actKM Day 2 (and that's 50)

Wow! My 50th post!

As you are probably aware I am not the most frequent of bloggers so to get to 50 is a bit of a milestone for me.

After recovering from an evening of fun a frivolity (actKM Collaboration Cabaret) it was back to the uncomfortable chairs for another day of sharing and learning.

Day two was another great day at the 2008 actKM Conference with highlights including:

• Serena Joyner wrapping up the actKM Collaboration Cabaret. A great effort at pre-conference collaboration mixed with social activities at the event. We have to do this again next year.
• Laurie Lock Lee gave an insight and example activity of Value Network Analysis. I had read up on this a while back but had never attempted one. Good props and interesting exercise tp help produce a Partnership Scorecard. Thanks Laurie.
• Matthew Hodgson shared his perspective of the evolution of KM.
• I got up and danced around (presentation).
• Dave Snowden shared some interesting perspectives on narrative and storytelling and shared some of his current projects. Always a delight to hear Dave's stories. The man can talk.
• The day was finished off with a Reverse Brainstorming Activity facilitated by David Gurteen. A good fun exercise although I am not too sure about the whistle. Every time it was blown I looked around to see who had been fouled.

It all ended too quickly and I eagerly anticipate the next opportunity to get together with my peers again. Thanks to all those who attended. It was great to get aquainted and to reaquaint. Well done to the organisers. You guys dun real good!!

I was just uploading my slides from yesterday's workshop when I came across this wonderful little Presentation Pack widget they provide (funnily enought it's called the Egowidget) that allows you to package up the presentations you have on slideshare and present them in your blog.

| Get your Presentation Pack

Fun for the whole family.

Cory

actkm08 - Day 1

Great day today.

Highlights?

• My first time seeing David Gurteen in the wild. Did well. First half was basic for me but set a platform for those who didn't know what Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 is. I like the evolution of KM he described - from technical to social. Presentation
• Good case study on developing a knowledge strategy using narrative input from Dr Jane Chrystal of Central Western Catchment Authority.
• Matt Moore as brilliant as ever on KM ROI and his experiences. Presentation
• Discovered a new way to use the KM Method Cards by Straits Knowledge. It was a version of Dominoes where each person was given a number of cards and one was placed face up on the table (a big table is required). Each person had to place a card next to the upturned card and show or 'sell' it's relationship. If you can't put a card down then you have to pick up a card. Some interesting discussion and 'selling' took place. Got very interesting when you had to put a card in gaps and it had to match on all sides. It was good to familiarise people with the cards and the KM concepts.
• Arthur Shelley told us about his use of wikis in education at RMIT. Good stuff!
• Eye opening presentation from Andrew Campbell of Tripplehelix on climate change and the role knowledge sharing needs to play.
• Graham Durant-Law showed us the work he has been doing on Business Network Analysis. Good stuff. Have seen this before at the KMRT.

Fun and frivolity tonight with the collaboration cabaret (more about that tomorrow), then I am on just before Dave Snowden tomorrow afternoon.

Wish me luck.

Cory

actKM Conference

In a couple of weeks I will be making my way down to Canberra for my first actKM Conference.

I was unlucky not to go last year and kicking myself because it got some rave reviews.

This year they asked if I would like to do something at the conference and I suggested I would like to run a Peer Assist on doing After Action Reviews. This will provide people with a "2 for 1" in using a technique to research another technique.

As a lead up I have circulated a request to submit your experiences in implementing/planning/running/participating in AARs. Feel free to share as many of your war stories as you like.

You can also collaborate on the conferences Ning site.

I hope to see you there.

Thanks

Cory

KM Maturity Models

I am on the hunt for an open source KM Maturity Model. I am looking to do some benchmarking with colleagues and we are wanting to use a common model.

Here are a number of models and assessments I have come across so far:

• APQC KM Maturity Model: More on implementation maturity (roadmap) than capability maturity.
• David Skyrme KM Assessment: 10 areas of assessment
• KMMM: From Siemens AG. 5 levels of maturity, eight areas of assessment (50,000 Euro?! There goes my KM budget.... for the next 5 years!!!)
• KM Self Assessment (Learning to Fly; Collison & Parcell) 5 levels, 5 areas.
• KMmm by TKCI: 6 levels, 4 areas
• 5iKM3 KM Maturity Model by TCS: 5 levels, 3 areas.
• MAKE Awards: 8 areas
• European KM Forum KM Assessment Model and Tool: 8 areas

What have you used/found and how useful was it?

