KM Edge: Where the best in Knowledge Management come together

KM and the Limits of Human Working Memory

2010-07-06T18:53:31Z

Nicholas Carr's recent book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains touches on an issue that APQC has been grappling with for several years--namely, that knowledge management is limited by the capacity of human attention, which many claim is being damaged by digital immersion, or excessive exposure to digital media.

One thing that hasn't changed with the onset of the Internet is the capacity of our short-term memories. According to research conducted by George A. Miller in the 1950s, an individual's short-term memory can hold only seven small "chunks" of information at a time, plus or minus two. If you use memory tricks to expand the size of each chunk, then you can increase the amount of information you can recall later, but that doesn't affect how much is in your short-term memory at any one time. It's still just seven chunks. No amount of technology can change that limitation.

In other words, your brain is like a big retail store. You have a massive amount of room in the warehouse, which is your long-term memory and knowledge, but there is very limited counter space, or short-term memory where conscious thought can take place. Whether you are pulling stuff out of the warehouse (using what you know) or shuffling things around on the counter (trying to multitask), your limitations are far greater than you think. Your mental counter space is small, and stuff is always falling off. You become aware of this when you walk into a room and can't remember why you came (because some other thought knocked the reason off the counter). And although multitasking may save time, experts say it can be draining on your brain's resources. As Laura Vanderberg, assistant director of the Time Management Consulting Program at Tufts University, points out, "It's 'mental counter space' and there's only so much of it."

Why does this matter to knowledge management? Because KM approaches should be designed with the assumption that people can't remember everything they know or once knew ("I don't know what I know until you ask me, and even then, I may have forgotten"). We need to capture information and lessons learned when they are fresh and make that knowledge available to others when and where they need it. KM exists because every employee can't know or remember everything, and our tools need to recognize that fact.

Sticky Organizations and How They Make Smart People Stupid

2010-06-08T14:53:13Z

The thrill of being headhunted to a senior role in a successful, knowledge-intensive corporation on the basis of expertise is only balanced by the downside of finding yourself trapped in a cycle of ritualized meetings, unable to influence the strategic direction of the organization that paid the recruiter so well to recruit you.

In such a situation, several options become available:

Lie back and enjoy the management cycle of activity (like pedaling a static exercise bike with minimal resistance).
Get upset about the fact that you have become a corporate adornment who can't influence strategy, become cynical, and constructively dismiss yourself.
Try to understand the situation and do something about it.

Next Thursday, I will be facilitating APQC's knowledge management community call, where I will talk about why it's so hard for subject matter experts and thought leaders to put their knowledge to work inside "sticky" organizations. If this is a topic that interests you, please post your comments and feedback here, and join me on the upcoming call.

Victor Newman is a visiting professor of knowledge and innovation management at the Business School, The University of Greenwich. He will be the guest facilitator at APQC's June knowledge management community call, which will take place on Thursday, June 17, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. Click here to register for this free call.

The New Face(book) of Collaboration

2010-04-23T17:44:21Z

APQC's 15^th KM conference is next week, and if the registration is any indication, knowledge management is alive and well, and travel budgets are being released from their chokeholds. This conference is always a bellwether for The Next Big Thing in KM. We'll have to wait until next week to be sure, but my sense from talking with the keynoters and presenters is that there are two hot top-of-mind topics right now.

The first is how KM can help (rather than simply lament) today's socially networked, information-overloaded knowledge workers with their digitally induced shrinking attention spans, their iPhone/BlackBerry obsessions, and their perception that they don't have time to stop and "do KM." This includes discovering unexpected applications of Enterprise 2.0 tools to enliven communities of practice; finding the right way to incorporate Facebook-type functionality in a business setting; using analytics to make sense out of human behavior; and finding the "KM app for that" for mobile devices. If Apple can have a 474 percent increase in Asian sales of the (three-year-old!) iPhone and its biggest non-holiday profit EVER, then you know KM better pay attention to what will go on that tiny little Apple appliance. Or Droid. Or Blackberry. All while keeping the bad guys from getting a peak at it.

