Case
Study
Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB)
Ash Sooknanan,
Corporate Knowledge Officer, WSIB
Editor's
note:
This is a synthesis of the "Conversations with Ash Sooknanan"
held in March, 2001 as part of the AOK STAR SERIES. Each month
one of our four discussion groups enjoys the visit of a KM luminary
as guest moderator. During the course of 11 months, the STAR
SERIES will have delivered the best "conference" of
the year to the desktops of AOK members around the world for
a fraction of the cost of a physical conference and with the
convenience of continuous education that is at the right place
at the right time. Please
Join AOK and participate in
these knowledge exchanges as they happen.
Table of Contents (Click on list item to
go directly to each topic)
 Introduction
Jerry
Ash, AOK chief executive:
I am so pleased to introduce Ash Sooknanan to the membership
of the Knowledge Work/Systems CoP. For the next two weeks Ash
will be sharing with us lessons learned over several years of
building the highly acclaimed knowledge networks of the Workplace
Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) of Ontario, Canada. He is the
WSIB's Corporate Knowledge Manager.
My introduction
to Ash came through Leslie Helston, senior corporate communications
officer at WSIB. She has been a valued member of AOK for some
time and - through Leslie - Ash was introduced to AOK. He has
also become a member.
These initial introductions
have brought us together, but I hope we will learn much more
about Ash as well as the WSIB experience during these two weeks.
To that end, I asked Ash to tell me a bit more about himself
- not just the biography but some stories behind the bio.
He shared several
little vignettes including this one:
When he was just
a small boy in early primary school in Trinidad, Ash was encouraged
in school to learn to save money. On the front of the little
student bankbook was a drawing of a vine-like tree with money
hanging from the branches. Ash, who later would become an accomplished
gardener, secretly planted some pennies at home, eagerly watered
them every day before leaving for school and waited for his money
tree to grow. Ash's older sister saw him watering one morning
and discovered his innocent project. She explained to him the
money really doesn't grow on trees.
Even though Ash
was disappointed, he must have learned not one, but two lessons
- money and plants require different nurturing. Today, Ash (the
gardener) finds watching plants grow, prosper and flourish very
therapeutic and he has won certificates of recognition two years
in a row for his front yard. Ash (the knowledge manager) is getting
plenty of recognition for getting the most "bang for the
bucks" invested in WSIB programs.
In one of the articles
quoted in "Preparing for Conversations with Ash Sooknanan"
in the AOK Star Series section,
CIO magazine observed:
Back
to top
Calling the WSIB "Kafkaesque"
If there (were)
ever a textbook model for a worst-case knowledge management scenario,
it would have to be the über-bureau featured in Franz Kafka's
novels. Drawn from his experience working at a workers' compensation
agency, Kafka's fictional bureaucracy was an institutional nightmare
of incomprehensible information, lost files and maddening dead
ends. While Kafka toiled on his 1914 novel, The Trial, lawmakers
a continent away in Toronto were creating what is now known as
. . . (the) WSIB, a government-owned, employer-funded workers'
comp agency. As recently as a decade ago, calling the WSIB "Kafkaesque"
would have been an apt reference.
Ash Sooknanan, whose
professional career spans 25 years, has played a central role
in a WSIB turnaround. He left employment at a major world bank
in 1987 and progressed through applications development to become
a project/manager in the international award-winning Rapid Applications
Development (RAD - Rapid Solutions Delivery (RSD) practice at
WSIB. The KM project began in the summer of 1994 - just at the
time when the Knowledge Management Movement was about to begin
in earnest in significant locations around the world.
Today the WSIB is
recognized as a leader in KM in Canada and in recent months the
WSIB has been widely acclaimed for its ground breaking work.
Ash and the WSIB have been featured and referenced in a number
of prestigious publications in Canada and the US. Regarded as
an "early adopter" of KM in Canada, the WSIB won both
gold and silver medals at the national Technology in Government
(GTEC) Distinction Awards in October, 2000.
Back
to top
KnowledgeBase Hits: 800,000+
Monthly
WSIB's Intellectual
Capital KnowledgeBase (ICK) application is the single most used
online vehicle for information and knowledge sharing within the
organization. Every operational area in the WSIB now owns one
or more of the knowledge databases and the average monthly number
of hits to the ICK now exceed 800,000. There are 224 knowledge
databases - a 1,400 percent increase from December 1997, with
over 70 new knowledge databases created in the year 2000 alone!
Are you thinking
"information overload?" Think again. If you haven't
yet "done your homework" in preparation for this time
with Ash, please do it as soon as possible. The "Preparing"
article in the Stars section contains a number of links to related
papers and articles that will suggest that a rich database doesn't
necessarily mean "information overload" if it is supported
by a usable knowledge management system and utilized by people
who understand and value that system.
Meanwhile, please
join me in welcoming Ash Sooknanan as guest moderator for
the KW/Systems CoP and please take advantage of his presence
by actively participating in the conversations.
Jerry
Ash: Now
that I've introduced you to the Knowledge Work/Systems CoP audience,
I'll pose a couple of initial questions to get the "Conversations"
going.