I am keeping notes here. Feel free to add.

Thanks

Cory

KM OZ Conference

My 1st 6 months - KM Program

Here is a copy of the slides I presented at the KM Australia Conference yesterday.

I wanted to do the presentation using the mind mapping software (iMindMap) but had issues with bringing up sub-maps in the Presentation View.

Conference was good. Caught up with some KM buddies and made some new ones along the way.

After talknig with a few Engineering related KM people will be looking to set up a group to collaborate on industry specific challenges. We'll see how it goes.

If anyone saw the presentation and has any feedback I'd be glad to hear it. Always looking for opportunities to improve.

My 1st 6 months - KM Program

view presentation (tags: knowledge management)

Thanks

Cory

Which knowledge to use?

I have had a picture in the front of my notebook for a while now and finally had the opportunity to turn it into something a bit more presentable.

Original Sketch

Slides

It talks to a concept along the lines that people make subconscious decisions about what sources of knowledge and information they will use to find answers.

This ranges from a person's own tacit and explicit sources, personal networks, local resources (team mates, team folders, colleagues) to enterprise wide sources and beyond the walls of the organisation.

It mainly talks about some of the factors that effect which sources people decide to use. These can be based on trust, ease of access, ease of use, reputation and previous experiences.

No empirical evidence to back this up. Just a concept I thought about a while back that makes sense for me. What do you think?

Thanks

Cory

Defining KM

Ray Sims has recently done some work on collecting 43 definitions for knowledge management.

This has been a recurring theme on the actKM list that gets debated every now and again.

It is interesting when you plug them all into the Many Eyes toolset from IBM and see what the tag cloud looks like. Also try the two word view.


Thanks

Cory

Two sides of the same coin

I had a fantastic conversation today with the Manager of our strategy area. This is the first opportunity we have had to talk face to face since I started two and a half months ago and was thoroughly enjoyable.

Our conversation ended up highlighting two sides to the same coin in relation to the role of a Knowledge Manager.

On one side of the coin we talked about the "influence gig", the evangelist. The role of the manager to work with parts of the business on developing their understanding of knowledge management and the benefits it can provide as well as supporting the development their strategic plans. This is an enterprise wide activity that not only involves the areas of the business that are delivering to customers but also the corporate service aspects of the business (HR, IT, Finance etc..).

On the other side there is the "service provider". Supporting the business by providing the services, knowledge and tools they need to execute their strategies and deliver quality outcomes.

At this point in time I am a team of one and not necessarily able to excel in either of these areas whilst Í am constantly spinning the coin. It is an ability to be able to switch between strategic and operational roles but it is not necessarily a sustainable endeavour.

So in developing our KM strategy I need to look at this balance. How can I provide in the role of advisor and supplier? What roles and resources will we need? It will be through some great conversations, like the one today, that I hope to collaborate with my stakeholders and consumers on a suitable solution.

Thanks

Cory

In Melbourne

I find myself in Melbourne for most of next week presenting and attending a conference on Facilitating Knowledge Transfer and Retention in the Modern Workplace.

I'll be posting my presentation on Understanding the new breed of employee to Slideshare after the event for those who might be interested.

If you are attending let me know and come and introduce yourself. I'm not shy.

Thanks

Cory

QKM Forum

For those who may not know, I am currently championing the Queensland Knowledge Management Forum as it's Chairperson.

Currently we get together for coffee on the fourth Thursday of the month and track down any KM gurus to share their knowledge when they come through town.

The group has an online home at http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/qkm.

So if you are in Brisbane and you have an interest in knowledge management come and say hello.

Thanks

Cory

Anecdote coming to Brisneyland

It doesn't happen too often so when it does it's good to jump up and down and make some noise.

One of Australia's (and the world's) leading players in the narrative field are coming to Brisbane.

Anecdote are holding one of their workshops on Narrative Techniques in Business in Brisbane on the 27th of March 2008.

Highly recommend participating in the one day workshop with some of the leading people in the field guiding your learning.

Tell 'em I sent ya.