The second Big Thing is a deeper desire to understand the roots of real knowledge and wisdom. Good heavens--dare we go there? American KMers often fear we will be dismissed as academic or irrelevant to business if we talk about things like wisdom or judgment. Hmm... How's that working for us? We'll see next week if there is traction to be found there.

Every year, I swear that the content and camaraderie at the conference couldn't get any better, but it does. This year should be no different. See you there.

Applied KM: An Open Source Example

2010-04-20T22:19:33Z

Over the past year, APQC's internal Web technology team has been designing our next-generation Web presence. I say "presence" because our site is the primary outward-facing point of contact to our members, and many have come to equate access to our online Knowledge Base with APQC membership. Based on comprehensive feedback from our members and customers, we evaluated everything from well-known portal and content management system (CMS) vendors to this week's "Web 2.0 tool du jour," ultimately selecting Drupal as the platform best suited to our needs.

For those unfamiliar with Drupal, it's often categorized as an open source CMS, although the term "CMS" doesn't do it justice in terms of functionality. Drupal has a large and rapidly expanding install base, ranging from small, independent sites to large enterprises such as www.whitehouse.gov and www.fastcompany.com. From a knowledge management perspective, the most fascinating aspect of Drupal is the collaborative way in which the platform's programming community handles innovation. In return for access to more than 5000 contributed modules centrally organized at www.drupal.org, developers are on the honor system to contribute any generic modules they write that they feel will benefit the community as a whole. The community then offers feedback, bug reports, and feature patches.

]]> In our interactions with the Drupal developer community, we've observed the following defining characteristics:

Purpose--The Drupal community is singularly focused on improving its core and contributed modules. Because the community is so large and active, it boasts an impressive array of mature, tested modules. See a new fancy feature on the site you were just browsing? Check out the Drupal module list, and chances are that someone's already contributed a module for that.
Communication--The developers use cutting-edge technology to promote effective communication. Most exchanges are focused on improving code, but there's also "fun stuff" that helps build a sense of community, including a Drupal song!
Transparency--Need to know the current state of a bug fix? No problem. Need to know how many fixes need to be made before Drupal 7 is officially released? You can easily look it up, and you can also subscribe to Drupal founder Dries Buytaert's Twitter feed for news and info. To take it one step further, the Drupal security team prides itself on transparently reporting and fixing security issues as they arise.

The open source concept fits well with APQC's nonprofit status and mission to disseminate knowledge. By choosing an open source solution for our next-generation Web site, we hope to further improve the channels through which we collaborate and share with our members.

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APQC IT Director Kelly Bedrich and APQC Executive Director Ron Webb will be among the breakout session speakers at APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference, Driving Business Performance: The New Face of Collaboration. You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

Getting Smarter About KM at GE Energy

2010-04-13T16:44:53Z

I want to remind everyone that APQC's April 2010 knowledge management community call is coming up this week. The call will feature guest presenter Linda Hummel, knowledge management leader at GE Energy, and her colleague Dave Cerrone.

Since GE Energy's KM program was created in the second quarter of 2008 to support the company's sales and marketing team, the KM team has focused on the program's four pillars: people, process, content, and technology. Hummel and Cerrone will describe:

how the foundation for the KM program was established with an emphasis on Google enterprise search,
how GE Energy is taking people search to a new level with an expert locator system,
how the KM team is measuring its success, and
what processes are used to maintain content freshness and fill gaps.

This call will take place this Thursday, April 15, at 10:30 a.m. Central. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/469076536.

Increasing the Navy's Bang for the Taxpayer's Buck

2010-04-09T20:56:30Z

In the interest of transparency, let me just say up front that the folks I'm helping to publicize below are clients of mine. There are two good reasons why I'm happy to help them out: 1) what they do is pretty cool, and 2) I figure that, if I want to keep them as clients, I'd better do this because they asked me to.

What does Carrier Team One do? They share knowledge, transfer good practices among projects, and help create a collaborative, networked environment (in an otherwise very hierarchical one) to improve the maintenance activities of the U.S. Navy's aircraft carrier fleet. (Quiz: Without help, can you name all the carriers in the current fleet?)

