Where Information Management ends and Knowledge Management begins – an extract

By Elisabeth Goodman

This blog is a summary of my presentation at the APM KSIG event in Birmingham on 14^th May 2013.  A fuller write-up, including my and Martin Fisher’s notes on the highlights from the discussion will shortly be available on the APM website.

Every project management input and output involves both information and knowledge

Project governance – inputs and outputs – information or knowledge?

We are all very familiar with the many documents, whether on paper or in electronic form, that illustrate the governance of a project team: decision logs, meeting minutes, project plans, even lessons learned.  But behind each of these tangible information assets, lies all the thinking, conversation and contextual knowledge that went into their creation, and are available from individual project team members should anyone have questions about their content.

As Patrice Jackson, Knowledge Strategist at Lockheed Martin, said in a LinkedIn exchange with Elisabeth prior to the seminar:

“The one thing I know for sure is that the human process is the bridge between them [information and knowledge.]”

“The bridge is a metaphor for how people behave.  Their willingness to share, collaborate and learn brings information to life and gives knowledge its insight to then apply and innovate!”

Information and knowledge overlap in project management, and form a continuum

We may be unclear about where information management ends, and knowledge management begins exactly because they overlap and form a continuum.  This is apparent in the overlap between the (admittedly limited) definitions of these 2 areas in the 6^th edition of the APM Body of Knowledge where related words appear in both definitions.

APM Body of Knowledge – 6th ed – definitions of Information and Knowledge Management

If you study the overlap between the definitions, then the distinction may be that:

1. Information management is to do with the collection, storage, dissemination, archiving, and destruction of information
2. Knowledge management is to do with the use that people put that to, how they apply their expertise to make decisions, how they tap into what they have learned and the translation of personal experience into collective knowledge

Models may help to frame the discussion about information and knowledge

I used two models to help frame the discussion.

In the first model, project governance is one of 3 contexts for the information and knowledge inputs and outputs of a project.

A second context is the actual technical content of the project – be it around the development of a new drug, the erection of a new building, or the implementation of an IT system.

And the other context is the governance at play within the operational organizations that individual team members may be members of: HR, IT, scientific departments, engineering departments etc.

The components and dynamics of projects – a model

My second model suggested an approach that might help with the effective management of both information and knowledge:

1. A clear context that provides the goals and objectives for the project and for information / knowledge management (derived from the overall organisational goals, those of the project team itself, and those of the individual departments represented by the team members);
2. A framework of processes and systems that continuously improve and evolve based on new information and knowledge;
3. Active facilitation of information and knowledge management;
4. Some key enablers to drive the behaviours that make this all happen

These points are reflected in my last slide:

A model for effective information and knowledge management in projects

There are numerous challenges associated with managing information and knowledge in projects!

A lively discussion ensued around the main themes identified by the delegates:

1. Language barriers and key messages being lost in communication between the various team members
2. The risks to corporate memory associated with time and reorganizations
3. The importance of top down sponsorship and time to influence and sustain the right behaviours
4. The evaluation and recognition of the value of information and knowledge: what is useful?

More details on these and other aspects of the discussion can be found in the fuller write-up of the event, which will be available shortly on the APM website.

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is the owner and Principal Consultant of RiverRhee Consulting and a trainer, facilitator, one-to-one coach, speaker and writer, with a passion for and a proven track record in improving team performance and leading business change projects on a local or global basis. 

Elisabeth is an expert in knowledge management, and is accredited in change management, Lean Six Sigma and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator).  She has a BSc in Biochemistry, an MSc in Information Science, is a full member of the Chartered Institute of Information and Library Professionals (CILIP) and of the Association for Project Management (APM) and is also a Growth Coach with the GrowthAccelerator.

Elisabeth has 25+ years’ Pharma R&D experience as a line manager and internal trainer / consultant, most recently at GSK and its legacy companies, and is now enjoying working with a number of SMEs and larger organisations around the Cambridge cluster as well as further afield in the UK and in Europe.

 

Feel the fear and do it anyway

By Elisabeth Goodman

Last night I heard Sheri Kershaw & Band at the Royston Folk Club – our favourite twice-monthly music venue.  She introduced her first song ‘Colours of Life‘ with the observation that we will all suffer at some time in our lives, and the suggestion that we embrace rather than resist this experience, as it is what adds colour to our lives.

One of the reasons that I write these blogs is the opportunity this gives me to share the insights that experiences like hearing someone like Sheri gives me.  Combine this with a Harvard Business review blog by Peter Bregman ‘The unexpected antidote to procrastination‘ that I spotted in my twitter feed earlier in the day, and some magic happened that I wanted to share!

Not being afraid to fall

Feeling the fear and doing it anyway

Bregman writes of his experience of watching surfers, who dare to ride the waves in search of that epic experience, with the full knowledge that they will always end by falling.  Some fall gracefully, others resist it for as long as they can.  But inevitably, they do fall.  He suggests that the reason we put off doing a lot of difficult things in work or in life, put off taking risks even if what we might achieve might be epic or wonderful, is the fear of what might happen, of failing, of falling, of being hurt.

However, if, like Bregman, like Sheri Kershaw, we accept that the intensity of what we might feel, of what we might suffer, is an integral part of life’s rich tapestry, and of what we can achieve and succeed at, then it’s going to be about feeling the pain, and doing it anyway.

The link to engagement, empowerment and change

This brings me to why I’m writing about music and surfing in a business blog, and why I do the work that I do!  I had the pleasure to experience a one-day course on coaching, organised by the Cambridge Network‘s Learning Collaboration, and led by Sue Blow from Management Learning & Coaching.

Listening to Sue and hearing about her approach as a coach reminded me that my work with teams is all about giving the individuals within the team the time, environment and skills to deal with the pain that they have been experiencing.  As a result, the members of the team can become more engaged with their organisation’s goals, and also feel more empowered to do something about the challenges that they are facing.

