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Timing is Everything
There's an old Knowledge Management chestnut that says "you can only know a thing when you need to know it."
Knowledge is meaningless as an abstraction, and only has value in the context of a human need. (If knowledge falls in the forest, and there's no one there who needs it, is it really knowledge at all?)
This principle can be seen in a learning technique developed at Pfizer Inc., which we heard about in a conversation with Victor
Newman, former Chief Learning Officer of the European Pfizer Research University.
Pfizer is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical firms, and like most pharmas, it was an early adopter of
KM principles. In 2001, Newman defined a knowledge sharing process that came to be known as "baton passing." The idea was to identify key project milestones, and connect teams that had just
passed a milestone with other teams that were approaching the same challenge. The goal was to "pass the baton" in an effective way, with an emphasis on direct, face-to-face learning.
Baton passing is based on the active engagement of those who know, with those who need to know, and the timing of the exchange is very important. It has to take place soon after the first team has
obtained its knowledge, so what they've learned is still "fresh." However, it also has to happen when the second team has recognized that the knowledge is needed. Newman likens it to selling
fruit: the goal is to pick knowledge when it's ripe and deliver it to people when they’re hungry.
At Pfizer, this approach has supported increased innovation and improved trust across project
teams. Since the teams are not being handed a solution, but working to arrive at their own understanding, it also helps get around the not-invented-here syndrome. If you're interested in more of
Victor Newman’s ideas, take a look at The Knowledge Activist's Handbook. A good read, in any case.
Big Systems, Small Failures
Some months ago, we saw Tom Davenport speak at a conference in New York City, where he emphasized the importance of Personal KM. He had just completed a study indicating that many people felt "overwhelmed" by the amount of information they needed to process on a daily basis. Very few felt that they really had a handle on things.
Davenport felt it was a function of general information overload, as well as poor device integration, which led to "islands of information" on cell phones, PDAs, PCs and so forth.
Many workers spend a lot of time (more than three hours per day, in Davenport's survey) involved in information-intensive activities: processing email, creating documents and searching for
information. Despite this large time commitment, they get little in the way of training or support to help them do such things efficiently. The truth is, companies generally don't see this as their
problem, believing that personal knowledge management is an individual responsibility. Davenport's survey suggests that maybe it's time to revisit that assumption.
The small failures that occur
at the level of personal KM can be a major drag on organizational effectiveness and really suck the life out of large-scale initiatives. Jack Welch said his success at GE was largely built on hiring
smart people and leaving them alone. These days, that may no longer be enough.
Bailey’s Market Goes Live
K Street has gotten away from web development in the past few months, doing more writing and
graphic work, as well as some interesting research on best practices in knowledge collection. But we still like website projects, since they're generally short, focused and produce a very tangible
result. You can see what you're doing, and you know when you're finished. So we're happy to announce the launch of another K Street site, for Tom Bailey's Market.
Tom Bailey's is a gourmet deli
and caterer in Spring Lake, NJ, which was acquired this summer by an old colleague: a person who left the high-pressure world of IT consulting for the higher-pressure world of retail food service. Tom
Bailey's is his second enterprise, and he felt a good website could really have a direct impact on sales. He didn't want a basic placeholder site (which was what came with the shop), and he didn't want
something that looked like a template. Plus, he wanted a way for his employees to update the site on their own.
We had one face-to-face meeting at the market, to brainstorm on the design. At the
same time, we took a bunch of digital images to capture the actual Bailey’s look. From there, we produced a content outline to show the navigational structure, along with a look-and-feel prototype. With
both of those elements approved, we wrote the copy, and incorporated a Blogger feed to support the Daily Specials. One more site visit for training, and mail account setup, and we were ready to roll. You can see the results here.
If you're down at the shore (as we say in Jersey), drop in for coffee and a donut. And tell them K Street sent you.
Lots of ways to learn...
We're always on the lookout for Directions content, seeking inspiration in the news, in our own projects and on the wider world of the web. Sometimes, we come across a piece that we'd like to pass on, even if we don't have any new thoughts to add, or a different spin to apply. This is one of those times.
Writing in Fast Company, Marcia Conner recently offered some tips for building a better meeting, based on an analysis of the learning styles of different types of people. Given the amount of time most of us spend in meetings, anything that would make them more effective should be worth its weight in gold. You can read her article here.
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