WSIB is to be congratulated
for its success. I am always interested in the early adopters
of KM strategy because they are the few with meaningful best
practices to report. We look for "proof" and it's hard
to find in a field that is so young.
First, I'd like
to know what kind of corporate support you had in 1994 for a
full-fledged KM initiative like the one you have now. One would
assume that the highly savvy early adopters of KM were eager
to commit big money to big changes and big ideas. But in fact,
most of the early adopters were "talking the talk"
but not "walking the walk" at the beginning and many
of them never did fully implement a comprehensive KM program.
Some have actually fallen off the KM leadership charts!
So, what was the
corporate culture at WSIB in the beginning and how did it develop
over time?
My second question
also relates to the workplace "environment." Many of
the early proposals for KM initiatives were on a grand scale
involving every department on the organizational chart and every
employee level in them. Others proposed much more modest beginnings,
saying that it was impossible to get one's arms totally around
the whole KM package all at once.
So, did you start
big or (like your front yard) plant a seed that would grow?
Of course we need
to know much more about the KM programs at WSIB (past, present
and future), but I thought it would be good to start at the beginning.
That is the purpose of these questions. Hopefully, the story
will unfold as you respond to the questions to come.
Back
to top
Think BIG, Start Small,
Build Incrementally
Ash
Sooknanan: Thanks
for the warm welcome as a Guest Moderator for the Association
of Knowledgework! It is indeed a pleasure and honour, and I trust
that our candid and open conversations are mutually rewarding.
On behalf of the
WSIB, thanks for the words of congratulations on our success.
Indeed, it is always interesting to see how early adopters of
KM fare. In the case the WSIB, between 1996 and 1998, we saw
a 400 percent increase in the number of knowledge repositories.
The fact that staff were requesting these knowledge repositories
and found value in using them to help in their day-to-day spoke
for itself. But more of this later . . . let's focus on your
questions at hand.
When we started
back in 1994, there was no a cohesive corporate mandate or support
for knowledge management at the senior management level. And
this was not because they were not interested; it was more that
knowledge management (or intellectual capital management, as
we also referred to it then) was so new and not much was known
about it at the time. In those days I worked in the Rapid Applications
Development (RAD) Branch where we used the Rapid Solutions Delivery
(RSD) methodology to deliver application system solutions in
6 to 9 months. The trend was to move away from the 3 to 4 years
waterfall approach to delivering system solutions to the RSD
methodology. And in so doing, some exceptional systems solutions
were implemented in rapid time. Some of these systems won national
and international Canadian and American awards and recognition.
How do we harvest
some of these good routines, reports, templates, best practices
etc. for which we coined the word 'harvestables', was what we
asked ourselves. At the time, Valerie Adamo, the WSIB's CIO and
VP of IS, was Director of the RAD Branch. She continuously challenged
us to do something about leveraging our successes. Some initial
work was started by a fellow manager, Neil Burton, to capture
these harvestables in an online file called the RAD Book. In
1996, while I was in between projects - we called this time "on
the beach" - I took up the challenge to learn Lotus Notes
and to create a repository (later called ASK), to store these
harvestables. And in June 1996 we launched the first repository
of our knowledge base.
Back
to top
Business Need the Driver
What drove us was
the business need. Too often we forget that this is what knowledge
management in business is all about. Knowledge management is
about leveraging what we know to address the needs of the business.
So when we started we had no 'big money', 'big changes' or 'big
ideas' in mind. We wanted to just work smarter, reuse, reduce
and recycle what we can.
"So,"
Jerry asks, "what was the corporate culture at WSIB in the
beginning and how did it develop over time?"
Our humble start,
opened a door of huge opportunity as other branches, the rest
of the IS Division and all other divisions in the organizations
gradually jumped aboard as the practice grew from a localized
"grassroots" practice to an organizational priority.
What we learned with a "grassroots" approach to KM
is that you do not need to have a huge budget, or overall corporate
endorsement/commitment to get started. In our "grassroots"
experience, we found that if you have a "champion"
at the senior level and someone/a small team to drive and run
with the initial start-up, that is probably the bare minimum
you need to make a difference. Our mantra "Think BIG, start
small and build incrementally" is what has helped us to
succeed.
Back
to top
Significant Change in Culture
The change in culture
has developed significantly from our start-up days to today.
It has changed the way staff work, share, learn and respond to
clients needs. It has increased productivity, created a community/communities
within the organization, and has encouraged and fostered a culture
where you see staff eager and happy to share their knowledge
and wisdom, and celebrate as teams and workgroups, using our
KM tools and network.
Jerry's second question
relates to the workplace "environment." He writes:
"Many of the
early proposals for KM initiatives were on a grand scale involving
every department on the organizational chart and every employee
level in them. Others proposed much more modest beginnings, saying
that it was impossible to get one's arms totally around the whole
KM package all at once. So, did you start big or (like your front
yard) plant a seed that would grow?"
Indeed, it was scattering
some seeds on rocky soil, and it found water and took hold. It
was nourished and nurtured, and it grew and flourished.
