|
Know Your Experts
Generally speaking, it makes sense to ask an expert when you need to get an answer. However, it's important to understand that the
effectiveness of human experts is driven by more than just what they know. Effective experts need to have a good command of their knowledge domain, but they also need to be good listeners. They have to
be able to hear and understand your question, if they're going to give you the right advice. They also need to be there when you need them.
Some years ago, we designed an "Expert
Register" for an internal Knowledge Support group. It was fairly low-tech, being intended as Help Desk support tool, not a self-service tool. The Register was pre-loaded with the names of the
client's internal experts, as well as their areas of expertise. When the support team got a call that required expert help, they could use the register to do two things: they could locate the right
person quickly, and also see when that person had last been tapped for help. This was a way to balance the load, so the same person wasn't always being pulled off line for consultation and mentoring.
Before this, the experts who came first in the alphabetical phone list were carrying more than their fair share.
The Register also supported some back end rating and ranking. The Support group
could follow up with the original caller, with two metrics in mind: quality of input and timeliness of response. Over time, the experts tended to migrate into three categories: On one side were very
smart people who had great ideas but whose input always came too late to be of any use. On the other, there were equally smart people who (for whatever reason) provided input that was somehow off target.
The cream of the crop was found in the middle: people who came through with the right kind of information, at the right time and place.
Syprocon Goes Live
Syprocon Inc. is a developer of specialized software for the brokerage industry with an
integrated product suite that focuses on compensation management. This is an impossibly complex part of the business, where even mid-size firms may have hundreds of Financial Consultants (FCs) with
personalized bonus agreements. Brokers sometimes need entire departments, separate from payroll, just to manage their compensation plans and calculate FC payouts. It's a labor-intensive process, and
without some kind of integrated offering like Syprocon's, it's characterized by lots of paperwork, lots of spreadsheets, and lots of error-prone touch points.
Syprocon has had a website for
several years, but it was a simple, template-based design without much eye appeal. It wasn't presenting the right kind of image, and Syprocon engaged Knowledge Street to help with a makeover. We
established a new look and feel, wrote all new copy and also helped with the migration from an internal server to an outside hosting company. Earlier this week, we published the first release of the new
site, and will be adding more details on other products in the months ahead. You can take a look at http://www.syprocon.com.
And if you know someone who's working in compensation management, pass
on the link. Syprocon could save them a lot of money.
The 90% Rule
Science fiction luminary Theodore Sturgeon is credited with originating the 90% rule. Simply put, this rule says 90% of everything is crap. It's sometimes called Sturgeon's Law, in fact. You can search it that way in Google.
We recently saw a presentation on work transformation by Jim Firestone, president of Xerox's Corporate Operations Group. He was talking about the incredible information stream in which we all
stand today, trying to keep our balance. Firestone's Law says that 90% of what arrives in his In Box is of low importance. He generally saves about 90% of what is important, even though 90% of what he
saves he never looks at again. And when he does want to look at something again, 90% of the time he can't find it.
This is a pretty typical experience. We all know it's happening, and assume
there's nothing we can do about it. We can't get out of the stream, but we need to find ways to stand in it without drowning. Managing knowledge is the challenge of our time, just as managing physical
assets was the challenge of the industrial age. Knowledge work is getting more and more unmanageable, and workdays are growing longer in consequence. Most people's individual productivity declines
sharply through the day, so we are working later and later at lower and lower levels of efficiency.
Firestone’s conclusion is that we need to think of information technology as more of a big
"I" little "t" concept. It's the Information that's important, not the Technology. We need to design systems that help us stand straight against the current, not systems that increase
the flow.
Knowledge Management at NASA
We've been following the adventures of Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity with great interest, since at least one of us here at Knowledge Street has been a science and science fiction fan since an early age. (Which one of us is it, do you think?) It's an amazing time to be alive, and looking at the pictures from the Martian surface helps remind us of that fact.
The last issue of the Gurteen Knowledge Letter had a short piece on Knowledge Management at NASA, which is faced with a pretty challenging KM problem when you think about it. Trips to the outer
planets take years, and the scientists who conceive a mission have often retired by the time the objective is reached. So it's probably no surprise that there's a lot of KM going on at NASA, and you can
read about it at their website. They have a definition of Knowledge Management and overviews of KM doings from NASA Headquarters, JPL and
the many other research and flight centers. It makes for interesting reading.
Unsubscribe | Change your profile
HOME | © COPYRIGHT 2008 KNOWLEDGE STREET LLC
|
