Conversations with Melissie Rumizen
Forward to Basics: A 'Curmudgeon' Grounded in the Practical

Dr. Melissie Rumizen
Knowledge Strategist, Buckman Laboratories

Editor's note: This is a summary of the "Conversations with Melissee Rumizen" held in October, 2003. The monthly STAR Series Dialogues are moderated by world KM luminaries who volunteer to discuss topics in email digests with AOK members over a two-week period.

Summary by Carol Butler

I'd like to thank Melissie and everybody for a most stimulating and interesting conversation. I've summarized the discussion with more emphasis on grouping together responses on the same subject, rather than maintaining the order of the posts. For me, the biggest problem with discussion groups like this is the somewhat disjointed nature of the conversation (i.e., questions 2 and 3 are posed before question 1 is answered, references to earlier questions/comments not always included in responding post and may not be clear, etc.) However, this discussion was so rich it justified, in my own mind, the effort to organize it and share it with you now.

Jerry introduced Melissie as "a complex mix of theory and practice who could help us translate all that we know into words that can be understood by those who need to know" - something I, too, have often found difficult. He then suggested some KM basics ("Passion. Learning. Action. Longevity. Communities. Simplicity. SWOT. Flexibility. Connectivity. Self-interest. Risk-taking. Culture. Champions. Heroes."), then asked if there were others to add.

Patti Anklam shared her success using the language of business strategy to bridge the cultural problem we often encounter when using the "k" word. She also found similarities between the principles and methods of solution architecture already being used in her organization, and the design of KM programs. She "always had the most success `explaining KM' to people who are struggling with the distinction by suggesting that it is a lens through which you can look at any number of business issues, processes, problems, systems, and so on. Just think about the knowledge (human, structural) aspects of it. That seems to help."

Alice Macgillivray asked if we are dealing with major systemic issues and associated biases when we face resistance to KM terminology and other bias against KM. Melissie said she agrees business schools are still training people in the Frederic Taylor view of organizations, which is more appropriate for a labor economy as opposed to a knowledge economy.

It was interesting to hear that even at a famously "KM" firm like Buckman Labs, its "discussions and work have been couched solely in business terms" and that the term "knowledge management" is not generally used.

Melissie's thoughts on what she's learned about KM: Try to be "mostly right" rather than "perfect." It's important to have a KM team rather than just be a solo performer. Look for opportunities to improve business performance through KM methods. Generally, propose a limited number of KM methodologies. (When you consider context, the list of appropriate solutions drops dramatically.) Principles of adult learning help us to understand how to train and set up work for the KM worker (any KM effort should involve continuous learning and creation of the critical knowledge).

Jack Ring reminded us of several methods for encouraging Knowledge generation including contrarian thinking, lessons learned, after action reviews or purposeful reflection. Judith Meskill shared her team's LILA method (Listen, Inquire, Learn, Act). Melissie added the Shewhart cycle (plan, do, check and act), communities of practice, double-loop learning and reflective thinking to the list of available KM methods. Maish Nichani mentioned decision games (a pre-action technique).

Denham Grey asked how to overcome "identity and cultural issues that prevent deep learning, e.g. shame, loss of face (and budget!), loss of trust, increased risk perceptions, loss of confidence, unsurfaced blame . . . . " For Melissie, "the simple answer is that we talk about it openly, no blame and no excuses," using a skilled facilitator to make sure blame is not assigned.

Melissie returned several times to the tricky issue of project/strategy selection, reminding us we need to choose our battles carefully. Her own guidelines:

• The links to our strategy, values and goals must be crystal clear.
• The payoff must be sufficient to warrant the effort.
• The strategy should be portable across the corporation.
• The corporation capacity for additional change should be positive.

A discussion of Knowledge Strategy yielded these questions for a knowledge strategist to ask.

Melissie's list:

• What is the organizational context?
• What are the business benefits?
• How can KM methods be added so that they are a seemingly seamless extension of ongoing work?
• How do we make it easier for people to do their work, or to quote Drucker, to improve the productivity of the knowledge worker?

Jack Ring's list:

• What knowledge is important to the organization?
• How is it communicated, stored, created?
• What processes support the knowledge of the organization?

Sam Marshall wondered if there should be such a thing as KM strategy, or if it isn't simply a knowledge specialist looking at business strategy from that perspective. Jack Ring agreed, noting that "know how" and "learnativity" are two different kinds of knowledge, and bringing up the Know- Be- Do capabilities we humans possess.

Melissie's list of first steps:

• Overall assessment of current knowledge state.
• SWOT analysis for company.
• SWOT analysis for yourself.
• Brace yourself for resistance, prepare and pitch.