I was talking with David Bance and John Moore earlier in the week, in our nascent Melbourn Business Association Special Interest Group for Operational Excellence. We were comparing experiences of how empowered people had been to raise suggestions for improvement as a result of participating in Total Quality Management, or Lean and Six Sigma initiatives.  The best outcome was that it gave them the permission, the courage, the skills, the data and reasoning to dare to change situations where they had previously been feeling the pain.  Of course, a successful outcome is also dependent on the management and organisational support to make the resultant changes.

The fear and the pain can be large or small

I definitely do not wish to minimise or trivialise the fear, pain or suffering that people might experience in their working or home lives, and the courage and the risks that they take to overcome them.  I recognise that these can be very great and some of the situations that I come across can seem relatively small.

For example I also recently attended an excellent seminar by Janet Burton, of The Training Manager, where we explored how to develop, prepare for and deliver  presentations.  Even these kinds of situations can feel challenging and require effective mental preparation, a good stretch and taking a deep breath before beginning!

I’m also a trustee of the Red Balloon Learner Centre in Cambridge, and admire the courage of the students who come in to tackle their personal challenges of recovering from bullying and other traumas that they’ve experienced, so that they can come back to learning again.

The main thing is, as Sheri Kershaw and Peter Bregman suggest, to embrace these experiences and to also remember that there are people out there who will help you if we can.

Notes

1. Elisabeth Goodman is Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, enhancing team effectiveness through process improvement, knowledge management, change management and MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator)
2. Follow the links to find out about other ways in which Elisabeth Goodmanand RiverRhee Consulting can help your team to work more effectively for greater productivity and improved team morale.

Social Media – What’s the ROI? Notes from a @CambNetwork breakfast meeting

By Elisabeth Goodman

Social Media: putting you and your business at the heart of your community

Back in 2010 I wrote a blog about how Social Media could be used as a key tool for sharing knowledge and for business development, and effective ways to go about that. [Social Media: putting your and your business at the heart of your community.]  I had the opportunity to do something of an update on the topic at a Cambridge Network breakfast meeting on marketing for small businesses.

This time I focused on the kinds of returns on investment (ROIs) that Social Media can bring to SMEs, and how to maximize that. I was fortunate to be able to draw on the experience of others attending the seminar, and those interested but who could not attend, through a survey that they had completed beforehand.

Here is a brief synopsis of my presentation, the full slides for which can be found here. [Social Media - What's the ROI? Cambridge Network Breakfast Meeting for SMEs]

By the way, the main tools used were LinkedIn and Twitter, with Facebook, blogs and Google+ following a little behind.

Social Media tools used by small businesses

Why are SME’s using Social Media?

Building ones reputation, ones connections and ones knowledge continue to be the key reasons for using Social Media, as illustrated by these responses to the survey.

Main reasons why small businesses use Social Media

What is the ROI of using Social Media for SME’s?

Interestingly 3 of the 19 survey respondents stated that they had found none, whereas the other 16 had all found some return, even if not all of it was financially tangible.  They cited:

• The value of Social Media in building strong rapport with existing and potential clients
• Being able to get past the ‘castle guard’ barrier of more traditional ways of reaching out to new clients
• The importance of ‘dancing as if no-one is watching’ i.e. being true to yourself and what you have to offer, with the trust that if you do so, people will come..
• The richness of this source of knowledge about your clients, their challenges and issues, and as a general source of knowledge

We also discussed how we should be using Social Media as a complementary tool to other more traditional methods.  I used my own approach to illustrate this.

My blend of networking and marketing approaches to reach clients and keep informed about team effectiveness

How to maximize the ROI for SME’s from Social Media?

There is an enormous risk of wasting a lot of time and effort on Social Media.  Whist about 58% of our survey spent less than 3 hours on this per week, about 42% spent more than 3-5 hours per week.

So it is important, as in all business activities, to have a clearly defined strategy for our use of Social Media.  This model may work as one approach to this.

How do develop your Social Media strategy

Other ways to maximize the ROI, by reducing the (unproductive) time spent on Social Media include getting some good training on how to use the tools and making the most of labour-saving ‘devices’ such as tools that enable you to publish updates to several platforms at once (Hootsuite, the update bar of LinkedIn, the publishing feature of WordPress are examples of this).  And of course there are businesses who specialize in managing your Social Media marketing for you.

Personally, I’ve found the 3 ‘I’s: Inform, Interact, Inspire – a really useful guideline to bear in mind in my day-to-day use of all of the tools.

Thank you To the small businesses who responded to the Social media ROI survey

I would like to especially thank those who participated in the survey, whether anonymously or by name.  Here are those who gave their names:

• Robin Higgons Qi3 Ltd robin.higgons@qi3.co.uk
• Karen James, Lilac James
• QTP Environmental Ltd. infor@qtpe.co.uk
• Amanda Brown, Managing Director, Alterra Amanda@alterra-consulting.co.uk
• Mark Collingwood http://www.tonicfusion.com Tonic Fusion
• Jamie Lesinski, Crossbar-fx, jamielesinski@crossbarfx.com 0, @jamielesinski @crossbarfx
• Ed Goodman, Cambridge Business Lounge,
• Richard Wishart, Delivery Management Ltd richard.wishart@del-mgt.com
• Goncalo Syndicate room
• Alexandra Murphy Cambridge Network alex.murphy@cambridgenetwork.co.uk

Notes

1. Elisabeth Goodman is Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, enhancing team effectiveness through process improvement, knowledge management and change management. She provides 1:1 tutorials and seminars on how to use LinkedIn and other social media for personal and business development.
2. Follow the links to find out about other ways in which Elisabeth Goodman and RiverRhee Consulting can help your team to work more effectively for greater productivity and improved team morale.