So while I'm not really all that worried about our relationship with the Navy, it would be great to fill the room to hear what these folks are doing to create a peer-to-peer "organization" that is really made up of over 50 distinct organizations.

]]> Here's what they have to say about their presentation.

For those of you yearning in anticipation for the 2010 APQC KM Conference, you'll be happy to know that Carrier Team One's breakout presentation has become a "must see" event. You may have heard some "scuttlebutt" about our interactive approach, but check out our Facebook page where live knowledge managers will answer your unclassified questions and share their KM expertise.

Team One's presentation will include a kickoff from an aircraft carrier Commanding Officer followed by a great discussion of our knowledge management architecture, people, processes, and technology. We will also leave ample time for questions and answers to maximize your personal learning.

In case you were considering a different session, let me say that Navy gear will go out to participating audience members on top of the great information on using knowledge management for better value to the American taxpayer.

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Captain Kevin Terry and Captain Ralph Soule of the U.S. Navy will be among the breakout session speakers at APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference, Driving Business Performance: The New Face of Collaboration. You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

The Search for Insights in an Avalanche of Information

2010-04-05T21:39:36Z

In the modern world, we are inundated with a flood of data and information. Traditional editing systems designed to help us sort through this clutter--like newspapers--are endangered and may not survive. But the increased flow of information makes it more important than ever that we learn how to convert the myriad data streams that surround us into useful knowledge and insights we can act on. I would even go so far as to say that we are seeking wisdom out of all those facts and numbers.

How can we accomplish this? The wise use of data depends on our ability to link it to real life, to real people and their experiences, to human transactions and interactions. History is littered with examples of companies that went awry because they did not understand the context and realities associated with the data they were supposedly analyzing. In other cases, leaders did not "ask deeply" enough. They knew what, how much, and where their customers were buying, but they didn't ask the right questions to ascertain why their customers bought what they did or what those people were really looking for. Often, what we sell is not what the customer is buying (something Peter Drucker points out in Innovation and Entrepreneurship).

]]> In order to understand customer behavior, we must first understand human behavior--we must be able to relate the numbers on a spreadsheet to human motivations and what's really going on in the marketplace. This usually necessitates that we broaden our thinking and explore less conventional ways of gathering and processing information. In working with my students at the University of Texas at Austin, I often find that I need to teach them how to learn. They're intelligent and excel in traditional classroom settings, but they significantly underestimate the importance of diverse learning methods and of integrating various types of knowledge (you can read more about this in the post "How We Learn" from my own blog, Hoover's World).

Often, the answers we seek are right under our noses, but we go right by them in our rush to be organized, objective, and "scientific." Objectivity and science are important, of course, but we've gone too far in that direction. Ultimately, acquiring meaningful knowledge involves focusing on the human side of what we do, being broad-minded and curious, and looking in unexpected places. It is about having a fundamentally "liberal arts" approach, regardless of what we majored in. Everyone has access to data, but the ability to aggregate and synthesize those facts to derive new patterns, insights, and ideas is what separates the true innovators from the rest of the pack.

I will be talking about these concepts in more detail next month when I keynote at APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference. I hope to see you all there so that we can explore different modes of thinking and learning together.

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Gary Hoover is an author, consultant, and entrepreneur-in-residence at the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas in Austin. A lifelong entrepreneur and innovator, Hoover's business accomplishments include creating the pioneering book superstore BOOKSTOP, which was acquired by of Barnes & Noble for $41.5 million, and beginning the company that became Hoover's, the world's largest Internet-based provider of information about enterprises.

Hoover will be among the keynote speakers at APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference, Driving Business Performance: The New Face of Collaboration. You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

Using Knowledge Wisely: The Components of Good Judgment

2010-03-25T22:50:24Z

Over the past decade, organizations have been hard at work developing new and better ways to create and share knowledge. Technology has made it easier to collaborate and facilitated widespread access to information and expertise. Unfortunately, the ever-increasing amounts of knowledge at our fingertips do not seem to have improved our judgment. From top Wall Street firms to national governments, we can all name organizations that, despite their rich hoards of knowledge, have exhibited terrible judgment that has caused them to falter and resulted in catastrophic damage.