David Jones' seven steps:

1. Know who you are.
2. Know where you are.
3. Know where "you are" wants to be.
4. Understand your place in that cosmos.
5. Know when to act and when not to act.
6. Know well what means and how one does "strategic intervention" and "strategic avoidance."
7. Know when to go.

Greg Timbrell asked, since knowledge "current state" is mostly invisible, how do you assess the relevance of the current state analysis? Mellisie responded that even flawed and initial assessments can turn up previously undiscovered gaps, weaknesses and opportunities -- so they're generally worth doing. But in the real world there can be pressures to skip assessments. She cautioned: "This is one clear case in which it would be madness not to do an assessment of the 'As Is' when coming into a new organization."

Valdis Krebs believes initial assessments are sooooo important, declaring "My most successful clients dive into the assessment and emerge as the key assessors with the new knowledge/feedback I provide them." Jack Ring said, "The more foolproof way to determine 'current state' is to make 'know how' a specific factor in the risk assessments that are done with respect to enterprise objectives and goals. True, the state of the knowledge asset is hard to verify. But the value is not in the asset; the value is in the organization's ability to apply the asset in pursuit of valuable results."

Bill Hall asked about key performance indicators for KM initiatives. Melissie reminded us that the acid test for any measure is what you can do with it. Jack Vinson offered additional questions to ask about measures.

• What do you want from the process?
• How would you like it to behave?
• Does the measure help you see this behavior?
• Are you asking the process to do something it cannot do (asking too much of it, or asking for too little variability)?

Jack further opines that in business, the best way to get funding is to show how a given project removes/reduces corporate pain, and the better job we can do at making these connections, the more likely we will get the attention of the people who hold the purse strings.

When asked about the difficulties of predicting the effects of some less tangible KM projects, he said "Stop Predicting. Instead, estimate how much these things would have to change in order for the KM project to be retrospectively justifiable. Then engage the troops in assessing the risk of making that amount of change come true. And if they say, 'Nope,' then move on to the next KM idea."

Melissie recommended the Karl-Erik Sveiby model to describe intangibles, and the Verna Allee method for mapping the flow of intangibles. She also reminded us that good predictive measures (often harder to define) can be immensely valuable for learning and adjusting with less pain. Jack raised the issue of taxonomies. Mellissie would like a taxonomy (or someone to organize it) but has not been able to sell the idea to her organization.

Jack responded with his arguments for advocating taxonomies:

Mutual formal ontology building:

• helps people interchange knowhow either F2F or computer-facilitated,
• results in a much better mental model of the business and of the feasibility of implementing any candidate decision, and
• creates the foundation for the next level of behavior above collaboration.

Also, Jack said a formal ontology builds more purposeful (as opposed to haphazard) context and directed us to a free concept mapping tool.

Melissie added these benefits to the list: consistent navigation, indexing, classification and markup. Bob Buckman, until recently CEO at Buckman Labs, joined in by arguing that the search process needed to be more organic than taxonomies allowed, and that applying taxonomies was too slow a process for their needs. He addressed the problem with better full text searching, and wondered whether semantic search engines might be a better solution. Jack Vinson appeared to see promise in that technology as well. Jack Ring still sees problems with search engines, and is not confident the semantic search engines will resolve the problem of getting everybody using the same mental model. Judith Meskill is using a weblog plugin from a company that "abhors" taxonomies. Jack Vinson also uses the tool (WayPath) and likes the new capabilities it provides him.

When Melissie listed a lack of appreciation of the different skills needed for CoP versus team as an early mistake, Jack Ring asked her to detail the difference between communities and teams. Several people responded, and Jerry provided a nice summary of previous AOK discussions of CoPs.

There was general discussion of tacit vs explicit knowledge and the data-information-knowledge hierarchy and its variants (a staple for many KM discussions, I find). Jack Ring reminded us that knowledge is stored in brains, not disks, so we shouldn't confuse bits and bytes with the concepts they signify (knowledge). Jerry said knowledge in captivity (storage) is "history" and he prefers to think of knowledge capture as a byproduct of sharing, not the purpose of sharing. The power, he said, is in the flow of knowledge, not the knowledge itself.

So there you have my take on what was transpired in the Conversations with Melissie Rumizen. It's not the actual discussion. It's not really a history of the discussion (not detailed enough for that). It's an attempt to marry the flow of the discussion to my own need to organize the salient details that were part of the flow. It's certainly a condensed version of the discussion, providing a means for those who missed it to access the knowledge generated in less time than it would take to read all 125 plus messages.

All in all, a most stimulating discussion. Thanks again.

Note: The complete archive of this and other STAR Series Dialogues can be found in the AOK Knowledge Network archives at Yahoo.com. You must be an AOK Member to access the archives at Yahoo. Membership is free and you will be able to participate in upcoming Dialogues with some of the world's most successful and best known knowledge practitioners and leaders.

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