Category: Knowledge Management

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What is the WordPress KM Project?

Knowledge Management is a term laden with baggage. For some people, KM synonymous with expensive IT systems and tools. For others it conjures memories of failed initiatives from a time past. But for most people, KM is a concept that they really don’t get.

Not that they need to “get it.” The term itself was invented by academians and consultants conspiring to elevate their science. But when the rubber meets the road, KM is simply about sharing and leveraging knowledge intelligently. The typical knowledge worker isn’t usually familiar with the term knowledge management or even knowledge worker. They just know that they need to tap into knowledge and expertise to help them do their job.

And so, we KM professionals are tasked with providing a systematic approach to KM that doesn’t burden knowledge workers with learning a whole new language. Taxonomy, vocabulary, subject matter experts, communities of practice — all are misguided labels that serve the KM professionals (we know what we mean) but obfuscate the message to the engineer on a project.

We need to put the process into terms they already know and understand. In many ways, Enterprise 2.0 concepts come closer. Blogs, social networking, profiles and discussion forums are all part of our common experience of the web. And they all fit nicely into a community-centric approach to knowledge management.

I’ve said many times that KM is not about the tool. Successful KM is more about the processes and behaviors that drive collaboration, knowledge sharing and reuse. Show people how they benefit when they share their knowledge and it doesn’t matter what the tool is. As long as that tool doesn’t impede your ability to connect with knowledge and the people who have or need expertise, which tool is almost irrelevant. Not exactly the message that the big software vendors want you to hear, but it’s true.

 

Which got me thinking: if it’s not about the tool, why not choose some tools that are readily and freely available? Could this not make KM accessible to many more companies, and perhaps spawn a new era of extra-enterprise collaboration?

Thus was born The WordPress KM Project. The goal is to create a community-centric knowledge management platform that leverages freely available and easily deployed technology — WordPress.

WordPress is primarily considered blogging software, but it can be much more. A single WordPress installation can now support multiple sites or communities. Plugins such as the BuddyPress suite add discussion forums and extensible user profiles. And the core WordPress system is already well-suited for content creation and management.

What are the key requirements for the WordPress KM Project?

  • User Management – Each user must have a profile that can contain contact information as well as skills and expertise. This is important in establishing context and building trust among people who may not know each other.
  • Communities – The core management of knowledge and expertise is delegated to domain experts. People interested in that domain are the primary participants of these communities.
  • Enterprise scope – Although knowledge and expertise is delegate to communities, the partipants have access to the full breadth and depth of knowledge across all communities.
  • Search – For most people, this will be the primary method of retrieving needed knowledge or expertise. For that reason, search — by default — must cross community boundaries.
  • Discussion – The primary medium for ad hoc collaboration and knowledge sharing. Each community will have discussion forums centered around the subjects relating to their domain expertise.
  • Blogs – This could also be considered news, but carries the advantage of allowing community participation through comments.
  • Knowledge – This is experience codified. Explicit knowledge stored in web page or other electronic form.

The goal of the WordPress KM Project is to build a working prototype environment, and then share the results with the world. To do this well, I need your help.

Do you have a passion for KM, WordPress, enterprise systems or just contributing to the greater good? I want to hear from you. Get involved, share your ideas, and join the team.

Let’s begin. Start by leaving a comment below.

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Knowledge Management, Highways, Byways and Cars

Chris Collison (which I keep wanting to read as collision for reasons that will soon become apparent) is a KM consultant and author who will be speaking to 600 law librarians on the subject of mapping the KM landscape. It’s a fertile and provocative analogy, and was the focus of today’s KMers.org tweet chat.

Collison suggests that the highway represents the mainstream tools, techniques and functionality that are widely regarded as intrinsic to any decent KM environment. But you also find winding country roads that take you off the beaten track but are worth the detour. And occasionally you are delighted to discover a spectacular view open up while exploring some uncharted corner of the world.

There are also parallel routes — canals and railways which might compete with or provide an option to the highway. And finally there are the swamps, quicksand and dead-ends that we wish we had never turned into.

I was dumbstruck when Collison asked the group what the highways consisted of, and very quickly the answers that came back were technology solutions. KM is much bigger and broader than any wiki, blog or discussion forum. It’s bigger than Sharepoint or Yammer. It involves first and foremost the people. Engaging people, giving them a reason to share their knowledge and expertise. Making sense of KM so that they can answer the WIIFM* question.

I wrote about this a couple weeks ago after I read Nick Milton’s post on Knowledge Management before IT. KM isn’t really anything new. We’ve been doing it for centuries. We may have called is something different, but the key need was the same; to pass knowledge from one person to another.