If we accept that knowledge and judgment are not the same thing, then we must ask ourselves: What goes into good judgment? How are knowledge and judgment linked, and where do they diverge? And finally, why have so many enterprises failed to form sound judgments, despite their extensive knowledge?

]]> In my estimation, good judgment is most often founded on a willingness to acknowledge and grapple with diverse forms of knowledge. There seems to be a direct tie between democratic knowledge processes and better judgment. Those organizations (as well as countries!) that allow and even encourage diverse and pluralistic voices to be heard and acknowledged have a better shot at ensuring that sound judgment is used in their decisions.

However, our organizations and business schools have consistently emphasized rational, analytical knowledge over less empirical forms. We never bother to look into other varieties of knowledge, and our hierarchical structures do not encourage the kind of open, democratic discussions required to surface diverse perspectives. To privilege a particular type of knowledge, such as analytics or intuition--to say that one is superior--is to close our minds to an entire set of alternatives. Instead, we must look across the spectrum of knowledge, evaluate an issue from all angles, and then use these inputs to make the best possible decision.

And, as we do so, we must remember that judgment is based on more than an accumulation of knowledge. The final ingredients that go into judgment--that distinguish it from knowledge--are empathy and values. Good judgment takes into account not just ourselves, but all those who will be affected by a particular action. If certain Wall Street executives had infused their decisions with this type of judgment, the past year would likely have been a very different experience.

I look forward to exploring these issues at APQC's upcoming knowledge management conference, where I will delve further into the relationship between knowledge and judgment and offer some advice to organizations striving to make sound, knowledge-based decisions.

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Larry Prusak is a leading researcher, author, and consultant. He is the founder and director of the Institute for Knowledge Management, a global consortium of member organizations engaged in advancing the practice of knowledge management through action research.

Prusak will be among the keynote speakers at APQC's 2010 knowledge management conference, Driving Business Performance: The New Face of Collaboration. You can learn more about the conference by clicking here.

10 Principles for Successful Communities

2010-03-18T21:01:35Z

We hope you will be able to join us for APQC's March 2010 knowledge management community call featuring guest facilitator Stan Garfield, community evangelist at Deloitte. During the call, Stan will present 10 principles for successful communities based on his experiences creating, leading, and managing communities and communities programs both inside and outside of organizations.

This one-hour call will take place next Thursday, March 25, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/204945736.

To read more about Stan, visit his Web site at http://sites.google.com/site/stangarfield.

Is a Digital Nation Necessarily a Dumber Nation?

2010-02-22T23:22:46Z

Continuing the theme of my last post on digital devices, I really enjoyed the PBS.org documentary Digital Nation, which talks about the growing dominance of digital media and interaction on all our lives. My husband and I had to pause the TiVo every five minutes to process what we were seeing. Both the entire documentary and short segments are available at this link.

My last two sentences are an ironic commentary on the message of the documentary itself: Are all our digital devices making us dumb, prompting us to think in sound bites instead of essays and willing to settle for just good enough instead of great when it comes to knowledge and information?

Or is the current transformation just a case of a new generation finding its own way? After all, every generation in recent memory has been more productive than the last.

However, that tide could be reversing. Even though each generation of Americans in the past century has lived longer and been healthier than its parents, the next one promises to be sicker, given the unhealthy quantity and quality of food we eat and the emergence of gaming over playing. And paradoxically, this decline is all a result of our affluence and access to "the good life".

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Are we doomed to dumbing down, or just taking some time to get used to this new world?

Making Sure Your KM Initiatives Complement Your Organization's Culture

2010-02-12T23:26:16Z

Do you want to find out why going against the cultural grain of your organization can keep you from excellence in KM? At APQC's February knowledge management community call, eNthusaProve Chief Innovation Officer Paul Armstrong will discuss why certain KM methods are so successful in some organizations, but falter in others. The presentation will also provide insight to help KM strategists consider corporate culture when planning KM initiatives.

This one-hour call will take place next Thursday, February 18, at 2:00 p.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/206828161.

