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| 31/10/07 | | Knowledge sharing principles |
I'm currently helping a client develop their knowledge strategy. We've decided to include knowledge sharing principles. I believe principles should be clear, unambiguous and emphatic and everyone should know whether they are adhering to the principles or not. More importantly the organisation should decide together what should happen when the principles are transgressed. Are there any biggies I've missed? I probably should keep it to 7 or so.
- We will share what we know with our colleagues.
- We will take time to help our colleagues learn
- We will encourage open and rigorous dialogue, discuss and exploring assumptions, and speak our mind respectfully.
- We shall see if what we are about to embark on has been done before rather than create things from scratch.
- We will borrow ideas shamelessly (with attribution) and not suffer the ‘not invented here’ syndrome.
- We will take time to learn from our successes and failures.
- We will promote cooperation, trust and active participation in project teams, task forces and networks.
- We shall actively look outside our discipline in search of ideas, concepts and approaches that can be adapted and applied to meet our goals.
- We will recognise others for their intellectual effort and willingly share the kudos.
| 28/10/07 | | Cynefin now published in the Harvard Business Review |
Congratulations Dave and Mary for your HBR article. I've had a chance to browse it and it looks great.
The article is called A Leader's Framework for Decision Making. It covers the Cynefin framework, complexity, with a heavy dose on the importance of context in decision making.
Anecdote had it start as one of the groups that sprung from IBM's Cynefin Centre. So it's great to see Dave's work to get wide recognition. Well done.
Technorati Tags: cynefin, dave snowden, mary boone
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| 27/10/07 | | Collaboration conditions |
I was having a conversation last week about how easy it is to rob people of the permission to collaborate. Examples were provided of how 'bosses' don't even need to say anything: a disapproving look is enough to communicate that a chat while making coffee isn't considered 'working'.
The conversation reminded me of an experience during one of our projects. The client representative couldn't find a meeting room and took us to this fabulous collaboration space in their new(ish) building. This new building was designed to enhance collaboration. An atrium runs along one entire wall and is filled with secluded nooks for private conversations, with areas where groups can get together and with cafe areas where people can have 'chance meetings'. I was surprised that our little group was the only one in there and asked why. Our host explained....
Early on, this place was used all the time. I loved it and brought my team here for regular meetings and, with the shortage of formal meeting rooms, I had lots of my smaller meetings here as well. The place always had a great 'buzz' about it. But the design had a big flaw, the executive offices were all positioned overlooking the atrium. One day I was called into the office of an executive who told me they considered I was spending too much of my time in the atrium (collaboration space). Apparently others had similar experiences. Nowadays hardly anyone comes here. We feel we are being watched.
In complex environments we know that little things can make a big difference and in this case the impact is obvious in the low usage of this great space. The conversation also remind me of the powerful impact of managers in their day-to-day interactions. Every interaction is an opportunity to build or to erode engagement....and collaboration. It could have been a very different outcome if the executives had said 'its great to see you using this area'.
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| 26/10/07 | | Dealing with email overload |
Research company IDC says that 39.7 billion person to person emails buzz around the world each day. Hardly surprising given that I have worked in organisations where people used email to arrange meeting for lunch with someone two desks away. That's why I like what's happening at INTEL a lot. Three weeks ago 150 of their engineers participated in the first of what will be ongoing "Zero email Fridays". They haven't banned email entirely. It's a month long trial that's designed to encourage people to phone each other or meet up face to face. The idea behind this is, of course, that it will encourage more direct, free-flowing communication and and a better exchange of ideas. Getting up and walking across the corridor to talk to someone is a simple activity that contributes to building personal networks.
And if you feel that you have 39.7 billion emails or thereabouts sitting your inbox calling your name, you might be interested in the concept of email bankruptcy espoused by Lawrence Lessing on WIRED, where you can simply refuse to work through that truly frightening number of emails you are hoarding...most of which are awaiting action or a reply. Just hit the Delete button and start again with a clean slate. What's your take on it? Would there be significant consequences if you declared email bankruptcy today? Have we become too email dependent? Anyone like to join me in deleting the entire contents of their inbox?
| 23/10/07 | | Making information find us |
I really enjoyed watching this video about the web challenging our most basic assumptions about 'finding' information.