In the WSIB's case
we started in a Branch in the IS Division. We envisioned three
"waves" in our initial strategy - Wave 1, where all
IS folks would be using KM, our tools and repositories etc.;
Wave 2 - where the focus would be on the rest of the organization
(all Divisions), and Wave 3 where we planned to look outside
the organization . . . our clients, customers, providers etc.
KM Goes Corporate
Somewhere in Wave
2, the WSIB organization recognized the value of knowledge management,
of the flourishing "grassroots" practice, and catapulted
knowledge management to the corporate level. Today the organization
has declared that part of its role is that of "trustee of
knowledge" for workplace health and safety for the province.
And , knowledge has now become one of the four pillars of the
organization as we move forward.
So AOK fellow members,
you can see the value in the "Think BIG, start small and
build incrementally" mantra. First focus on your piece of
the pie (with the big picture in mind). And once you can demonstrate
value, and it supports the business, the "sell" and
support for knowledge management becomes much easier, indeed
the right thing to do.
Back
to top
Incremental vs. Waterfall
Approach
Jerry
Ash: Thanks
for a great start on your "Conversations" and for the
intimate peak at the beginnings of the knowledge practices of
the WSIB. Since the members have not yet had an opportunity to
post questions and comments on your writings, I'll follow up
with a few more questions.
I like your mantra
- "Think BIG, start small, build incrementally." The
perceived enormity of a knowledge initiative often causes paralysis.
But I'm always in a hurry and I constantly have a sense of urgency
for developing knowledge-based programs for companies and organizations!
Isn't the small/incremental mantra the same "waterfall approach"
you moved away from when you shortened the three to four-year
development cycle for technology to six to nine months using
Rapid Applications Development (RAD) and Rapid Solutions Delivery
(RAD) systems? Just how much time can an organization take en
route to becoming knowledge-efficient? Isn't there some risk
of losing (or not developing) momentum with a "go slow"
strategy? Did the "small/incremental" mantra slow down
or speed up the growth of knowledge initiatives at WSIB?
Second set of questions:
Obviously your knowledge initiative sprang from the technology
that was developed ahead of it; and, the systems you are beginning
to describe seem (though the impression is probably wrong) heavy
on hard data - databases. I know you call them "knowledge"
bases, but what makes them "knowledge" bases? How have
you defined knowledge and separated it from information? Or,
can they be separated? Does the system focus primarily on explicit
knowledge (data)? Or are you mining and/or enabling undocumented
(maybe undocumentable) tacit knowledge (human knowhow) as well?
Finally, you speak
of "knowledge repositories" as computer based. Where
do the knowledge repositories of the human mind fit into the
WSIB structure?
Ash
Sooknanan:
The waterfall approach looks at an analysis, design, develop,
and install phase. Each phase can take several months and I have
worked on projects in the past that went on for several years.
The 'rapid' approach however is more like what we do in prototyping.
By taking a small part of your overall envisioned solution and
building a part of it, you immediately get the client/user to
see what the end result might look like, quicker and sooner in
weeks rather that months. This approach helps an organization
become more knowledge-efficient sooner. Were the thrust to populate
the small knowledge repository as quickly as possible, staff
will find value in it quicker and it reaches critical mass sooner.
And once the fire is lit, the flames will spread like 'wild fire'
where it becomes persuasive throughout the organization as the
momentum grows, indeed not a "go slow" strategy. This
has been our experience and it has worked well for us.
Anne
Dees, director, Knowledge Group, American Industrial Hygiene
Association:
About Jerry's questions, I'm not sure that Ash is just reinventing
the waterfall process. The core to what he said is the driver
or drivers who never stop pushing. They have the big idea and
pull others into the vision. With that energy, the process moves
quickly and more effectively, because it begins at the bottom
and moves upward fairly quickly. Increments they may be but moving
at a high speed, at least in the non-profit world.
Ash
Sooknanan:
Thanks, Anne, for sharing your observations and commenting that
the 'think BIG, start small, build (or implement) incrementally'
is indeed the way to go when you comment "with that energy,
the process moves quickly and more effectively, because it begins
at the bottom and moves upward fairly quickly. Increments they
may be, but moving at a high speed." Not only can we have
something quicker to market, but it gives us an opportunity to
ensure the 'prototype' or small undertaking is really what the
client/we envisioned and we can better realize and measure our
success sooner.
This in no way impedes
the speed at which we can grow KM, but - more so - supports us,
by helping us know what we have built as a first small step,
is in line with what we will like to see rolled-out and grown
organization-wide.
Jerry's
second set of questions:
Obviously your knowledge initiative sprang from the technology
that was developed ahead of it; and, the systems you are beginning
to describe seem (though the impression is probably wrong) heavy
on hard data - databases. I know you call them "knowledge"
bases, but what makes them "knowledge" bases? How have
you defined knowledge and separated it from information? Or,
can they be separated? Does the system focus primarily on explicit
knowledge (data)? Or are you mining and/or enabling undocumented
(maybe undocumentable) tacit knowledge (human know-how as well?