Knowledge Management: past, present and future – notes on a NetIKX seminar (#NetIKX60)

By Elisabeth Goodman

Knowledge Management past and present

It’s NetIKX’s 21^st year since it’s original formation in 1992 as the IRM (Information Resource Management) group under Aslib.  This seminar (in March 2013) was an opportunity for Stuart Ward (Forward Consulting) to reflect on the past and present of Knowledge Management, and for Alison (Lissi) Corfield (Independent KM Specialist) to help us reflect on its future.

As we know, there are many different definitions of Knowledge Management, Stuart suggested that it’s essentially about helping people to share the knowledge that they have in their heads: their ‘tacit’ knowledge to enable the creation of new ideas.   His view is that once that tacit knowledge is made ‘explicit’, or written down, then it is essentially information.

Stuart suggested that an organisation needs the following for an effective Knowledge Management strategy:

• Clarity of understanding and purpose: what the organization means by Knowledge Management
• Engagement of everyone in the organization (he cited Lewis Platt, past CEO of Hewlard Packard, as a role mode in creating a knowledge sharing culture)
• To be delivering value to the organisation from the Knowledge Management strategy (e.g. establishing and facilitating what an organisation needs to know to succeed)

NetIKX in its present and previous forms has had the benefit of many well-known speakers, amongst them Elizabeth Orna, David Snowden, Nick Willard, David Skyrme, Chris Collison and Nick Milton.

As we know, stories can be a powerful way of sharing knowledge, and past speakers have encouraged delegates to bring objects to a seminar as a starting point for such stories.  Stuart diverted us with a story based on locking his car keys in his boot to illustrate the value of organisations (in this case the AA) having effective Knowledge Management strategies for sharing solutions and accessing them!

Common themes that Stuart pulled out from these and other speakers included:

• Knowledge Management is about people more than technology
• Top management engagement is essential
• You should identify what you know, what you need to know, and then bridge the gap
• It’s important to link your Knowledge Management strategy to your organisational goals and objectives
• Put processes in place to enable the translation of tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge
• Measure when you can

Knowledge Management future

Lissi Corfield brought goodie bags and questionnaires for us to complete in real time to involve us in constructing what the future of Knowledge Management might be.

She asked us to consider several things such as:

1. To what extent the organisations we were involved in had Knowledge Management strategies backed by a CEO at one extreme, or were just a collection of related activities
2. What kind of activities were taking place in our organisations e.g. Communities of Practice, Learning Interventions, cultural initiatives, storytelling, technical projects, ‘yellow pages’, knowledge audits
3. Which related organisations we were drawing on e.g. NetIKX, LIKE, CILIP, Aslib, ISKO, Gurteen knowledge cafés; or commercial ones such as TFPL Connect, the Sue Hill breakfast club etc.
4. Which specialists we were aware of (e.g. as per Stuart’s list) and did we know how to get in touch with them

Lissi also asked us to consider what might happen next with Knowledge Management.  Would it for example:

• Become very specialized (for example by being adopted / applied in different disciplines)?
• Disappear into another discipline (such as ‘Big Data’ or Social Media)?
• Merge into the mainstream (become just what people do)?
• Get a better name (such as ‘common knowledge’ or even ‘common sense’!)?

Lissi believes and hopes that Knowledge Management will both become very specialized, and merge into the mainstream.

What the delegates thought: knowledge management is here to stay

As is traditional with NetIKX meetings, we split into syndicate or discussion groups to explore some of the seminar’s themes, and all opted to discuss the future of Knowledge Management.

The consensus was that it would continue to be around, although it might not necessarily be called Knowledge Management.  In fact it seems like organisations are reinventing it all the time!

We also thought that although knowledge is continuously being encoded or ‘outsourced’ (for instance through Microsoft style sheets, SatNavs, online customer reviews of products, surgical techniques, flight simulators etc..), new knowledge will keep developing.

One delegate suggested that it’s the sheer complexity surrounding the various roots and sources of knowledge that is the reason why Knowledge Management will continue to be a separate discipline…

Note.

Delegates were asked to complete a short survey before the seminar, which included identifying the four most important knowledge assets in our organisations.  We’re waiting to see the results of this survey, but for RiverRhee Consulting I suggest that these are:

1. Our people – their expertise and experience
2. The capabilities that we teach our clients
3. Our approach to training
4. What we learn from working with our clients

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

 

Creating and finding those inspirational managers for our teams – a Cambridge Network event

People leave their managers not their companies

“70% of people leave their managers or supervisors, not their company”.  These were some of the research findings shared with us this morning by Sue Gibson, Human Resources Consultant at DoubleG Assosiates LLP, in a Cambridge Network Breakfast meeting on retention and motivation of staff.  She also told us that mediocre managers can do a lot of damage ‘under the radar’ and can pass on stress and stifle employee engagement through inappropriate authoritarian attitudes.

As a trainer and consultant who focuses on ways to relieve the pain of people in teams, by working with inspirational managers who want to improve the way they support team members, as well as equipping the team with tools to improve their work, I was very interested to learn more about this topic!

So what makes for an inspirational manager?

We all shared our own experiences of those managers that we remember to this day or, as Sue described, ‘have a following’.  Those that have inspired us:

• Have vision
• Can relate and communicate with everyone in their team
• Empower individuals
• Speak from the heart, with passion about what they are doing
• Have integrity
• Are happy to recruit people better than themselves
• Focus on the career progression of the people in their teams

They are also, in the words of one of the delegates who is a school governor: “a critical friend”.  They will give honest, timely, constructive feedback, and are consistent in doing so.

technical competence is not a criterion for becoming a manager

We have all come across situations where people have been promoted to management roles as the only route to reward their technical competence, and that of course is not necessarily the right solution.

People forced into a management route will not necessarily have the passion or aptitude for it and may spend their time trying to find opportunities to still use their technical skills.

Enlightened organisations, and there were some in the room, have developed 2 branches for promotion, so that people can progress according to their preference and strength along a technical or a management route.