Technorati Tags: findability
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| 21/10/07 | | Why don't they just follow the procedure? |
On 29-30 August, a USAF B-52 bomber mistakenly armed with six nuclear tipped cruise missiles, flew from Minot, North Dakota to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The incident has sparked enormous media attention and it is the first time the US military has publicly commented on the whereabouts of nuclear weapons.
The Air Force deputy chief of staff for operations announced the results of a six-week inquiry into the incident yesterday, the results of which pretty much conclude that the procedures were correct but the personnel simply didn't follow them. The incident was evidently not a one-off: "there has been an erosion of adherence to weapons-handling standards." The airmen replaced the schedule with their own "informal" system, he said, though he didn't say why they did that nor how long they had been doing it their own way. Apparently, up to 70 people will be disciplined over the incident; a wing will be removed from wartime status and the base commander has been relieved of his command.
My 20 year career in the Australian Air Force, and consulting back to Defence since, makes me pretty familiar with the rigorous documentation of policy and procedure in the military.... and with the way these procedures are often used. I remember the mantra "policies are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools" and how this was embedded into many of the stories told in the bar and on the flight line. What was also evident was the enormous amount of experience, knowledge and understanding of context that enabled the tailoring of procedures to be done effectively and with due regard to the circumstances. The 'people' bit was always much more important than the 'process' bit.
If we wanted a procedure to be followed precisely there was a lot of work up front ensuring the necessary understanding (knowledge, context) was provided and a lot of resources monitoring compliance. As the drive for military 'efficiency' bit in the late part of my career the extent to which the basics were done dropped dramatically. In the Australian Defence Force this was exemplified by the annual audit of Defence accounts being qualified (a very bad thing) for years on end due to a decade of neglecting the simple act of stocktaking. It was like the organisation just started to assume it would get done 'because everyone knows its important' and yet it behaved in a way that gave no indication that it was, in fact, important. Hmmm, sound familiar?
So, in the case of the recent 'nukes across the US' incident, I would love the opportunity to do some narrative-based research (probably using anecdote circles) to find out what was really going on. Of course, if the objective was to determine blame we would not get much better information than provided by an investigation. But if the objective was to understand the context and behaviors relating to the incident the insights could be incredibly valuable. And with something important (and I guess nuclear safety would fall in that category) we should be using the full range of investigative/evaluation approaches available to us rather than relying solely on traditional, linear ones based on the scientific method and focused on who was at fault.
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| 17/10/07 | | Technologies for knowledge management |
There's been a lot written on this topic; probably too much because if someone asked, “What technologies should I be thinking about to do knowledge management?” you would be hard press to find a simple answer. Of course the answer is, “It depends.” But that's unhelpful. If I were asked this question I would say, consider the following:
- Telephone and conference call capability
- Intranet
- Search & social search
- Email distribution lists
- Document management
- People directory
- Video - YouTube style
- Wikis
- Blogs
- Social bookmarking
- RSS
- Tagging
- Instant messaging
- Collaboration tool (group calendar, discussion threads, file sharing)
Have I missed any biggies?
Technorati Tags: technology, tools
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| 17/10/07 | | Factors affecting your knowledge environment |
One of the aims of a knowledge strategy is to design a set of activities to enhance an organisation’s knowledge environment. The knowledge environment includes all the factors, both within and outside an organisation, which might affect the creation, sharing and use of knowledge. The list of factors is potentially limitless but experience has shown that many of the important factors can be clumped together under 7 headings.
1. Support - what support does knowledge management have within the organisation? Do the executives believe it's valuable? Are resources set aside for knowledge management? Are roles established to support knowledge management initiatives? Is there a clear link between the business strategy and the knowledge strategy (better still, does the organisation have a knowledge focussed business strategy?)?
2. Technology - what technology is available to support the creation, sharing and use of knowledge? How well is this technology used? What technology should be introduced? Are the practices to use the technology well developed?
3. Organisation and people - How are people organised? What structures exists? What characterises the organisational culture? What types of people are employed? How much churn is there? Is knowledge management a recognised and desirable competency?