Ash
Sooknanan:
The repositories or knowledge databases referred to contain all
of the above and more. For example our ASK repositories store
a branch's or department's methods and procedures. ASK (stands
for Accelerated Solutions KnowledgeBase or Area Specific KnowledgeBase
or Application Specific KnowledgeBase) and will hold the more
formal procedures, guidelines, manuals etc. Our SEEK repository
(Staff Empowerment and Enabling KnowledgeBase) is referred to
like a staff member's "electronic briefcase" - all
you need to be a "good" and "effective" employee.
KNOCK is our KNOwledge Capital KnowledgeBase - who knows what,
who do I contact for . . . etc. TeamWorX is our team productivity
tool used for communication, collaboration, and acts as the intellectual
capital repository for that team, project, workgroup etc. And
there are other knowledge databases that do not fit these standard
templates which we call Companion Databases.
An example will
be the WSIB Water Cooler where staff are encouraged to share
tips, techniques, best practices, ask questions etc. in an informal
environment. Quite often what is shared here is really tacit
information (human know-how). We can then decide, in partnership
with the contributor, if this should be shared through the more
formal repositories to a branch, division, or to all staff .
. . say in the SEEK knowledgeBase. There are also links to our
Enterprise Information Warehouse initiative where data mining,
etc. is done or to sources that exist externally such as the
world wide web, other organizations etc.
Finally, you speak
of "knowledge repositories" as computer based, and
ask: "Where do the knowledge repositories of the human mind
fit into the WSIB structure?"
As mentioned our
KNOCK repository is one example where we attempt to connect staff
to external sources, experts, or organizations who might be better
able to help in their knowledge needs. And in all our knowledge
repository documents, we list a 'competency leader' or group
name/area who/that staff can contact if the explicit document
is not sufficient. They may choose to follow up with the subject
matter experts. This helps in connecting these staff with the
real knowledge repositories of the 'human mind' kind. While we
have a fair ways to go with this, this I believe is very important
as we move forward with KM. And not just for the 'human' contacts
but also with those knowledgeable with the process and workflow
knowledge that keeps organizations running.
Back
to top
KM for Small Groups
Jack
Vinson, Pharmacia: My
question is really geared towards what I can do as one of the
many "knowledge workers" in my organization. What can
I do to spread the seeds in my department, in my company? There
seems to be a difference in the flavor of the business drivers
that will motivate a small group of people, vs. drivers that
will motivate upper management. Any thoughts on these? Can you
point to some examples of business drivers? Can you tell us about
some of the business needs that drove the KM initiatives within
WSIB?
Ash
Sooknanan:
You've raised some good questions and also alluded to some of
answers that have similarly helped us at the WSIB succeed. To
your question on what you do to spread the seeds in your department
and in your company, there are a few things I can suggest, some
of which we have been successful with.
I believe you must
have a champion at a senior level in the organization. This is
one of the most critical success factors. This is some one who
not only will support the practice in the localized business
area, but someone who can spread the word at an organizational
level. Someone who has the ears of the various department leaders
or even the head of the company. One such example from my understanding
is that shared by Steve Denning about
the World Bank's KM story. This also worked for the WSIB,
with the CIO and VP, IS, Valerie Adamo, championing the initial
KM cause. Another suggestion is what one of my peers calls "guerrilla
tactics".
When you said "as
the tools proliferated, other groups were bound to see what was
happening and ask for similar tools (and the work processes to
work with them) in their areas," is right on. This is one
way we did spread the seeds in our organization. There are some
people that are 'just naturals' and others who either 'have an
interest' or 'just curious' about KM, the technology, or something
new, etc. Search out and enlist these believers who will plant,
promote, propagate, and help the KM practice take hold and grow.
The "guerrilla
tactic" is realized when we have in each community, branch,
department, and workgroup supporters of KM, and ambassadors who
will use and share the tools, help spread the word and also support
the discipline as it takes hold in the organization. Another
thing we did at the WSIB was to generate a knowledge repository
tool that is reusable, portable, and can easily be adapted. So
when representatives from business areas partnered with IS to
work on systems projects/solutions, for example they used the
TeamWorX tool we have. And when they left they asked for a copy
to take back to their functional business areas to use and to
capture their intellectual capital.
Quickly we find
this practice becomes pervasive throughout the organization and
once the business value is demonstrated or realized, it's hard
to stop using and leveraging the value of these individual knowledge
repositories. These are just a few thoughts on 'spreading the
seeds'. Keep in mind for us we started back in 1994 and it took
many years, small victories, and many challenges and hurdles,
but in the end, I believe what is right for the business will
prevail.
As far as your comment
on "there seems to be a difference in the flavor of the
business drivers that will motivate a small group of people,
vs. drivers that will motivate upper management," this is
true to a certain extent. But what I have found is that the business
drivers that are really fundamentally important to an organization
are those that support the business. Whether it is profit oriented
or like the WSIB, not for profit, you first need to ensure that
the focus is in support of the business. In our case for example,
and being the second largest workers' compensation board organization
in North America (after California), our vision is "the
elimination of all workplace injuries and illness." The
KM strategy needs to be aligned to and support the business objective.
And each department needs to ensure that what they are doing
is in support of the company's goals, vision, mandate etc. It
then becomes easier to obtain buy-in and support/commitment,
I believe, at the senior management/organization wide level.