How to find and develop those inspirational managers

Sue described how one organisation she supports identifies their existing inspirational managers and asks them to act as talent scouts to spot potential new talent.  These people can then choose whether or not they would like to progress up a management or a technical chain and trains them accordingly for active succession planning.

Another delegate described how they use a buddy system for new managers to help them get up to speed more quickly and effectively.

There was a general consensus that some form of active management training is needed, rather than expecting managers to just learn on the job.

other key considerations for retention and motivation

The seminar was not just about inspirational managers, but about what can be done to retain staff.  Sue stressed that this is not about rules, processes or restrictions but about getting a number of things right.  Her list included:

• Culture
• Interesting work
• Development
• The mindset of leaders and managers (which brings us back to the earlier points on inspirational managers)
• Making sure that people know what is expected of them
• Having clear organisational goals
• Pay
• Benefits

We discussed examples of individuals writing their own objectives based on the organisational goals and relating to performance (things they need to do for the job) and also their own personal development.  In Sue’s experience people have also been asked to assess their own performance against their objectives.  I mentioned that this had hints of the situation at Morning Star described by Gary Hammel in the Harvard Business Review, which I wrote about in one of my other blogs: “Why is employee engagement such an important topic?”

We also discussed the importance of showing people that they are valued, and giving managers the scope and authority to show recognition.  Sue gave examples of giving someone a meal out with their partner, including making babysitting arrangements with a professional Nanny, or paying for a week-ends Italian lessons for someone who wanted to learn. As she pointed out, the cost of these kind of recognition packages are far less than the value delivered by an employee going beyond routine requirements, or indeed the cost of replacing someone and of the knowledge lost when they leave.

In the work that I do with teams, retention and motivation is also about creating an environment where people can thrive, where they have time to think and be creative as a result of being able to focus on the key priorities of their business.

managers need to be aware of generational differences in their staff

This is a fascinating area to explore.  I didn’t quite catch everything Sue was saying at this point, so some of the following notes are a bit improvised, but it was along the lines that those aged between 30 – 40 expect to be taught, are generally technology ‘savvy’, will be tolerant of their managers and are OK about change.

Those aged 30 years and under though are more likely to teach themselves, are technology ‘wise’, will work hard if they are interested, expect their managers to collaborate with them (because they are equal) and are likely to be more actively mobile.

So these considerations reinforce what we already know, that managers need to understand their staff and relate to them as individuals, in order to manage them well.

Concluding thoughts

We finished with some discussions in small groups.  Some of the thoughts that came out of these were:

• In small organisations, when people go on holiday, it gives those left in charge the opportunity to develop. (We’d touched earlier on the importance of giving people challenges outside their comfort zones for the same reason.)
• There seems to be an optimum ratio of 1 manager to 8-10 staff in order to be able to build rapport, engage with team members and generally manage them well
• Managers can be blockers!
• The importance of empowering staff to improve the way they work as they are the ones who will best understand the opportunities to do so.
• In start-ups, HR should be a foundation stone, not an add on: people can be the biggest asset, as well as the biggest cost!

Were you at this seminar?  If so, and you’d like to add any material that I’ve missed, do feel free to do so as a comment.  Also, if you think I’ve misinterpreted anything that was said, do please set me right!

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

The mindset for Open Innovation – at “Open Innovation in Action” SBC OI summit

By Elisabeth Goodman and Lucy Loh

We had the opportunity to lead a break-out session at the recent Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst (SBC) Open Innovation summit.  It was a day filled with interesting presentations, panel discussions, networking and break-out sessions.

Open Innovation is all about people

Our session was one of the last in the day, so that delegates had had several opportunities to hear and reflect about the question of mindsets and the importance of soft people skills by the time they came to our break-out.

Stefan Lindegaard (@lindegaard) drew our attention to this in a big way in his presentation, when he stressed some of the key characteristics for success as being a networker, communicator, intrapreneur, and an influencer.  Also on his list was the ability to adapt, to tolerate uncertainty and to be an optimist.

The intrapreneur was particularly important in making things happen within the company by paying attention to people and creating the right conditions for innovation.

The pre-lunch panel session exploring the highs and lows of Open Innovation also homed in on the key characteristics for OI.

(By the way, some of the words have lost their associations in the word cloud – such as ‘not control freaks’ and being willing to ask difficult questions’ and ‘admit ignorance, whilst the reference to the bar – is about the place for carrying out negotiations!)

The mindset for open innovation is also about personality types

One of the participants in our break-out pointed out that it was also a question of people’s character when we asked them what the right mindset might be.  That was a great segway for our presentation, which explored two models.

In our first model Elisabeth reflected on how some of the personality type preferences described in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator are particularly relevant to different stages of (Open) Innovation, but that an organisation needed a blend of all personality types to be successful.

We need to find some unique individuals for successful Open Innovation

In our second model Lucy shared the results of her research into mindsets for innovation, and concluded that to be successful, organisations needed to seek out some unique characteristics.

The break-out closed with some final thoughts from the participants, who thought passion to keep going through the ups and downs, and the ability to listen to and understand others’ language and frames of reference were key to successful collaboration in Open Innovation.

Our full presentation is available on Open Innovation in Action – SBC OI summit website.

Notes

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting (http://www.riverrhee.com), a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

Lucy Loh is the Owner and Principal Consultant at Lucy Loh Consulting (http://uk.linkedin.com/in/lucyloh), a consultancy that helps businesses and organisations develop their business plans, and manage change in their organisations and teams to be able to deliver those plans.  She is also a RiverRhee Consulting Associate.  Lucy has 25 years’ experience in BioPharma, where she has held management roles in strategy development and all aspects of performance management, as well as extensive internal consulting.  Lucy has expertise and experience in organisation development, benefits management and in designing and leading business change. She is a certified Master Practitioner of NeuroLinguistic Programming (NLP), which enhances her work in change management and individual coaching.  She is also an accredited trainer with the Institute of Leadership and Management for Strategic Leadership.