Simon Burnett summed up the risk with “shiny objects” (i.e. cool tools) nicely:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/Simon_Burnett/status/42641774631596032″]

So many IT-led KM initiatives have failed, mainly because of their focus on the tools. Which led me to think. The tools we use to manage knowledge are analogous to the car that we use to drive down that KM highway. There are all kinds of cars. Expensive cars. Fast cars. Sexy cars. Safe cars. SUVs. And even plain cars. Any of them (assuming proper working order) can get you from Point A to Point B. Possessing the car, even a top of the line model, will not help you reach your destination if you don’t know where you’re going or how you’re going to get there.

The kind of car you drive matters much less than having well-defined goals and a plan to reach them. Without a plan, that shiny car will just help you reach your dead-end faster.

Join the Discussion

Are you involved in knowledge management? Join the discussion at KMers.org each Tuesday on Twitter. You can view the upcoming schedule  and learn how to participate at KMers.org. Thanks to Chris Collison for moderating this week’s discussion (and good luck on your keynote!), and thanks to Jeffrey Brandt, Randy Ramsey, Leonard Kish, Mary Abraham, Tom Menke, Matthew Loxton, Roxanna Samii and many others for the stimulating discussion on the KM landscape.

And special thanks to Stan Garfield for his Trackback Tuesday tweet:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/stangarfield/status/42627865057046529″]

 

Photo credit: Benny Lin

*What’s In It For Me?

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Social Media and Knowledge Management

Social media is often cast as being at odds with enterprise initiatives such as knowledge management. There is a sense that as people embrace and use social media tools like Twitter, Yammer, LinkedIn and Quora, the enterprise loses control over their knowledge. While this is certainly true, it’s also nothing new. There have always been and always will be opportunities and reasons to search the Internet vs searching the Intranet; for participating in an Internet discussion group vs. one in your enterprise community; and for leveraging external wisdom vs. known internal resources.

The subject of this week’s KMers.org tweet chat emphasized this tension: Corporate Social Media vs. Intranets. The implication is that social media and knowledge management are at odds and one is destined to be the solitary victor.

Reality Check.

Social media and knowledge management aren’t at odds at all. In fact, the most successful knowledge management systems embrace social media, but with a business mindset. The smart KM implementations leverage blogs, subscriptions, communities, discussion forums, and member profiles. They tie it together with search in a single working environment. And they look for opportunities to tie in other tools to streamline knowledge sharing — everything from instant messaging (i.e. Sametime) to micro-blogging (i.e. Yammer).

A few of the comments that really stuck out in our discussion today bear this out. We were asked for tips on optimizing the integration between social media applications and intranets. Here are a few notable responses:

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/TKBeard/status/40101729278246912″]

Tammy Bearden hits the nail on the head: it all starts with people.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/stangarfield/status/40103103382429696″]

I like Stan Garfield’s advice to meet people where they are, which for many is still the email inbox.I’ve found the ability to subscribe and get email notifications to be an invaluable tool for engaging the workforce. I would even say it’s essential, and we’ve found it to be a tremendous attraction at Fluor.

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/BarbaraFillip/status/40102879041687552″]

Barbara Fillip reminds us to take the member eye view. Remove barriers to participation, where possible. Single sign-on is just one example.

Thanks to Stan Garfield, Liz Williams, Tom Menke, Ryan McClead, Sean Brady, Tammy Bearden, Antoon van het Erve,  Matthew Loxton, Barbara Fillip, and the other participants who shared their knowledge and insight. You can read the entire tweet chat transcript online, as well as check the schedule of upcoming discussions on KMers.org. We gather via Twitter every Tuesday at noon Eastern time. If you’re a KM professional, you should be a part of the discussion.

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Face-to-Face Still Matters

Earlier today we wrapped up three consecutive days of video teleconferences to train five new knowledge managers. The trainees were located in Greenville, Calgary and Houston, while the other trainers and I were primarly located in Southern California. In better economic times, our trainees would have travelled to Southern California for the week,  spending some serious face time not only with those of us leading the training, but with most of the core KM team.

This face-to-face KM immersion did two things:

First, it allowed them to focus on what they where learning, without the distractions of the everyday office activities around them. Sitting and working side-by-side with the KM team gave them an opportunity to really absorb a great deal of knowledge that wasn’t necessarily a part of the training outline.

But the second, and even more important result was the relationships that were built. In most cases, this gathering was the first time we worked together. In addition to spending most of the work week together, we would eat lunch together and even go out afterwards for dinner or go sailing. The bond that formed provided a solid foundation for an ongoing working relationship. They felt comfortable coming to us because they knew us well. They trusted us, and knew we were there to help them. They understood the gravity of their new role as knowledge managers. They reached out for help or to brainstorm solutions for integrating knowledge management into their community’s work processes, and gladly participated when we asked them to help us with an enterprise KM initiative.