It's like the saying "what's in it for me", if senior
management can relate it to their business areas, experiences
and sees the value, they are much more apt to get on board.
Denham
Grey, CEO, Grey Matter Inc.:
Thanks for being here in conversation. Seeing that you started
your story within the IT department, I would be interested to
hear your opinion and experience with patterns and extreme programming
as knowledge practices for coding shops.
Ash
Sooknanan: Very
interesting stuff. XP seems to have gone that step further and
incorporated the human aspect in developing solutions for clients.
I must admit that I have not been able to review the wealth of
content in the URL's you provided, but from what I have been
able to spend some time reading, I believe it is an excellent
way to go.
Indeed, today we
do things like ensuring the client is present and foremost in
the loop, or we do not proceed with developing an IT systems
solution. This is supported in XP's statement "One of the
few requirements of extreme programming (XP) is to have the customer
available. Not only to help the development team, but to be a
part of it as well." But what I see as also good things
are recognizing things like 'story telling', 'iteration/iteration
planning', and 'integrate/integrate often' etc. as part of XP's
guidelines. I also like the move to understanding the organization,
the culture and how that organization's staff learns (for each
organization is different). At the WSIB a study was recently
commissioned to look at how we learn as an organization, taking
a look at our culture, of what has worked and what has not been
as successful. Taking these a step further in XP, and incorporating
these reality findings in how we do software development is brilliant.
And for the little I have grasped in the information you have
provided, I believe using a methodology approach like that offered
in XP can only add value, and help in delivering solutions to
business problems quicker and better.
Back
to top
Size of Knowledge Repositories
Jack
Vinson:
I wonder if Ash (or anyone else) has seen a limit to knowledge
repositories in terms of the number of regular contributors,
or the amount of information on any one topic. If one could categorize
and cross-index useful topics, it would be possible to chop up
the "grand unifying vision" into pieces that are actually
manageable.
Ash
Sooknanan:
There are "information portals" like Yahoo and the
others who have done exactly this. Specific information is cross-referenced,
and as long as you start on the right path you should be able
to find it. And companies are trying to build internal information
portals with customization, not unlike MyYahoo or MyNetscape.
But this doesn't really seem to be knowledge management.
Back to the question
of size. I saw a comment recently that if people get overwhelmed
by "knowledge" presented to them by a sophisticated
portal, that knowledge is really no better than a collection
of data points on a graph. The best knowledge bases should be
able to abstract out the useful information when there is a potential
to be overwhelmed. It would be really cool if they could make
knowledgeable guesses or somehow interact with the user, much
like a true research librarian, in order to narrow (or expand)
a search to retrieve the information truly relevant to the user.
These are really
good questions. Somewhere I heard that the amount of knowledge
that exists out there is like an iceberg. The tip you see above
the water is what has been made explicit - the stuff on the web,
companies databases, etc. - what is documented. The part of the
iceberg which lies below the water (and usually that is the far
greater part than that which we see above the water) is what
is tacit. It is all the stuff that is in people's heads, our
heads, in organizations, teams, workgroups, communities etc.
Having said that, if we were to look at capturing all knowledge
in repositories, "the number of regular contributors, or
the amount of information on any one topic" could be limitless;
especially in this information age where new information is being
created so rapidly. So I am not sure if there is a limit on how
best to chisel and present.
I do believe though,
that as knowledge professionals, we need to harvest and present
that knowledge and information that is pertinent to our subjects,
whether it/they are for the business, an individual, or for private
or public use. That, I believe, is what might work well for people
- helping them not be overwhelmed, getting them to the right
information easily and quickly and at the end of the day, helping
them to get the job done with as little pain and hardship as
possible. I fully support your last comment "it would be
really cool if they could make knowledgeable guesses or somehow
interact with the user, much like a true research librarian,
in order to narrow (or expand) a search to retrieve the information
truly relevant to the user".
Hopefully subject
matter experts (SME's), online chats and as Jerry alluded to,
the knowledge database repositories of the "human kind"
can help us along this path, as we yet can see ahead, much to
embark upon and explore as we grow in and with the knowledge
management discipline.
Back
to top
When KM Initiatives Backfire
Pauline
Harris, editor, Content Manager/Knowledge Management, American
Institute of Certified Public Accountants:
Speaking as a novice, I have to ask Ash, how does your KM team
deal with morale? We have talked about how the KM implementation
started for WSIB, that it's taken seven years to get there, and
that "guerrilla tactics" can be successful in getting
the word out. I am not so much concerned with the amount of time
it takes - again, the gardening analogies come to mind, if you
think about how long it takes for your orchid to come into spike
and eventually bloom - but I am concerned about how to counter
the effects when the guerrilla tactics backfire.
Backfire? How can
that happen? Here's how:
Last May I was instrumental
in training our Intranet's "power users" to learn a
new module that makes document management even more easy on our
system. Many of our power users loved the module, and immediately
went to work to use it. Part of their training was to take what
they learned back to their teams and become the enabler for their
teams. What happened next was enough to bring anyone's morale
down.
The module, outside
the classroom setting, did not work.