The needs of globally dispersed, innovative, teams

In our August 2012 RiverRhee Consulting newsletter, my Associates and I wrote about our insights on working in virtual teams, so it was with some interest that I read about “10 rules for managing global innovation” in the October issue of Harvard Business Review (HBR)¹.

After all, that’s what most ‘virtual’, ‘dispersed’ or ‘far flung’ teams are aiming to do: work globally and innovate, be it to make incremental, or more large scale innovative improvements to their portfolio, whatever it might be.

In this blog I’ll discuss the needs of globally dispersed innovative teams in the context of the insights in the RiverRhee newsletter and the 10 rules of the HBR article.

A different kind of management to make up for the lack of informal, ‘ad hoc’ communication

In our newsletter we referred to the need for managers of virtual teams to have a “much broader skill set” than those managing co-located teams.  They need to be able to switch between their skill-sets to support dispersed team members in different ways depending on their local characteristics.  Local differences may be cultural, but it may also be a matter of the different personality mix and dynamics at each location.

It’s true that dispersed teams may find it harder to stay focused on goals, tackle problems in a timely way, and make everyday decisions that enable them to maintain their momentum, without some form of more active management involvement than might be needed in a co-located team.

The HBR article suggests that a senior manager should be assigned responsibility for overseeing the work of a globally dispersed team.  This assumes that the team does not already have an overall manager in place and instead consists of a looser form of collaboration between the different locations.

The authors also suggest that one site be appointed as the lead one.  They would assist the overall manager in ensuring that a consistent bigger picture is addressed, whereas other sites might be focusing more on the detail.  This site would also ensure effective decision-making and on-going progress.

A well-defined goal

The HBR article suggests that a geographically dispersed team will find it harder not to drift from their remit!  In our newsletter we suggested that that remit or vision should be centred on consistent communication with their customer.  A team focused on innovation should definitely have a vision for what they are aiming to deliver, and with the end-customer in mind.

So again, this is where a directive management approach is essential in ensuring that the team stays focused on their goal.

A strong team

In our newsletter, we suggested that this is where a combination of good interpersonal relationships and sound working practices will come to the fore – to address the greater diversity of a global team, and the challenges of working in a more dispersed way.

The HBR article suggests that a stable organizational context (to shield the team from additional distractions) and rigorous project management (with seasoned project leaders) are additional key factors for success.  The authors also suggest that starting with small cross-location projects or collaborations will also help the team to develop that strong start.

Globally dispersed teams may cross organizational boundaries, for instance if they are engaged in Open Innovation, something that I’ve been learning a lot about in my work with OI Pharma Partners.  Even without being engaged in the complexities of Open Innovation, globally dispersed teams are likely to have multiple partners, suppliers, sub-contractors etc.  The HBR article suggests that teams deliberately limit the number of these to reduce complexity, and to use those the team knows well and are more closely located.

Like us, the HBR article suggests that a team should not be over-reliant on technology for its communication, and that nothing beats initial and if possible regular face-to-face interaction to build rapport and connection within the global team.

Building the team’s expertise

The HBR article points out that one of the benefits of using a global team is the greater opportunity to draw on the necessary expertise and capabilities at the different locations.  It’s therefore important to do just that, and not get drawn in to involving people just because they are available if they are not a good fit for what the team requires.

The authors also suggest deliberately overlapping areas of expertise between locations to foster interdependencies in their work, collaboration and knowledge sharing between them.

Finally, we stressed the importance of all team members being engaged in sharing their expertise, strengths and insights for the benefit of the whole virtual team.  We also suggested that geographically dispersed team members can each play a leadership role to benefit the rest of the team by looking for opportunities to deliver the greatest value in the application of their individual areas of expertise and strength.

what have we missed?

The reflections from the RiverRhee August 2012 newsletter, combined with the 10 rules from the HBR article seem to be a strong recipe for success!  What do you think? Have we missed anything?

Notes

1. 10 Rules for Managing Global Innovation, by Keeley Wilson and Yves L. Doz.  Harvard Business Review, October 2012, pp 85-90

2. Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

Tackling procrastination – making “mañana” today

Why am I writing about procrastination?

This is a topic that lots of people will have written about, and it’s not quite in my usual line of work but…

On a fairly regular basis, I help someone close to me, who has asked not to be named, with her paperwork.  I will call her Sue.  It’s the bane of her life and piles up days and weeks at a time (we usually tackle it before a month is up!).  It’s a perpetual worry to her.  She knows she wants to get it sorted, but somehow can’t get around to doing it.

Sometimes Sue surprises both of us, and gets a lot of the paperwork done before I visit.  Other times we tackle it together and get through it in just 20-30 minutes and are then left saying “it wasn’t that bad after all”.

It’s not the only task that Sue finds hard to get on with, but she’s developed tactics for tackling some of them and I thought there might be some clues there to help her.  So I’ve decided to put my mind to the subject, hence my revisiting of a wonderful chapter entitled “Mañana” in the Mind Gym book “Give me Time”¹, and writing about it in this blog².

Procrastination is all about underlying beliefs

The essence of the Mind Gym’s approach is based on reprogramming our underlying beliefs – what it is that we are telling ourselves, often unconsciously, that is getting in the way of getting things done.  The chapter itemises the different types of beliefs, then helps us to ‘soften them’ and add a ‘get out clause’ so that they no longer stop us doing things.  But apparently this approach takes practice, so the authors also give us some quick fixes to be getting on with.

Here is a summary of the various misleading self-beliefs, using my own framework of ‘Can’t and won’t’.  I’ve added a third main category of ‘I don’t have time’, which although not in the “Mañana” chapter, is a theme of the book as a whole!

I haven’t discovered yet which of these beliefs is at the root of Sue’s procrastination with her paperwork but if she’s willing I’m looking forward to having an interesting conversation with her to find out.

