Communities of Practice (CoPs): Benefits and Frequently Asked Questions

Communities of Practice (CoPs) are informal groups of people who share the same passion or concerns and they interact regularly to deepen their understanding of their domain of interests¹. We know that the presence of CoPs are crucial for any organisation, in order to manage change. Since there are social bonds among the CoPs members, innovative ideas spread and get accepted more quickly².

The proliferation of web 2.0 tools – such as blogs, wikis, discussion forums – also makes CoPs as one of the most easiest KM tool to implement³. Furthermore, CoPs are natural repositories for corporate knowledge / memory†, and help to connect people who seek knowledge (buyer) to people who have the knowledge (seller). Thus, it is easy to see CoPs as the heart of any Knowledge Management initiative.

Though every KM professional – like us – is familiar with the concept and benefits of CoPs, we still having hard times convincing our colleagues and superiors on the value of cultivating CoPs in the organisation. While there are no easy way to persuade the management to manage CoPs, we still need to familiarise ourselves with several frequently asked questions on CoPs.

Q: what is the difference between CoPs and teams / other work units?
A: There are many differences between the two. Three prominent differences are: (1) CoPs’ focus is on knowledge exchange, while team / work units are centred on completing projects; (2) CoPs’ membership is voluntary, while team / work units are nominated; (3) Unlike team / work units, CoPs members’ roles and responsibilities are dynamic.

Q: Since participation in CoPs is on voluntary basis, why does the management need to manage CoPs?
A: CoPs exist in any organisation whether they are managed by the management or not. However, if the management does not provide resources for the CoPs, they may not develop beyond friendship among colleagues. As a result, there would be knowledge silos in the organisation and the CoPs that spring-up may not manage critical corporate knowledge.

Q: How do you initiate CoPs?
A: First, you would need to find CoP Champions – people who are very passionate about a domain of interest, and respected by their colleagues. The CoP Champions would then need to invite potential members to meet. In the first meeting, the members would have to define the CoP domain, vision and CoP main activities. A good way to do so is via Open Space Technology (OST) meeting.

Q: How to persuade people, given their busy schedule, to form a CoP?
A: There is little need to persuade people to form a CoP. It is a human nature, wanting to discuss your problems with your fellow colleagues whom you trust. By sharing and discussing common problems regularly, you are essentially part of a CoP whether you realize it or not. An important point to remember is that whenever someone tells you that they do not have time for CoP, it means that you have not identified the correct domain of the CoP.

A note from APQC Best Practice Report 2008:
CoPs are one of the most easiest KM tools (3.8 / 5.0)

References:
1. Wenger, E., Mcdermott, R., and Snyder, W.M. (2002). Cultivating Communities of Practice. Harvard Business School Press.
2. Gladwell, M. (2002).  The Tipping Point. Back Bay: London.
3. (2008). The Role of Evolving Technologies: Accelerating Collaboration And Knowledge Transfer. APQC Best Practice Report.
† Storck, J., & Lesser, E.L. (2001). Communities of Practice And Organizational Performance. IBM Systems Journal 40 (4).

Why Every KM Professional Should Care About Climate Change Issue

When I told my colleague that Combating Climate Change (CC) requires Knowledge Management (KM), she said she couldn’t see the relationship between the two subject matters. Her reaction is not surprising, many KM professional don’t consider Climate Change as a KM issue. However, as APQC 2008 study has shown, the essence of Knowledge Management is about fostering collaboration among knowledge workers¹.

Who are the knowledge workers in climate change issue? they are the scientists, politicians, and activists. It is undeniable that these various parties need to collaborate to tap from each other’s experiences and resources, so that the world could avert the danger of climate change. A fact that was recognised by Australia’s PM, Kevin Rudd, who stated that collaboration is the key to combat climate change².

Collaboration, however, is always easier said than done. Not so long ago we know that even within the scientist community itself there was a big disagreement of whether climate change could be considered as crisis³. Though via the Kyoto protocol and Copenhagen accord, the politicians mostly agreed that climate change was threatening all life on earth and it needed to be curbed, they have differences on “how” to combat climate change, i.e. who should bear the cost? how to monitor the commitments that the leaders had made?

It is clear that climate change is a global collaboration issue, which is also a KM issue. Thus, every KM professional needs to be involved in combating climate change. To do so, we can join communities of practice (CoPs) in the domain – climate change.

You may be wondering how to find CoPs in climate change. Though the CoPs do not refer themselves as such, they are usually bottom-up organisations and often founded by people who are very concerned about climate change. They have presence both virtually and physically. For example: 350.org, WWF.org. While, the CoP concept purists may not categorize these organisations as CoPs, we know that web 2.0 enables people to find others with the same interests / passion.

