Monday 22 December 2008

LtF Chapter 14 - Review of the book

This chapter offers a quick summary of how the book was written and what the authors learned in the process.

Time similarly for a review of this blogging exercise.

Firstly - in purely practical terms - it took a little longer to get through the book than originally planned. Two chapters a week was fine until I had a health blip and a bit of leave. I found it very hard to regain momentum after this. I think the longer time frame made it harder to "read" the text as a whole and the later chapters were less well considered and connected than the earlier ones. Certainly a quick look shows I had less to say as the exercise went on.

I found the process of writing the entries not too onerous and helpful in terms of ordering my thoughts. I plan to go back and consider if any of the ideas I came up with at the time merit further investigation.

Overall the book was very helpful. I have often found KM too nebulous a concept or one that seemed rather faddish in use. The examples in the text and in particular the tools and techniques presented make this an altogether more concrete under taking.

I had some very interesting discussions with colleagues inspired by things I had read - all be it that these rarely happened on the blog. Perhaps the commenting facilities in blogger are too clumsy? I also had the pleasure of being contacted by both the authors and various members of the community of interest around the book.

I also identified a whole stack of other things I might like to read (though this is nothing new).

I am not sure if this is a method I will reuse often but I can definitely see me doing it again on occasion. I plan to continue to use this blog for KM related thinking.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

LtF Chapter 13 - Embedding it in the organization - preparing to let go


This chapter deals with how KM practices and processes can be established and become the culture. It revolves around an example of this in action.

Five stages of are suggested:

Awareness : Start : Consolidate : Embed : Support

These can be related to other models around change management.

A useful point is how the various KM initiatives underway in this area do not use the term KM. This is in line with discussions in the KM community of practice on NHS CfH ESpace. KM surely has to be within the strategy and business planning of others not a discrete entity in itself.

An example is worked through around Operations and exploiting the common factors in diverse business groups. It refers back to various tools like the river diagram and learning gap analysis that this enables. 25 areas of common practice were identified. A useful tip was around using a requirement to both offer and request help (3 of each in the example) as a way of breaking down peoples reluctance to ask for assistance. A form of peer pressure is applied through this encouraging sharing.

The chapter closes with a reflection point - where are the knowledge gaps for your organization. I think that is something I need to think about offline!