Some quick fixes for procrastination

The authors very helpfully give us 10 short-term alternatives to use whilst we are practicing to adjust our self-beliefs.  I’ve used a number of these myself but also have a couple of others, which I’ve added to make 12.

1. Adjust the level of challenge -so it’s stimulating enough without being de-motivating.
2. Choose a reward to fit the challenge – a way to celebrate getting the wretched task done!
3. Commit to a penalty or forfeit - if you don’t get the task done then pay up to your favourite charity!
4. Double your estimate e.g. if it might take twice as long as you thought you had better get started!
5. Dive in – do the hard part first – after that it’ll be easy
6. Do something to change your mood or your view of things – stand-up, get a cup of tea or go for a walk around the garden (but don’t take too long about it!)
7. Tap into positive peer influence – mix with people who get things done and perhaps it will rub off
8. Tackle it in bite-size pieces – how do you eat an elephant (metaphorically speaking of course)?  A bite at a time.
9. Break it down into short stretches of time
10. Make a 5-minute start – and then see if that gives you the incentive to continue!
11. Make a public commitment – which is what I did about writing this blog.  I also use this approach at the end of my training courses / workshops when people tell each other what they will do, how, by when.
12. Ask a friend or work buddy to give you moral support – which is what I do with Sue, and she also helps other friends in this way

When is it OK to procrastinate?

I came across a variation of this question in my copy of a new book “ And the next question is…” personally autographed by one of the authors, Rachel Alexander^3.

I was wondering what this question was about when Sheila Thomas (@Speranda), from TWI, answered my tweet request for issues and solutions around procrastination.  Her example was: “we do postponed things in the first week following the monthly Weldasearch database update as getting enough in for that has priority.  [Procrastination is] planned in that we always do this, although [the] specific tasks put off [are] not always predictable.”

I realised then that we can and should apply this principle at work by regularly reviewing and reprioritising what we do, but in a planned way so that the reprioritised items, if they are important, still have an allocated time.

We should of course also give ourselves scope to do this at home, for example when a friend drops in unexpectedly, or to catch those last warm sunny days in our English Indian summer.  However it’s a grey day today, so I’m off to the gym just after I get this finished and posted!

Concluding thoughts

I hope you’ve found reading this as helpful as I’ve found writing it.  If I’ve missed your particular procrastination issues, causes or any solutions you’ve found to address them – don’t delay, post a comment against this blog so we can share these extra insights with others!

Notes

1. They Mind Gym.  Give me time.  Time Warner Books, 2006.  ISBN 0 316 72992 2

2.  I can have my own issues with procrastination.  Writing this blog has got me re-reading the chapter, and just to make doubly certain that I would both read the chapter and write the blog I put out a note via LinkedIn and Twitter saying that I would be writing the blog in September and inviting input – a public commitment which resulted in some humorous responses: “I’ll think about it…;o)” (thanks Richard!), but also an insightful work-related approach to procrastination from Sheila Thomas at TWI which I’ve shared at the end of the blog.

3. Rachel A. Alexander and Julia M.L. Russell. And the next question is… powerful questions for sticky moments. MX Publishing, 2012 ISBN 9781780922881.  The question is number 342 in there list of 364 questions: “When would be the best time to procrastinate about this?”

Getting it right rather than ‘firefighting’…unless that’s your job!

By Elisabeth Goodman

Being a ‘farmer’ not a ‘firefighter’

Some years ago when I was first learning about Lean and Six Sigma, a colleague shared an article he’d found comparing farmers and firefighters. People in organisations are often singled out when they have worked all hours to deal with a crisis, and yet the people who have worked more quietly to anticipate those problems and put preventative measures in place (the farmers) can often go un-noticed.

Lean Six Sigma and Project Management techniques advocate just that quiet and steady farming approach (the FMEA technique described in an earlier blog is one way to do this).  Lean Six Sigma also advocates stopping and addressing problems as soon as possible after they do arise so as to prevent the same thing happening again.

What can we learn from the competitors in the Olympics at London 2012?

It’s impossible to write blogs at this time without referring to the Olympics and London 2012, which has kept many of us supporting Team GB glued to our television screens!

The competitors have been training for 4 years or more for the Olympics. ‘Firefighting’ is hardly an option when you’re up against the clock in your event, and you just have to get it right on the day.  How did the medalists and the other competitors who achieved their personal bests manage to do so?

“Hard work and grafting” was the approach described by Mo Farah after his exciting finish in the 5,000 metres: the culmination of his strategic planning and execution of the race itself.

Contrast this with Brazil’s men’s football team’s desperate attempt to equalize Mexico’s 2-point lead in their final match. In the words of the BBC commentator: they “started sloppy and underestimated Mexico”. They managed to score a goal in the 90th minute but missed scoring a second with a simple header because “it was too much” for the player involved.  Their ‘firefighting’ was just too tall an order.

The quality of the Olympic competitors’ coaches and their ability to pass on their knowledge, experience and expertise will have been a big factor in these games. It was intriguing to watch the dynamics between the pole-vaulter Holly Bleasdale and her coach as she tried to cope with a persistent breeze. She did seem to be in ‘firefighting’ mode and sadly things did not work out for her on this occasion.

Project management heroes

Coming back to the world of project management, Tony McGoldrick Opinion Piece in July’s issue of Project writes about how we can all be ‘heroes’ by doing the basics well. He also queried the all too frequent emphasis on ‘firefighters’.  For him, getting the basics right involves understanding and delivering what your stakeholders want, and getting the quality, timing and budget right.  Incidentally, the July issue of Project also carried an article by Andrew Hubbard on BT’s goal of ‘flawless delivery’ and getting it ‘right first time’ for the Olympic games!

Being the best that we can be

Amongst all the marvelous reflections and pronouncements about the Olympics, I found the following in this Sunday Observer’s ‘The farewell’ report by Tim Adams: “What these Olympics have been about, though, is not the necessity of being the best, but the pleasures of finding out the best you can be”.

