyone, which doesn’t help me target who to talk to. Asking the question differently, “who controls the budget purse-strings?” gets a much different response.

Anyone have any different/additional thoughts?