The short story
is, we did not have technical support, so we had to advise the
almost 50 people we trained to NOT use the product, and then
sat down to a big plate of crow.
This is the kind
of thing that can undermine everything your team is trying to
accomplish. How do you win back trust from people who gave it
grudgingly in the first place?
I do believe that
it is crucial to make friends with your IS/IT/MIS/whatever your
technology group calls itself. If there is even a smidgen of
suspicion on their part that the KM effort is looking to take
over, then life at work can get very challenging.
Jerry
Ash: Well,
Pauline, if you knew you did not have sufficient support, why
did you go charging forward with a doomed plan?
Pauline
Harris: Here's
why I went charging forward with my doomed plan:
I was told to.
Plus the fact that
we had meetings with our tech group, went over our support needs,
were actually promised them at the beginning of the whole KM
implementation back in January 1999 (my fiasco happened in May
2000) and, well, we were trying to be team players. We have documented
every move, every unreturned phone call, e-mail, missed meeting
. . . sound like petty people, don't we? How else can we prove
that we have done all the "right" things?
Ah, it's a pickle,
it surely is. I appreciate Ash's encouraging words, but when
your tech support fails, and there is no recourse, it can be
more than frustrating.
The system is up
and running, I'd say, 95% of the time, with no problems. That
is great. But, that's it. No improvements, nothing beyond basic
maintenance. We are in a very challenging position.
I want to stress
again that it is imperative for KM and IT to partner. A colleague
of mine recently told me that KM does not need technology to
be effective. He's right, but wow, how hard is that to
prove? IT groups feel threatened for good reason - outsourcing
the internal IT department is not an unknown solution to problems
such as what I've described at my association. Libraries, research
centers, IT departments - all are overhead, unless they understand
the mission and business cases of their organizations.
So, how do we do
that, when the customer service folks (librarians) are being
outsourced? What sort of message does that send to others who
are supposed to be practicing customer service.
Ash
Sooknanan:
You know, there are some days I feel I'd rather be somewhere
else. I am sure many of us at some time have felt that way. And
in the KM journey, there have been many times when morale posed
a real challenge. How do you convince the client that what you
are doing with KM is helpful to them; how do you get senior management
onside and let them know KM adds value to the business. How do
you get the infrastructure in place, the budget, funding, the
support, how do you feel that what you are doing is of value
and not just another 'thankless' job. Like life, whatever we
do, we need to put ourselves in the other person's shoes. And
ask 'what's in it for me?' - what's in it for them.
I believe if we
truly believe in what we are doing, in this case KM, and we are
passionate about it, we will see the rewards, the success, the
value - a little at a time. It took us several years. Sometimes
we were ecstatic when we got another branch, department, division
to request and use our/a knowledge repository. And then there
were days when we heard from them that we do not have the time
for this, or we don't have the resources to support this. I believe
it's at times like these, we should continue to focus on those
areas or groups that were 'sold', or 'onside,' and with their
success, maybe we can convince others. It has worked and continues
to work for us. But still there is much work to do.
So back to your
original question on morale: "when bad things happen to
good KMers, how do you, as a manager, handle it?" I say
stay the course, call upon your champions (whether at the senior
management level, the good farmers in the fields, or the "guerrilla"
ones that have gone off and started to plant a small tree or
small field elsewhere in the organization).
In short, capitalize
on your successes, share your wins, good stories, value-adds,
what has worked well, the little (or big) rewards that keep you
going etc. And "when the bad things happen", learn
from them, see them as a challenge, pick up the pieces and move
on. There is still much work to do. If I sat down and gave up
hope the many times things did not go well or the way I like
as we developed our KM Practice (or even in my life), I'd probably
be so lost and sad. But if you believe what you are doing is
right for the business, that it supports your branch/department/organization
and that it adds value to the way staff, people, clients, or
even the way 'we work', then stay on the bus, the journey will
be worth it.
Indeed, it will
help "build character" and we will have gotten stronger
as individuals and as an organization, as we move from this 'industrial'
to 'knowledge' culture.
Jerry
Ash: I enjoyed
reading your inspiring words to Pauline on what to do when a
KM initiative bombs, but the rah rah speech left me wanting.
Tell me, Ash, have you ever had a KM plan go awry? What happened?
How would the Monday morning quarterback have played it differently?
What exactly did you do to pick up the pieces? Or was the project
dead? Perhaps every thread you've picked up at the WSIB has turned
to gold, but surely it hasn't all been smooth sailing.
Ash
Sooknanan:
Thanks, Jerry, for your provoking words. Only a few days ago
I was saying to an associate, in sharing my KM experience, it
seems everyone asks what were your success stories, what went
well, share with me how we also can succeed. And I mentioned
not many questions are asked about the failures, the days when
all seems lost and futile, when you ask yourself whether you
are fighting a losing battle.
Yes, we've had those
days, those experiences - I've lived through many of them.
I've mentioned the
WSIB's KM journey that has taken us through the last six years
to where we are today. That's quite a long time and indeed much
needed time to educate staff and senior management on what is
the value of knowledge management. Why should they care? There
were many days/situations when there were more important things
to do - it was "not interested today, come back tomorrow."
