Processes are useful mechanisms for focusing attention on important and complex situations involving chains of activity:

• They help leaders and teams manage attention by offering a deliberate sequence of key steps in an appropriate order to reduce failure.
• They embody key lessons from the past in an accessible format.
• They reduce the need to reinvent the obvious with new groups and new situations.

While we probably believe that we understand what processes do for us, do we understand the necessary psychology of leadership required to make this happen?

"Process leadership" is the ability that great leaders have to manage the day-to-day tactics of getting things done while putting those tactics and tasks within larger, strategic processes that ensure that the right stuff gets done in the right way, at the right time, through adherence to an overarching, logical approach.

The relationship between knowledge management and innovation is complex and shifting, spanning reuse ("Is reuse in a new context innovation?"), collaboration ("Does collaboration necessarily produce innovative outcomes, or just group think?"), the impact of mobile devices such as phones and PDAs on 24/7 access to people and information ("Is 'always on' better, or does it make you stale?"), and the use of innovative ideas from outside the organization ("Why do we need R&D if we can buy new ideas from outside?").

My previous post on the relationship of KM and innovation provided the starting point for a deep discussion of these issues within APQC's 2008-2009 KM Advanced Working Group. The AWG participants joined together to co-develop models and methods for using KM to innovate and grow in the future. The following organizations contributed expertise and knowledge to the effort:

• Baker Hughes,
• Singapore Ministry of Defense (MINDEF) /Singapore Air Force,
• Petrobras,
• the U.S. Navy, and
• the U.S. Armament Research Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC).

These participants were joined by myself; APQC Executive Director Cindy Hubert; and Larry Prusak, visiting professor at the Copenhagen Business School and senior advisor to NASA and the World Bank.

As the world economy starts to rebound, executive attention will once again return to the need for innovation. To read what the AWG participants had to say about KM and innovation and the leading-edge ideas that emerged from our discussion, download the white paper here.

Market intelligence is a commodity critical to corporate strategy planning. During APQC's June knowledge management community call, guest facilitator Dian Chu, a market intelligence specialist with Marathon Oil Corporation, will examine the framework of market intelligence and knowledge management used to achieve a competitive edge and why all companies should have such a framework. She'll also discuss the market intelligence and knowledge management cycle, critical success factors for effective KM, and the KM and market intelligence structure at Marathon.

The call will take place this Thursday, June 18, at 10:30 a.m. central time. Click here to register.

Here's a link to the survey. I'd be surprised if it takes you more than 90 seconds to complete, so I hope that you'll be willing to participate. In fact, if you like it, please feel free to pass the link along to others. Of course, this survey is unscientific, may have frame error, and will definitely not be assessed for validity or reliability. But I still think the results may be fun to report.

I won't collect any user-identifiable data. And neither I nor APQC endorses the use of the survey application (when you click submit, it sends you to the company's home page). It just happened to be something I could access easily. So play along with me, and hopefully within a week or so I'll have enough responses to report them and explain the back-story to this survey.

Toyota, Nissan, and Honda are likely to be smiling today.  Not because of the GM bankruptcy.  It would definitely be un-Japanese to gloat.

They're smiling because the U.S. government thinks all it has to do is follow the management guidance of the White House auto team, give GM lots of money, fire the CEO, get labor concessions, set fuel efficiency standards, urge the company to create hybrids, and competitiveness will be magically restored. 

According to The New York Times, this miracle will be wrought by a 31-year-old; a very bright young man who has never set foot in an auto plant, has never run a manufacturing business, and is advising the already laughable "auto rescue team" about running a competitive auto company in a market where Toyota is already whipping their body parts!!! 

I started to laugh because I thought this was part of the Jay Leno farewell skit.  No one could make this up!

At APQC's KM conference earlier this month, I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Susan Leandri, PricewaterhouseCoopers' managing director of knowledge development services. Leandri's presentation, "Creating the 'Ah-ha' Moment: Engaging Leadership to Drive Cultural Change at PricewaterhouseCoopers," detailed how PwC has been working to accelerate change across the firm through various knowledge management initiatives.

At the end of the session, attendees were offered the opportunity to complete a self-assessment survey titled, "Are You Ready to Accelerate?" The survey, which includes a series of yes/no/not applicable questions, is designed to offer a snapshot of an organization's readiness to "create the ah-ha moment."

Leandri has generously offered to make this self-assessment available to our entire knowledge management audience. The survey is anonymous, and there is no cost to participate. All you need to do to get started is send an e-mail to pwc.km.diagnostic@us.pwc.com expressing interest in the survey offered by PwC at the APQC conference.

The Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study recognizes organizations that are outperforming their peers in eight dimensions of knowledge management. Each year, the study seeks nominations of organizations that fit this description. Those submitting nominations receive the executive summary of the MAKE report, which identifies the winners (i.e., the most frequently nominated) as well as trends and findings among the MAKE winners and finalists.

The MAKE survey takes less than five minutes to complete, but the deadline to submit is fast approaching--it's this Friday, May 29. Click here to access the survey and make your nominations. Don't miss this opportunity to acknowledge the organizations that you feel excel in knowledge management.

Lauren Trees beat me to the punch (not surprising) and was the first to post some short impressions from Day One of the conference. I composed mine in parallel and, after reading Lauren's post, do not see a great deal of overlap.

The Houstonian is a very good venue for the conference. Their service is excellent, they provide great food, the hotel is right next to APQC Headquarters (HQ for us military types), and the hotel has great Wi-Fi access (a must for those of us using netbooks or laptops to take notes). I used my Asus Eee PC 1000HE with super long battery life (at least eight hours) to take notes, but certainly could not keep up with most of the speakers so I also used my Livescribe Pulse Smart Pen to record audio so I can take more detailed notes later.  I will be working on those in my spare time in the weeks ahead and then will make them available via this blog.

It's taken me a while to gather my thoughts about day two of last week's knowledge management conference, but here are some notes on the final four keynotes:

• Rob Cross, associate professor at the University of Virginia's McIntire School of Commerce and research director of The Network Roundtable;
• John McQuary, vice president of KM and technology strategies at Fluor Corp.;
• Bryant Clevenger, global leader for IBM Global Business Services knowledge sharing strategy; and
• Alan  Deutschman, author of Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life.

As most of you know, APQC kicked off its 14^th annual knowledge management conference in Houston this morning. With so much knowledge sharing going on, it's only possible to scratch the surface in a blog post (even a rather long one), but here are some of the key insights and take-aways from the three keynotes.

APQC president Carla O'Dell got us off to a great start this morning. Given that she outlined many of the main points from her presentation in her latest blog post, I will not repeat all of them here, but I will mention a few ideas that stuck out for me.