Whether through “hard work and grafting”, anticipating and planning for risks, never underestimating the competition, being clear on how we can deliver value to our shareholders, and being committed to doing so, we can all not only become better farmers and heroes rather than ‘firefighters’ in our everyday lives, but enjoy the process of becoming so.

Elisabeth Goodman is the Owner and Principal Consultant at RiverRhee Consulting, a consultancy that helps business teams to enhance their effectiveness for greater productivity and improved team morale. Elisabeth has 25+ years’ experience in the Pharmaceutical Industry where she has held line management and internal training and consultancy roles supporting Information Management and other business teams on a global basis.  Elisabeth is accredited in Change Management, in MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) and in Lean Sigma and is a member of CILIP (Chartered Institute for Library and Information Professionals), and APM (Association for Project Management).

Making Knowledge Work – Beyond Lessons Learned – Notes from APM #KSIGDDAY

APM prospective Knowledge SIG Conference – 5^th July 2012

Based on the @ecgoodman twitter stream tagged with #KSIGDDAY @APMProjectMgmt #KM

Meeting kicking off – looking forward to it!

The meeting started with some speed networking in which I met lots of great people from all sectors of work, the UK, sizes of organisation, and levels of experience of Knowledge Management.

We shared our expectations of the day, common themes being: to gain practical insights, how to use lessons learned or project reviews because people still make the same mistakes all the time, and how to measure and share knowledge.

Steve Kaye, Head of Innovation, Anglian Water  - Managing Knowledge in Anglian Water

Innovation is about getting value from new ideas.  Steve shared a graphic with others, which suggested an evolution of the business model from working entirely in-house to working in partnership, group collaboration and now open innovation.  He suggested that the benefits and knowledge gained have gone up through this process, but that the degree of control has gone down so that we now have very difficult to manage complex projects.

Anglian Water has created a Water Innovation Network with underlying process to assess and adopt new ideas.  New ideas are assessed through a “Dragon’s Den” type forum and then the WIN steering group, so that they have a formal and robust process to drive new ideas into the organisation.

They use an electronic “Learning Hub” to capture learnings & prompt comments and actions at the various stages of capital projects.  They are trying to get people to rank and comment on learnings and so drive actions for improvement.

Anglian Water’s Standard product approach captures information on a large range of features with commentary online – so that this can act as a dynamic reference source for those developing products.

Steve believes that Nonaka’s tacit/explicit knowledge cycle is still relevant, for example in capturing knowledge from people who retire.  They are trying 1-day master classes with video recording as way to capture knowledge from retirees although he also suggested that the solution is to re-employ them as consultants!

Steve concluded with a yin/yang illustration suggesting that knowledge management is a balance of hard and soft: data, documents etc. and behaviour, communication, leadership.

There are challenges of consistency, duplication, operating in real time.  And there are opportunities to create a knowledge sharing culture and to drive innovation.

On lessons learned, Steve said that although there is a challenge to get project managers to meetings because they are very stretched.  Once they do get to meetings valuable learnings are obtained.  They have about 50 learning facilitators to organise the meetings and they are trained to ask the right questions.  But on the whole the benefits realisation process is much more developed in Anglian Water than lessons learned.

Break out session

We broke into several groups to discuss 3 questions posed by Steve Kaye:

1. How to create a culture of knowledge sharing?

The main points made were:

• Need to balance what people are sharing (the supply) with what people want to learn or find out about (the demand)
• There is no substitute for speaking to people as opposed to capturing stuff in systems – though information on who knows what is useful to record
• There may be pockets of different culture within an organisation
• There is a key role for the leadership in speaking about and modelling knowledge sharing
• There is no formulaic way to enforce or empower knowledge sharing as it depends on the organisation
• People need to be given a safe space and time to share knowledge, with active encouragement to report back what they have learned to peers, and the use of storytelling to support sharing
• There were some good examples in the room of effective lessons learned processes and active communities of practice

2. What makes a good knowledge sharing system?

Victor Newman facilitated this session using his “Smart failing” technique that we all practiced later in the session.  He maintained that we need to start focusing on knowledge building, rather than knowledge sharing – something that he also described in his 2002 publication “The Knowledge Activitist’s Handbook”.

The group focused first on ‘what is not working’ with systems they have experienced.  They then looked for solutions to address the failings.  The list included:

• Designing the system for the people who are going to use it
• Intuitive navigation
• Making sure the content is relevant, current and succinct
• Ensuring that the content is designed for the user and the context in which they are going to use it
• Clear ownership and accountability
• Robustness for searching in many different ways
• A pull strategy (from the user) – we generally need to get better at this, and gather more information on how to do this
• A knowledge map to be able to find the expert and actual practitioners
• A process to integrate the information into the relevant business activities
• Appropriate governance and support
• Clarity on the anticipated benefits

3. How can we convert tacit to explicit knowledge?

Points raised included:

• Using visual representations of the explicit knowledge (diagrams, photographs etc.) with links to the appropriate people for reference
• Shadowing can be a good way to capture tacit knowledge
• Is there a corrolation between project management maturity and knowledge management?

Judy Payne (@judypayne), Director, Hemdean Consulting – Understanding how knowledge is shared

Judy reiterated that what works in one organisation for knowledge sharing will not work in another.  She pointed out that army personnel are strongly motivated to learn from each other, and that just in time training with knowledge shared between people therefore works well in that environment.

Judy pulled up the wikipedia definition of knowledge sharing, and referred to others, which use terms such as knowledge transfer, flow, exchange etc.

Telling people something is not enough for knowledge sharing – it needs understanding, interpretation and application to really be effective.  Judy thought it would be helpful to relate knowledge sharing to an organisational learning model.  It needs a willingness to unlearn what we know, and is a multi-level process within an organisation.