There have been situations when all the work was put in to creating
a new repository, and then nothing came out of it. What we thought
one day was a success, a gain, a small win, had vanished as quickly
as it came. And it has been the constant battle just to exist
as an 'official' KM group, to be an entity that does have a place
on the organization chart - a battle that has still not yet been
won.
Today the WSIB and
its KM Practice is at the crossroads. At the crossroads because
the organization has changed from one focused on "compensation
and rehabilitation" to "prevention and health and safety."
As a result, an important business transformation initiative
is in progress to effect this change. And in so doing, to ensure
that the IT systems support the new business processes. The KM
Practice has also found itself at the crossroads as being part
of this change. The "bottom-up" grassroots shoestring
approach has now been catapulted to a "top-down" corporate
strategy and approach. Is this good? Yes. Is it going to be easy?
No. There is still a lot of work to do to convince the senior
management folks and those steering the organization, on fully
embracing and making KM a fundamental way we work. The jury is
still out on this, on whether we can make this transition.
One might then ask,
do you run the risk of losing all you have accomplished changing
to nought? Or, we may have the stance that there is so much to
do in our business transformation, do we also have time for KM
as well?. Or, maybe even "this is a fad, it will go away,
let us focus on the real business of the organization."
These are all real possibilities. There are so many factors,
nay-sayers and nonbelievers that believe me, it has not been
and will not be "smooth sailing" as you say.
One of the reasons,
you see, is that there are also different levels of understanding
of KM and its value to the business. And so, as we grow and continue
to nurture and expand KM in our organizations, we also have to
be cognizant of the fact that not because you and I 'eat and
breathe' this stuff daily, everyone else does. There are huge
challenges educating, teaching, sharing, showing, demonstrating
and selling the WIIFM, the value, the contribution KM can make
and makes to an organization.
It's a big job,
and through the years I have experienced many downfalls and setbacks.
But the fact that KM is still alive and well at the WSIB is testament
to the hard work and the efforts made to keep it on the agenda,
even to make it one of the four pillars the organization has
adopted in moving forward. And here at the WSIB, I give credit
to the folks like Valerie Adamo, CIO & VP, IS who has been
our first KM champion, Roy Thomas, VP, Communications who has
been a staunch supporter and promoter of KM. And, as we move
into the future with our business transformation initiative,
a lot of credit goes to Paul Holyoke, General Counsel & VP,
Legal Services, who has helped sell and bring many of our senior
management folks onside, to recognize the value of KM and support
a strategy that enables the organization and helps the organization
in our vision and organization goals and objectives.
So, far from it
- things do and have gone wrong. We have had and will continue
to have our fair share of learning what works and what does not.
Again, as with most things, to be successful you must not give
up, stay the course, learn from the failures, pick up the pieces
and move on. Enlist the champions that can help, no matter where
they sit in the organization. If they support you, the value
of KM and the value it brings to the business, then indeed, you
have a much better chance of success, than without them.
Jordan
Antonelli:
My company has recently rolled out a "KM" repository,
with a very nice note with a link and the password (new and,
need I say complicated) necessary for access. I had a couple
of thoughts as I looked at the announcement(s).
First, while the
announcement made many of the right noises in regard to the value
of KM, it really didn't address the WIIFM (what's in it for me)
of the new system.
Second, it doesn't
address a culture which has a distinct difficulty in completing
direct performance reviews due to the "interference"
of employees' real jobs, let alone devoting time to developing
knowledge capital which might ultimately be used by someone to
get a job I, as the contributor, might have wanted. So, why give
away knowledge I might use as a personal advantage later? (I
work for a consulting firm.)
I am concerned when
I see these efforts aimed strictly from a "Hey! Look at
this cool system thing" rather than from a holistic viewpoint.
I am afraid that when the next cool thing comes along KM will
tend to lose momentum, without most folks ever realizing what
it was about in the first place - open sharing of information
through any and all viable media.
Back
to top
"Cool System"
or Holistic View
Debra
M. Amidon, Entovation International:
Of course, I have being scanning with great interest your conversation.
The case study - following the discussion
on management architecture - provides a nice blend of theory
and practice. [Good job, Jerry!]
Jordan Antonelli's
posting makes the very point!
His concerns - these
efforts seeming aimed at the "cool system thing" rather
than from a "holistic" viewpoint - are precisely the
rational for the Knowledge Value Proposition that connects the
measurement of intellectual Capital (Economics), with the Behavior,
Culture and Learning Systems (Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology)
AND the Technology (Information and Cognitive Sciences). It's
the management system, not the technology per se.
He also articulated
effectively that the answers lie not only in repositories - as
expertly established as they might be - but in the sharing (and
ideally application of those ideas) . . . beyond WIIFM.
Creating the knowledge-sharing
culture - complete with effective incentives (which may not only
be financial, by the way) - is the most difficult aspect of the
process. And Antonelli is right, it begs the very foundation
of our current competitive values, practice and reward mechanisms.
The new economy demands collaboration in ways we have yet to
imagine. How can we change something so fundamental?