Power in the Palm of Your Hand

2010-01-28T22:35:46Z

If you read my last KM Edge post, you know that I was quite taken with the new world that video opens for KM. Now the smart phone has captured my attention as a KM tool. The quip "we have an app for that" has entered our lexicon, and everyone seems to be perpetually in a "Crackberry" prayer mode or immersed in their iPhone to the exclusion of all else. No longer a computer company, Apple is now defined by Steven Jobs as a mobile devices company--in fact, the largest in the world.

So what? Smart phones have been around a long time. There are well-established company policies and precedents for how to manage security; who pays for the device and its text, voice, and data charges; and how IT can establish, manage, and integrate the whole system.

What is not well-established is how KM professionals can capitalize on this ubiquitous, addictive pocket computer. What is appropriate to share through that tiny screen? How much do people want to know, and when do they want to know it? What can we learn from Twitter, RSS, and alert systems such as Continental Airlines telling me whether my plane is on time?

]]> APQC's KM Advanced Working Group, a set of seven organizations pushing the envelope, will work over the next few months to create such a set of guidelines. We'd love your input and will share what we ultimately develop with everyone who contributes.

Share your ideas below in the comments section. We'll update you as the list develops and make sure you get a final copy.

Mentoring: Is It for You?

2010-01-26T17:36:34Z

Most of you are familiar with Jim Lee as APQC's KM senior adviser and a frequent (and often entertaining) contributor to this blog. At our January knowledge management community call, Jim will be highlighting some mentoring insights from APQC's best practices research, answering questions about the areas that benefit from mentoring and the issues surrounding mentoring programs.

To hear Jim's take on mentoring and to share your own experiences and questions, please join us this Thursday, January 28, at 10:30 a.m. Central time. You can register for the call at https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/591993305.

Successfully Measuring KM: The Right Tools, the Right People, the Right Attitude

2010-01-19T17:17:43Z

Last summer, Carla wrote a blog post in which she expressed amazement that she is still repeatedly asked, "Can you measure the impact of knowledge management? And, if so, how?" APQC's response (as well as Carla's) is always the same: "Of course you can!" In that post, Carla went on to cite some of the tactics that APQC has found most successful in measuring KM impact.

Now, I admit that measuring things is not a glamorous or rewarding process. There is no shortcut for defining, developing, collecting, analyzing, monitoring, and reporting measures that track performance. (Process flow that!) Furthermore, just following the steps will not always yield the results you want or expect.

Despite this, I constantly tell APQC's KM measurement customers to just trust the process--because I know it works. After all, a process is like a recipe, in that it gives you the basic steps. Anyone can follow a recipe, but expert chefs know how to select the best ingredients and equipment, fine-tune the instructions, and trouble-shoot when things don't go as planned. The same goes for measurement: The process provides the framework, but high-quality inputs, effective tools, and process knowledge are needed to ensure you get the best result every time.

Let me share three pieces of advice that, when combined, go a long way to ensuring the success of a KM measurement effort.

Use tools that provide a framework for thinking and promote dialog.
When designing measures, engage people who are involved in the workflow itself.
Prepare for the long haul, and take steps to align measures with change management initiatives.

]]> Effective Tools

Over the years, APQC has worked with our customers and members to collect the best tools to support the KM measurement process. One of these tools is APQC's Measurement Alignment Worksheet, pictured below.

Developed during APQC's 2003 Collaborative Research study Measuring the Impact of Knowledge Management, this tool has helped community leaders, KM core groups, business process stakeholders, and sponsors align and correlate KM activities and approaches to business process outputs and outcomes. The success of this tool (and others) is driven by the participation and engagement of the appropriate people in the KM measurement process.

Engaging the Right People

Define what measures matter to your audience by asking them. A member of a reservoir engineering community of practice will think measuring the number of best practices submitted is a good measure only if you can tie it back to the value of implementing those best practices. In addition to submission and implementation measures, a KM core group evaluating an approach for the transfer of best practices is typically interested in the number of best practices validated, the number of best practices shared, and the number of best practices accessed because such measures are useful in monitoring process efficiency.