Doing this via video teleconference has required a change in approach. Sessions are shorter, with more pre-reading and pre-work. There are exercises that require multiple touch points with the KM team, ensuring that they will talk with someone on the team on a fairly regular basis. Will this suffice? Not a chance.

Fellow KM-er David Gurteen recently shared a great article on Harvard Business Review via this tweet:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/davidgurteen/status/38593360214106112″]

In his article Why Face-to-Face Meetings Make All the Difference, Stephen Greer describes how use used face-to-face meetings to build and strengthen relationships with his leadership team. Greer concedes that after the relationships had been established, he was able to reduce the frequency of meetings, and conduct more of them remotely.

“Over time, once personalities gelled and relationships bonded, we were able to scale back the frequent flyer miles by making it a quarterly face-to-face meeting, with monthly conference calls in between. Today a videoconference would be the preferable alternative, as technology is definitely bringing distant operations closer together.”

Note that he didn’t jump straight away to conference calls. He notes that it took time to build and bond relationships with face-to-face meetings. Only after those relationships were bonded could they scale back the frequency and begin leveraging alternative technology like video teleconferencing.

Yes, face-to-face still matters.

The challenge is this: What do you do when face-to-face is not an option? How do you build those relationships that are necessary to create trust between people who don’t really know each other that well?

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Knowledge Management is Not a Software Solution

At Fluor, one of our favorite sayings about knowledge management is that “KM is not about the tool!” We aren’t Luddites by any means. Ineffective tools can inhibit the success of KM, just as woodworker would struggle with a dull blade.

Conversing with our colleagues at other companies, participating in best practice studies with APQC, through industry KM groups and informal discussions with other KM professionals — both inside our industry and beyond — have reaffirmed this point.

Technology is not a critical factor to successful knowledge management.

Today on Nick Milton’s Knoco stories blog, he poses the question: What was KM like, before IT?  How did we manage knowledge in medieval times? A provocative concept, since so many people immediately jump to technology when thinking of KM.

Overwhelmingly, the organizations that struggle to achieve success with KM do so because of this inappropriate focus on technology. The theory goes, “if only we had SharePoint (or Yammer, or Wikis, or fill-in-the-blank), sharing knowledge would be easy.”

And it’s true, to a point. Today, we have an abundance of tools that do indeed make it easier to share our knowledge, and many of them are excellent. We don’t have a technology problem.

It’s the difficult part that people either overlook or give inadequate emphasis; the soft part… people.

For KM to deliver value to an organization, the people who possess the knowledge and the people that need the knowledge need to connect. The right behaviors, motivators and a culture of collaboration and knowledge sharing needs to be nurtured. Leaders must determine how they can weave these principles into their work process, or transform those processes completely in ways that deliver value and ultimately supports the organization’s strategic vision.

This has implications that reach far beyond knowledge management. If you examine the success of Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, you’ll find that the people who get the most out of them are not necessarily the most sophisticated techno-geeks, nor the ones with the most “friends.” They are the ones who use technology to help them build and strengthen relationships — be they personal or professional. Once again, “it’s the people.”

I share this to remind myself, as well as stimulating one or two you. Tomorrow I’ll be training four, bright new knowledge managers. On this, their third day of training, we will be looking at (you guessed it) the tool.

Personally, I love tools. They can be a godsend, and enable global collaboration in a way that wasn’t possible when I began my career. But just as it’s not possession of the tools that makes a master craftsman, success in KM has far more to do with people and process.

Photo credit: Hans Splinter

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APQC 2011 Knowledge Management Conference

Larry Prusak speaking at the 2010 APQC KM Conference

Knowledge Management (KM) is a phrase that confounds many. Many companies and organizations that attempt to “manage their knowledge” fail miserably. The problem, it seems, is not so much with the concept as it is the terminology.

Simply put, knowledge management is a systematic approach to helping people share knowledge with each other. My friends at Shell sum it up with the  succinct phrase — “Ask, Learn, Share*.”

Knowledge management helps people connect with the knowledge and the expertise they need.

In that spirit of sharing, I invite you to join me at APQC’s 2011 Knowledge Management Conference. This 16th annual conference will be held in Houston on May 9-13th, 2011.

The APQC KM Conference is one of the most valuable  I’ve attended. There is a strong emphasis on practitioners sharing their real-world experience with other practitioners. Being able to build and strengthen connections with other change agents sets APQC apart from the usual vendor-heavy conferences.