Back
to top
Human Dimension of Technology
James
Conklin, president, IDT Information Development & Training
Inc.: I
thought I would ask you to comment on some of the trends that
we are starting to observe in the market that we serve. While
initially there was interest in matters such as knowledge repositories,
content management, and single sourcing, now we are seeing a
growing interest in the human side of KM.
I had lunch with
an engineer recently, and he told me that he was especially interested
in understanding how my firm dealt with "analogue"
matters. I was puzzled at first, because we are a change management
and KM consulting firm (conducting assessments, learning strategies,
learning materials, information products, etc.), and for us technology
is merely a tool - and certainly we do nothing with analogue
technology. But it turned out that he was using "analogue"
as a metaphor to refer to the human dimension of technology projects.
He chose the word "analogue" because so much noise
interferes with the signal. In other words, in his view projects
to introduce new technology fail because people make them fail,
not because the technology is flawed.
My clients are indicating
a growing interest in questions of how to retain tacit knowledge,
how to transfer tacit knowledge without the mediation of technology,
how to use knowledge as a lever to improve employee retention
rates, how to improve communication between employees, how to
encourage the growth of collaboration, and how to establish a
culture of mentoring within an organization.
Does this sound
familiar, or is your experience rather different?
Ash
Sooknanan:
My personal belief is that for knowledge management initiatives
to be successful, at least 50 percent of the challenge is cultural.
Indeed, there is a growing interest in the human side of KM and
we see almost daily, literature on KM that reminds us that 'KM
is about people.' It is not about technology. Tools, training
and support are often underestimated or overlooked. And while
this sounds elementary, for a KM system to be effective, users
must have access to equipment, must be trained in how to use
the system and must have someone to call when they get stuck.
The latter point is so very important. And in introducing KM,
and new roles and responsibilities, we need to ensure the human
aspect is accommodated for and managed.
Recently our organization
had two external consultants come in to do a study on how our
organization learns, what works and what does not. For each organization
is different, and the theory out there may not always fit every
organization. So we need to closer consider our individual organization's
culture, our people's strengths and weaknesses, and what works
and what does not as we proceed with implementing KM in our organizations.
Your many questions
on how to retain tacit knowledge, how to transfer tacit knowledge
without the mediation of technology, how to use knowledge as
a lever to improve employee retention rates, how to improve communication
between employees, how to encourage the growth of collaboration,
and how to establish a culture of mentoring within an organization,
are all very good questions and ones that are foremost in the
minds of many knowledge management practitioners and academics
alike.
I sit on the Queen's
University KM Forum and we attempt to tackle such questions as
a collective group of North American KM thinkers. I will not
be able to do justice in attempting to respond in detail to all
your questions, but there is a large amount of literature available
that attempts to tackle these very issues. On a very limited
scale we have started to encourage staff to document their tacit
knowledge in our knowledge repositories so that if they move
on, we can better deal with the change. As well, in using a knowledge
base, we have given staff the opportunity to share and improve
communication, collaboration and learning. Having subject matter
experts, competency leaders and knowledge experts have helped
in providing a mentoring culture, but we have a long ways to
go to embody this practice in our organization.
Back
to top
Thanks and Concluding Remarks
Jerry
Ash: Please
join me in expressing appreciation for the share of time and
knowledge Ash Sooknanan has made available to us during his three
week stint as guest moderator of the Knowledge Work/Systems Community
of Practice.
He has added the
dimension of front line application to the fundamentals of structure
provided to us by Debra Amidon
in February. And, he has grounded us in the realities that will
surely be the focus of KM's foremost reporter - Fortune's
Tom Stewart - in April.
Ash plans to author
a book in the near future and he has already asked if he can
book a "return engagement" when the book is published.
What do you think? Should we invite him back?
As you know, Ash
has been a member of AOK for quite some time; therefore, the
end to his Star Series appearance is not the end of his involvement
in the AOK community. He will continue to be here for us all.
Ash, I may say this
too often, but it is genuinely meant: I respect the value of
your time and knowledge and thank you for the giving of it.
Ash
Sooknanan:
First I must say a very sincere "thank you" for providing
me the opportunity to share my "layperson's" knowledge
and experiences in knowledge management. Back in 1994, I was
fortunate to have stumbled upon the KM discipline, and though
reluctant at first, to take on the challenge to grow, share and
have KM infiltrate all areas of our organization. I have also
been quite fortunate to have the support of a number of senior
management staff here at the WSIB, who allowed me the freedom
to help foster, grow and promote the WSIB's successful award
winning KM Practice. And I have also been fortunate to work with
so many staff in our KMCC and throughout the organization who
believed and helped work to make our KM practice a part of our
daily working lives.
But what I am thankful
for, to the AOK members, is the opportunity to share and give
of myself. And in so doing, I am a much better person, as I have
learned from you, from your experiences, thoughts, questions
and yes, your "applause." A few years ago, I was told
I may only have a few months to live. Now four years later much
has changed, and it feels ever so gratifying to share what I
have learned over the years and to give back to humanity a little
of myself. Remember, you gotta give a little to get a little.
God Bless! Thanks
and keep in touch.
Back
to top
|