4. Routines, rituals and recognition - Are their processes and systems in place that regularly connect people, engage them in conversation and help share what people know? Is it normal to conduct after action reviews, peer assists and lesson learning sessions throughout the life of projects? Does the organisation celebrate good knowledge behaviours?
5. Information - Are information principles well known and followed? Is information well managed, findable, accessible and meaningful?
6. External - What drivers outside the organisation might affect how knowledge will be created, sourced, shared and used?
7. Spaces - How are people and workplaces arranged? Are there physical barriers to knowledge flow? Are their places to collaborate, think, focus and socialise?
Are there other questions you think should be asked?
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| 15/10/07 | | 50 Web2.0 ways to tell a story |
The guys at Cogdogroo have documented 50 web2.0 applications you can use to tell a story.
http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/StoryTools
It's a wiki so you can help them improve their resource.
Technorati Tags: web 2.0
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| 14/10/07 | | Creating timelines |
Have you ever wanted to create a timeline? Well there is now an online application call xtimeline that can help you out. The interface is well thought out and lets you explore all the events.
Technorati Tags: timeline, tools, web 2.0
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| 12/10/07 | | Anecdote News - October 2007 |
Welcome to the October 2007 edition of the Anecdote newsletter. In this edition we have:
- Book review: Wikinomics
- Technique: Most Significant Change
- What we're up to: Our engagements and upcoming events
- Productivity Tip: Rough sketching
- Breaking News: Steve Denning book launch
We hope you really enjoy reading it. Please don't hesitate to contact us with your comments, insights or feedback and feel free to pass this email on to your colleagues.
Regards -- the Anecdote team
Books we're reading...
Wikinomics How mass collaboration changes everything.
by Donald Tapscott and Anthony Williams
-- Review by Robyn Ciuro
I recently listened to a recorded version of 'Wikinomics' while I was travelling about in my car. Listening is probably not the best way to 'read' a work of this length. For one thing, it's really hard to take good notes while you've got both hands on the steering wheel. But you can get a reasonable overview of what the authors are trying to say.
I had previously listened to Thomas Friedman's book - 'The World is Flat', which I believe provided a deeper analysis of the issues and was a little stronger on theory. Indeed, I reached Wikinomics Disc Four of Ten before I began to feel I was getting some content of value.
The early reading was almost over the top in its unbridled enthusiasm for collaborative ways of working and the rise of social networking tools in a global market.
“ ... this may be the birth of a new era, perhaps even a golden one, on par with the Italian renaissance, or the rise of Athenian democracy.”
Tapscott and Wiliams identify and develop four major trends at work in the 21st century.
- Openness
- Peer Production (think Linux and Wikipedia)
- Sharing
- Acting globally
To work in this environment means that not only is top-down management giving way to horizontal collaboration but traditional boundaries impacting secrecy and patents are also disappearing. I particularly liked the discussion about websites versus vibrant communities.
'' ... 2006 was the year when the programmable web eclipsed the static web every time: Flickr beat Webshots; Wikipedia beat Britannica; Blogger beat CNN; Epinions beat Consumer-reports; Upcoming beat Evite; Google Maps beat MapQuest; MySpace beat Friendster; and Craigslist beat Monster.''
“What was different? The losers launched web sites, the winners launched vibrant communities. The losers built walled gardens. The winners build public squares. The losers innovated internally. The winners innovated with their users. The losers jealously guarded their data and software interfaces. The winners shared them with everyone.”
There's room for debate there but there is no denying the point Tapscott and Williams are trying to make. Engage your users or lose out.
Wikinomics is a good place to begin building an understanding of the technological changes driving today's economy. It does present a somewhat oversimplified and not particularly critical view of the wonders of globalisation. And if you don’t know what people are talking about when Web 2.0 enters the conversation then this is a good start.
The best value came in the final disc where the authors discuss the challenge of introducing collaborative, dynamic ways of doing things into workplaces so that open collaboration can flourish.
And in the spirit of practising what they preach the authors end with an invitation for readers (and listeners) to participate in editing the book via their wiki at www.wikinomics.com.
Techniques we're using ...
Most Significant Change
Most Significant Change (MSC) is useful for assessing the impact of hard to measure initiatives such as culture change, leadership training, aspects of change management, learning intiatives and management development. Anecdote has used this technique in these areas for IBM Australia, AstraZeneca and ANZ Bank.
''Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.''
When Einstein uttered these words little did he know that he was stating the case for techniques like Most Significant Change.
MSC is a simple process for helping senior decision-makers develop a gut feel for what an initiative has achieved. It's not a replacement for gathering and analysing the numbers. Rather is a supplemental evaluation that helps to systematically develop decision-makers intuitive knowledge. And research shows that many of the decisions we make are based on our judgements and intuitive, so it's a part of our knowledge we mustn't ignore.
There is a brief explanation about how MSC works on our blog.
Are you interested in learning the technique and are in a position, and have a need, to practice MSC? That is, you are often called on to evaluate programs and initiatives? Anecdote can help you. We've developed a unique service to run a one-week MSC pilot project in your organisation. After a full week of instruction, mentoring and feedback, you will have the confidence and knowledge to apply this powerful technique. If you would like to know more about running an MSC Pilot, please send an email to: info@anecdote.com.au.
What we're up to ...
Consulting Engagements and Projects:
- Knowledge strategy program and regional deployment for government authority
- Establishing communities of practice within a global defence and aerospace company
- Ongoing leadership program for a multinational pharmaceuticals company
- Leadership development for defence organisation
- Fostering communities of practice within a global engineering company
Upcoming Events that we're running or attending:
16-18 October - Intelligence 2007, Hobart. Shawn presenting on knowledge retention
22 October - Knowledge strategy summit, Canberra
23-24 October - ActKM Conference, Canberra. Shawn presenting the after dinner speech
25 October - Seminar with visiting guest speaker Patrick Lambe. Open invite here.
30 October - Seminar for the Victorian State Library - Practical business narrative by Shawn
01-02 November - Australian Corporate Lawyers Association conference, Shawn is a guest speaker talking about CoP
Productivity tips ...
Partly because we're busy, but also as part of our quest for continuous learning and improvement, here at Anecdote, we're always looking for ways to improve our own personal productivity. We thought that we'd share a few tips and tricks ...
The power of the rough sketch
Sketchcast.com is a great service for making rough sketches and recording your voice over explaining the sketch as you draw it.
Here are a couple we've done.
Breaking News ...
We wanted to alert you to an fabulous new book by Stephen Denning. It's called The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative. It's published by Jossey-Bass.
The book has already received great reviews for several prominent people including Reed Hastings (CEO of NetFlix), from best selling leadership author, Jim Kouzes. The Financial Times said in its review (August 29): “If business leaders do not immediately grasp the vital insights offered by this book, both they and their organisations are doomed.”
Shawn's read the first chapter and loves what he read.
To celebrate the launch, we've joined with Stephen and his colleagues, including Larry Prusak, Chip Heath, Jim Kouzes, Rob Cross, Seth Kahan, Richard Stone, Dave Zinger, Annette Simmons, Katalina Groh, Madelyn Blair, Katharine Hansen, Svend-Erik Engh, Randy Dipner, Daniele Chauvel, Connie Ingram and Stan Garfield - in offering to purchasers of the book dozens of free tools, papers, videos and other bonus items on leadership, storytelling and knowledge management at no additional cost to you. is offering. They will be distributed from his web-site beginning 12.01am GMT Monday October 15:
http://www.stevedenning.com/launch.html
Some of the gifts are in limited quantities. Get them while they last.
++++++++++++++++++++++
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| 12/10/07 | | Space and tools impacts thinking |
We've been running a series of knowledge strategy projects for natural resource management regions across Australia. The activities culminate for each region in a two day workshop where participants design a set of projects and interventions to improve their knowledge environment.
To guide people through a process of designing their projects we divide up a sheet of butcher's paper (also called flip-chart paper) into steps for small teams to work on to help them plan their project. I've noticed that the way we divide up this paper and the tools we provide seems to have a big impact. This is not evidence nor proof, just an observation.
Here is an example of one way I've divided up the paper and what the small group of participants wrote.
Now here is another example where I provided a much larger space for brainstorming (a separate page) and suggested they use post-it notes to capture their brainstorming ideas. We also gave them finer tipped felt pens.
Their 'Organise' section spilled over into another sheet of butcher's paper plus there was yet another sheet dedicated to brainstorming. This change toward more detail seems to hold for all the groups in the workshop.