I’ll be sharing my knowledge, and will be speaking with John McQuary, VP of Knowledge Management at Fluor on Friday morning. Our session? It’s titled “The Future of Knowledge Management: A Vision for 2020.” Here’s the synopsis:

Over the past ten years, Fluor’s knowledge management program has achieved success and recognition both inside and outside the enterprise. KM is no longer an initiative, but simply the way we get things done and drive strategic value. Looking ten years into the future, what is the next step in the evolution of KM? Using a “day in the life” perspective, this session will look at the implications and opportunities for KM in the future, with specific actions you can take now to begin making that vision a reality in your enterprise.

Working in the knowledge management realm over the past ten years, I’ve seen tremendous growth and success. Yet even with the success we’ve achieved, the opportunity in the decade ahead grows larger still.

I’m excited about the opportunity to share my passion with you. If you or your organization or company is involved in knowledge management (or considering doing so), I urge you to join me at APQC.

Planning to attend? Please introduce yourself now! Let’s begin the dialog today (here or on twitter), and we can continue face-to-face in May.

*Bonus!

For reading down this far, here a video produced for Shell that illustrates their Ask-Learn-Share approach. It’s a fine explanation of knowledge management in real world terms. Enjoy!

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Successful KM Storytelling

If a story is not about the hearer he will not listen... - Steinbeck

Before we developed written languages, storytelling allowed us to pass down our history and knowledge from one generation to the next. Even today, storytelling remains a powerful medium. A well-told story with a meaningful message is easier to remember, internalize and share.

Earlier today I chatted with fellow knowledge management (KM) colleagues at KMers.org on the subject of corporate storytelling and knowledge management, and I promised to share my storytelling story.

At Fluor, storytelling almost always takes a written form. Naturally, people share their stories in person or in teleconferences, but our emphasis is on written stories. This definition of “storytelling” is different from many other organizations.

Our stories are real-world examples that illustrate the value of knowledge management. I recognize that there are stories that do not involve either success nor any form of knowledge sharing. While they can be valuable in their own right, they fall out of my organization’s scope.

These KM success stories are collected both informally and formally. Informally, we simply ask people to share examples of how knowledge sharing (a more accessible term than KM) and collaboration has benefited them, their project or the client. This past year we asked this question in on of our KM discussion forums and had over 30 responses — some good, some great and some everyday examples of KM at work. The best of these were identified and more formally captured.

Our formal success story process encourages people to share stories year-round. Each year during the month of Knowvember we review the stories shared over the past 12 months, selecting a list of finalists. These are presented to a panel of C-level executives that select the winning stories. There is no fixed number of finalists or winners, but in 2010 we collected roughly 300 stories, culled this down to 20 finalists from which the executives selected six winners. If you’re success story is selected as a winner, you get to select a local charitable organization to which a $500 donation is made in your name.

Sharing Success

We use a specific form designed to guide you through the success story process. It asks for a description of the story and how it brought value, and prompts for supporting metrics, quotes and details.

Our guidelines are pretty simple:

  1. Share your success story in the most appropriate knowledge community (our virtual communities of practice). If you’re not sure where it best fits, we help guide you.
  2. Read the instructions on the success story form, filling it out completely.
  3. Define what specific elements make the story a success. What internal or client value was generated?
  4. Add images and quotes to give the story added credibility.

We supplement these basic guidelines with a few good examples from previous years.

Some of these stories are shared with a well-written narrative voice. Others have obvious value, but need to be rewritten in a way that really tells the story with impact.

Along the way, these stories are shared though our KM system, with new messages displayed a couple times each week providing a regular and not-so-subtle reminder of how knowledge sharing can generate value.

During the final judging for the annual contest, the exposure these stories and the people involved get at a very high level of the organization serves two purposes: it provides recognition to folks who are often from far flung offices, and it reminds our executives of some very concrete ways KM strengthens and improves our company. And we’ve found that these stories provide the most tangible measure of the value of knowledge management — much more than the number of clicks and downloads.

What’s Next for Storytelling?

We conducted a very low-budget experiment last year, and was a big success. We asked our local KM champions to use their smartphones and video-capable digital cameras to record a few employees — very informally and without rehearsal — answering just a three questions:

  1. What was the last thing you did in our KM system?
  2. What was their favorite knowledge community (CoP) and why? And
  3. Who encourages you to share and leverage knowledge?

These low-budget, quick-and-dirty video recordings were reviewed and we created a series of short, 2-3 minute compilation videos. The results are compelling, and we will likely do this again, perhaps with different questions. While they won’t replace the more formal success story process, they do provide a compelling story for other employees.

Of course, there are many ways to tell a story. This is just ours, and as with all KM efforts, we are constantly evolving and adapting to improve the process.

What’s your storytelling story?

Thanks to Lilly Evans for moderating today’s KMers.org tweet chat! You can read the complete transcript here.