Cory

'True' Learnings

Following on from last post I will continue on with the second point I made in presenting feedback to a number of Project Managers in an Enterprise PMO upon studying a number of their post implementation reviews.

Last post we talked about Blind Optimism and how despite PMs having the worst project in the world, they tend to be blindly optimistic about the outcome of the next.

This time I want to talk about the identification of 'true' learnings.

what I had discovered from studying a number of Post Implementation Review reports is that where challenges were faced during the delivery of a project, the workaround that got them over the line was highlighted.

Now this knowledge has value and can provide someone who finds themselves in a similar situation, a description of the experience and decision to hopefully improve their chances of success.

What was glaringly omitted is what I termed the True Learning. I described the true learning being the actual root cause of the challenge faced. By describing this you can give the gift of foresight to a PM by allowing them to be aware of the root cause and pre-cursors to the challenge in order to mitigate the risk of it occurring.

We have introduced After Action Review (AAR) questions and the 5 Whys technique to help people identify these root causes. But it is not just enough to identify them. We need to ensure they are shared and available for people who are no longer Blindly Optimistic.

A capital idea

This week saw me start a new role, be offered another role and be invited to participate in some psychometric testing for yet another role. When it rains it pours.

But aside from that, I took some time out of a busy schedule to have hot chocolate (don't drink coffee) and some stimulating conversation with other Brisbane based KM practitioners at the KM over Coffee event that the QKM Forum has once a month.

After introductions and some initial discussion I raised a perception I have of how companies measure their performance. I drew the following diagram on a piece of paper.


It seems at the moment that everything is brought back to dollar amounts. Activities or programs undertaken in organisations that have a human capital or intellectual capital focus seem to have their performance measured financially. How much did we make? How much did we save? Did it effect the share price? What is the financial value/benefit?

I can understand why this is the case. It happens that financial performance is one of the very few performance indicators that transcends industries, geographies and scale. Profit, share price, assets, liabilities. All are measured in dollar amounts. It creeps into the knowledge management space because you find you have to talk in these terms to make sense or get the attention you require.

Example - Lessons Learned
How many times have we seen reusing knowledge/experience from previous activities expressed in terms of "We saved $X million", "We reduced our costs by half", "Our income increased by $Y".

Now I know a number of people have been trying to get organisations to adopt metrics for human capital, intellectual capital and other areas, that are not converted to financial terms. But there is a long road ahead to get them to any sort of level that has them even appearing in Annual Reports.

Cory

Adopting KM in a PMO

I recently presented a case study of adopting knowledge management practices in a Project Management Office (PMO) at the 2007 KM Australia Conference in Sydney.

You can have a look at a copy of the slides on Slideshare.

Some comments on the NSW KM Forum.

Thanks

Cory

In the Know - Presentation at PMOz

WEll in teh wee hours of theis morning I set off for the Gold Coast to present a session on personal knowledge management for Project Managers at the Annual PMOz Conference.

My session happened to be the first cab off the rank at 8:30am after the annual dinenr the night before. All this said had a pretty good turnout considering there were 3 other streams running at the same time and had the room full.

The presentation was entitled In the Know: Knowledge Management principles and practices for Project Managers and had a focus on talking about the sorts of behaviours and capabilities we have been developing in the Corporate Projects Division at Suncorp.

The presentation is actually on my other computer and I will try to upload it to slideshare later tonight.

I spent most of the session describing the human systems (culture, learning, reflection, self-awareness, emotional intelligence) that are needed and some of the techniques we have been using including:

• Peer Assist
• After Action Review
• Communities of Practice
• Social Networks
• Research

Most of the questions at the end of the presentation related to what technologies we are using.

Got some good positive feedback from the Chair of the session and several attendees.

An interesting morning.

Thanks

Cory

KM Entities in Australia

Perhaps you can help me?

I am trying to collate a list of Knowledge Management related groups and organisations in Australia. A 'map' if you will.

Through my research I have come across a few groups but have seen a number pop up recently that I was not aware of.

If you would like to help me out I have set up a space on the actKM Discussion Board to do some initial collaboration.

The results will be communicated to the actKM List and hopefully made available in a sustainable form (wiki).

I am hoping to provide a map for KM people to practice what they preach and identify peers they can engage with.

Thanks

Cory