It seems people will fill the space you provide and as a result the second group engaged in a more rigourous and deliberate thinking. Mind you, it could have just been the people in the room.
Technorati Tags: facilitation
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| 8/10/07 | | The billiard ball example |
When I talk about complexity to clients I mention that complex systems are impossible to predict in detail especially as your forcast extends into the future. I point out that there are so many connections among the objects affecting the system and many of the cause and effect relationships are non-linear (a small thing can have a big impact and vice versa). Every now and then someone will say, “but if you could work out all those connections you could predict the outcome.” And this is where I will tell them the chessboard story.
The legendary information scientist, Claude Shannon, calculated how many possible moves there are on a chessboard. It's a finite system of 64 squares, 32 pieces, 6 movement patterns. The number is big and equates to the number of milliseconds the world has been in existence. And that's for a simple system. Imagine the possibilities in a social system where the objects have free will.
But I think I've just read a better analogy (perhaps equally as impressive) and the topic is billiards. The calculations were done by Prof. Sir Michael Berry in 1978 in his paper Regular and Irregular Motion, in Nonlinear Mechanics and recounted in The Black Swan.
If you know a set of basic parameters concerning the ball at rest, can computer the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. The second impact becomes more complicated, but possible; and more precision is called for. The problem is that to correctly computer the ninth impact, you need to take account the gravitational pull of someone standing next to the table (modestly, Berry's computations use a weight of less than 150 pounds). And to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single elementary particle in the universe needs to be present in your assumptions! An electron at the edge of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome. (p. 178)
No wonder I can't play billiards to save myself.
Technorati Tags: black swan, nassim nicholas taleb, puppy
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| 6/10/07 | | Is new technology a mystery to you? |
For those of us who have struggled with another piece of new technology.
| 3/10/07 | | Graffiti archaeology |
My undergraduate degree was in archaeology and I love learning about how information can be presented (Edward Tufte
is my information presentation hero). So imagine my delight when I unearthed this website that peels back graffiti palimpsests in New York, LA and San Francisco. What's most interesting is how the graffiti walls are presented as a timeline that you can explore showing the paint spattered walls changing over time.
Technorati Tags: information architecture
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| 2/10/07 | | How not to organise information |
I've recently been telling everyone about a presentation I saw on You Tube by David Weinberger called Everything is Miscellaneous. David's argument is that in the past we organised our information into neat categories and then we had one category called miscellaneous to cope with those things that didn't fit. Now with the explosion of information most of information is in the misc category.
This 45 minute presentation by David, and follow on debate, raises some important questions about how we are locked into a physical world's way of organising, the role of social networks and implicit knowledge, and the importance of findability. Don't be put off by the electronic introductions.
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| 1/10/07 | | Power of storytelling |
We have blogged previously about 50 Lessons, a site featuring over 500 short videos of business leaders describing some of their key learnings. There are two videos here that describe why stories are powerful. Well worth a look.
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| 1/10/07 | | Writing it down |
Given my publicly confessed reluctance to begin blogging you might be surprised to find me a strong supporter of the written word. The pleasure for me in creating elaborate photo albums for my family lies in the extensive journalling that accompanies the pictures on the page. My frustration with the pile of black and white photos I inherited from my mother was a direct result of finding no clue as to who is in the photo or where it was taken. Worse still was finding a tiny scrap of information in the cryptic words "Our Alf, 1944" or " John's baptism, 1951". So I've overcompensated by making sure that I have told as many of our family stories as possible. Just not in public.
But it might not be privacy issues that keep you from writing. Kerry Patterson, one of the authors of "Crucial conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high", addresses the Power of the Pen in his August newsletter. You can also download it as an MP3 or podcast.
Maybe we're reluctant to express ourselves in writing because our first attempts to capture our thoughts and dreams typically fell under the chilling gaze of the grammarians who accused us of dangling our modifiers and splitting our infinitives when all we really wanted to do was tell our story and have someone read it.
He contends that writing is simply not our medium of choice any more and that's a pity because it is still a powerful tool for influence. His article is worth reading for the powerful story he tells of how quickly and well the Maya people, an indigenous people of Central America, understood the value of the written word once it became available to them.