My friends at U.S. Navy Carrier Team One believe in KM metrics for learning. Their Knowledge Sharing Networks (KSNs) bring together people with common business problems and facilitate the development of creative solutions. By engaging the members of the KSNs, Carrier Team One is able to help community members understand the importance of their active participation in the KSNs and how it leads to the achievement of business process outputs and goals.

When you design a set of measures, make sure that you involve the people who will be using the resulting metrics to make decisions, improve processes, or change the workflow.

Stamina and Change Management

Don't prepare to measure KM and think you will "get it right" the first--or even the second, third, or fourth--time. As wiser men have said before me, "The road goes on forever and the party never ends." Measurement is a journey, so set up milestones along the way at which to report and celebrate success and learning.

The process and tools should help us continuously learn, adjust, recalibrate, and improve. According to my calculations, success in measuring knowledge management is about 20 percent process and 80 percent change management. Reporting the measures is important, but collecting and analyzing data is only the beginning: You must help people understand the results that are being reported and how to use those results to change thinking, improve decision making, or hone practices. This is one of the true signposts of KM measurement success.

I'm sure there are other "secret ingredients" you have discovered through your own measurement experiences. I'd be interested in hearing about them!

Knowledge: How Much Is Too Much?

2010-01-07T17:22:17Z

At this time of year, we are often inspired to reflect on what has occurred over the past twelve months. But I'm not particularly interested in reliving my past unless we're talking Disco, and I don't know why that didn't last. So, with an eye to the future, I'm spending time thinking about how to solve a problem for all time: How much knowledge (or information or data) is too much? I think the ultimate answer lies in "sense-making," but that's too big of a topic for me to think about right now, so I'm going to stay with much simpler examples to illustrate potential solutions.

This is not merely an academic exercise or thought experiment--it's a real problem that many organizations experience, but don't know how to address. In fact, I'm working with one such organization right now, and this problem has the organization at a crossroads regarding what to do about it. And while I don't have the complete solution yet myself, I do know what side of the fence I fall on and what type of solution I would prefer to see. That'll be the basis of my argument. Supporting evidence and even counterpoints are definitely welcome here.

]]> Situation: A project-based organization wants to develop a comprehensive KM manual. A common approach, and nothing inherently wrong with the idea. So far, so good.

Environment: Since this organization is project-based, the vast majority--say 99 percent--of the people involved in the process do not think about KM in even sporadic terms (not unrealistic, given that 3,000 people may be on the project, so less than 300 are actively aware of and use KM). Exacerbating the problem is that the projects are minimally many months long, and periodically many years long. So the folks that started the project aren't always the same folks that finish it.

Implications: The best opportunity for KM to be wildly successful is in the diffusion to the 99 percent. We already know that the current manual is distributed to project leaders, but what does the organization need to do to bring a KM manual to the masses?

My response: Simpler is better. I don't want the entire KM collection from the Library of Congress when I only need a quick definition of how a community of practice can help me with the problem facing me right now. Or, more generally, I don't need to boil the ocean when all I want is a cup of tea.

So what's my evidence for arguing that "less is more" when it comes to knowledge? Just off the top of my balding head:

Printer instructions. I've been lucky (?) enough to have gotten several printers in the past few years. As a piece of machinery, printers seem to be complex devices. Yet, for me to operate them, I'm given essentially a single-sided, picture laden sheet of paper that tells me exactly how to connect it properly, turn it on, and start printing! Sure, I still get a big, honkin' manual to go with it, but I can't remember the last time I ever actually opened one of those manuals to find an answer.
I fly--a lot. Last year I took 123 flights, which is about average for me. Not enough to compare to George Clooney in Up in the Air, but then again, who can compare to him? Presumably, the flight attendants--the "knowledge managers" in this case--are given very good and detailed instructions on how to effectively evacuate an airplane. The rest of us? A cardboard comic book that doesn't even have text, but provides just enough information to keep us from trampling each other on the way out (assuming we don't all panic like I probably would).
Google wants to index the world's information, whether we like it or not. So why does Bing exist?
Even though we may see Kindles everywhere we go, why can we still buy CliffsNotes?
Why is there fast food?

Okay, I guess I've gone over the top now. What does anyone else have to say about this?