The organisational model involves four learning processes:

1. Individual intuition – where an individual realises there is something new that is important to tell others about.
2. Work group interpreting – the individual discusses what s/he has learned within their work group.  It’s relatively easy to do as the group has a common language.  They may as a result decide that they need to take some kind of action, which may involve talking to a manager higher up the hierarchy.
3. Organisational integration – this may be a more difficult discussion.  It may require showing the more senior manager some tangible results and a more detailed description of how things work.  It may require involvement of a senior manager’s peer who may have had more direct experience of what the group is trying to describe.  It may result in the more senior manager thinking this is such a good idea that they adopt it as their own with / without acknowledgement of the original individual’s insights!
4. Institutionalisation – this involves actual embedding of a new way of working with all the challenges involved in doing so.  However, if successful, it can then trigger a whole new wave of unlearning required the next time a group or individual identifies a new insight.

Judy thought that a model such as this might help us to understand why lessons learned approaches often don’t work!

(You can contact Judy at judy@hemdean.co.uk or access her full set of slides on the APM K-SIG website http://www.apm.org.uk/group/apm-knowledge-specific-interest-group)

Break out session – How good are we at knowledge sharing?

Points raised included:

• Using project gateways as milestones for reviewing learnings
• Having experts / champions in certain fields
• The “deep dive” approach
• Identifying knowledge specialists within a matrix (or functional) team whose role is to research their area and train the others within the team on specific topics
• The issue that often it is only a few people who are actively sharing within an organisation
• The frequency of mandatory processes, forms or systems for capturing lessons learned that are not being used
• There is nothing like getting teams together: old with new, or concurrent; maybe bribing people with pizza!
• The effectiveness of getting people together one on one with no-one else listening!
• The importance of exploring what went well as well as what went wrong
• Getting similar project teams all in one room
• Fujitsu’s us of “KELs” (Knowledge Element Libraries) for IT: a Q&A system with the answers to problems that have just happened on individual’s systems.  It’s a quick look-up source, is very focused and can be referred to at the point of need.  Individuals are encouraged to write a KEL after every incident.
• Xerox’s quality improvement programme about 20 years ago where everyone was encouraged to think of better ways of doing what they did.  If their manager agreed they could form and lead a team to address it, and then prepare and present the outcome directly to directors.  Every team was given 15 minutes of glory to put up a stand, which the managers visited.  Awards and certificates were presented.
• The importance of having the right KPIs to drive the right behaviour
• References to using a maturity model for knowledge and using a market process (wants and offers)
• The need for a facilitator to ensure the quality of the knowledge captured in a system

Steve Simister, Director, Oxford Management and Research – The prospective Knowledge SIG

Steve described the value of running this special interest group via APM; that it can also include non-project management people and the diverse inputs that this would bring to the group.

He and the other members of the committee are looking for input on the needs of a KSIG community and it would be looking to deliver potential quick wins and stimulate understanding and knowledge in this area.

The next event will be on 18th July in the evening through the Leeds & York branch.  A 2nd all day event is also planned for September.

We collected feedback in our individual tables on the future remit of KSIG which was collated as follows:

• Case studies to share
• Signpost and analyse research in the area
• Build a community that is wider than project management by reaching out to other groups who are doing this
• Look for ways to introduce cultural change, especially in engaging leaders
• Develop networks, mentors, buddies
• Look for tools, methods, templates and how the various communication media can be used

Victor Newman, Visiting Professor in Knowledge and Innovation Management, University of Greenwich -  Fast organisational learning

Victor suggested that innovation is what knowledge management should be about.  He referred us to his latest book “Power House: Strategic Knowledge Management – Insights, Practical Tools and Techniques” http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2962123

We need to adapt faster and facilitate people’s thinking in real time.  We can’t permit drift in our work.

Victor adopts the KUBE model:

• Knowing
• Understanding
• Believing and Behaving
• Engaging and Expediting

He took us through some of his Emergent Knowledge Management techniques (EKM); these are covered in detail in his book.

We began with “behavioural literacy”.  We should recognised that our behaviour is a gift: what we do and how we do it, even down to what we wear and our body language carries the biggest message to the people we are interacting with.  What we say is only a minor part of the total message.

Behavioural Literacy is about creating personal awareness of the messages we are sending, and taking corrective or preventative measures, or actively using this behaviour.

Victor took us through his incident interpretation (or behavioural analysis) steps:

• Identify the incident & the impact that it had (what, where, how, when)
• The feelings experienced (how did it make me feel?)
• The personal messages sent (so it’s OK to…)
• The personal lessons gained / rules for the future (In future I will..)

We tried this out individually on personal incidents relating to gifts we made that did not work, tackling an impossible task, undergoing a significant change etc. and shared the results. It was apparent that many of us had gained some very positive learnings in just this short time.

Victor’s experience that getting people to ask themselves and articulate to others that something “made me feel” develops a ‘muscle’ of interpretation and makes others more willing to listen to what is being communicated to them.

He reiterated that there are no lessons learned until you’ve changed behaviours. All else is documentation.  When designing new behaviours it’s useful to identify: the current behaviour, the target behaviour, and how we will behave to get there. Giving the new behaviour a name makes the whole process even more effective.  This new behaviour design can be applied to customers, self etc .

Finally we looked at the use of contradiction & controversy to foster learning: how NOT to do things to work out HOW to do things.  This is Victor’s “Baton passing” technique for lessons learned – we went through this very quickly using the Smart Failing process centred on exploring how to ensure innovation fails!

The technique is based on 3 steps:

• Capturing beliefs about what might fail (encouraging the sentiment “am I the only idiot in the room” and celebrating cynicism)
• Prioritising the root causes of failure
• Identifying the solutions and steps to address them (reverse engineering and finding the antidote)

The meEting wrapped up with feedback on K-SIG wishes – listed above

A link to a space on the APM website will follow.

All in all it was a very good meeting! Thank you to the KSIG team, and to Fujitsu for hosting the event.