In short, the emergence of web 2.0 allows like-minded people to form CoPs more easily¹. This surfaces another reason for KM professionals to be involved in the climate change issue. We – the KM professionals – could help to cultivate and provide consultancy to the bottom-up organisations like the ones mentioned in the above paragraph. The return for us, other than saving the world, would be an opportunity to practice and promote KM, especially on CoP.

References:

1. (2008). The Role of Evolving Technologies: Accelerating Collaboration And Knowledge Transfer. APQC Best Practice Report.
2. Singh, G. (2009). Rudd Says Collaboration Key to Tackle Climate Change. Bloomberg.com.
3. Lott, J. (2009). Why You Should Be Hot And Bothered About ‘Climate-Gate’. FOXNews.com. email gate in scientific world. climate change.

Notes:
Here are some of the important points from APQC Best Practice Report 2008:
1. Collaboration is the heart of Knowledge Management.
2. There is a shift of focus from collecting contents to connecting people to people.
3. As the digital capability to connect people to people expands, the definitions of collaboration and communities of practice are blurring.

How to Get Afghans to Commit to The War

Obama has escalated US commitment on “war against terrorism” in Afghanistan by adding 30,000 troops. In response, NATO will also send additional 7,000 troops. Thus, bringing the total number of additional troops closer to the number that Gen McChrystal has requested – 40,000. However, Obama also said that he would pull out the US troops in Afghanistan starting from mid-2011. This implies that the US  has neither the resources nor the will to carry on fighting.

The US’ strategy to surge troops and then exit is akin to a boxer, who throw desperate punches and hope that one of those punches would deliver a knock out blow. While the strategy itself may not be flawed, informing your opponent that you will leave the battlefield by 2013 is a bad strategic move. Coming back to the boxer analogy, if you tell your opponent that you will leave the ring on round 12 and throw all out attacks on round 11, how would your opponent react? If your opponent is smart, they will preserve their energy by evading or blocking all your attack until you leave the ring.

I believe Taleban is smart and they will hold out until the US leaves Afghanistan. However, “evading / hiding” in a real battlefield would still be a difficult task, considering the logistics – transporting large number of weapons, ammunition, ration, and soldiers. But “evading / hiding” could also mean compelling the enemy to stop looking. And there is a way for Taleban to do this.

If Taleban were to learn anything from this eight-year-old war, it was the high defection rate among Afghan recruit. The best way to exploit this is to concede some areas to the allied forces, and thus effectively compel them to train more Afghans to defend the areas won.

So how could the allied forces turn this battle to their favor? There is no doubt that the key to victory lies in the Afghans themselves. But getting their commitment to fight the Talebans would not be easy. The New York Times has reported that many Afghans adopt “wait and see” stance and prefer not to get involved in the war - a situation which has frustrated the allied forces, especially the Americans.

Obama was probably trying to instill sense of urgency in the mind of Afghans and secure their commitment in the war, by setting deadline for the US troops withdrawal. Alas, the opposite could happen. The Afghans may lose trust in the allied forces and turn to Taleban for protection.

Though there is no easy way to obtain commitment from the Afghans, it is not impossible. I would like to propose several ways to do so.

1. Create propaganda that position the allied forces as friends of the Afghans, and the Taleban as the enemy of the Afghans.
2. Create records of Afghans who have received foreign help, or cooperated with the allied forces. Recording the Afghans names will not be sufficient, their photo will need to be included as well.
3. Place the records in public areas such as community centers or mosques. The people in the records should be recognized as national heroes.

The above proposal main objective is to damage Afghans’ credibility in the eyes of Taleban. If it works, the Taleban would be suspicious of Afghans who defected to their side, and thus Afghans would have no other choice than to work with the allied forces. Of course, some people will cry foul over the use of propaganda, which seen to be unethical. But then again ethics is highly subjective. Given that the allied forces has limited time to complete their mission in Afghanistan, they may want to try the above proposal. What’s the worst thing could happen?

Social Identity, Debate, and Dialogue

There are various reasons of why people form groups, however it can be argued that the main reason is the satisfaction of needs. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs illuminates the breadth of human needs.

While forming a group implies an effort to fulfill human needs,  groups formation correlates with inter-group conflicts. Some of these conflicts are due to limited resources that are shared among the groups. But, a more interesting type of group conflicts is conflict, or to a lesser extent – disagreement due to perceived differences in identity.

Identity Crisis in France

In France – a nation with one of the finest records in defending equality and racial harmony, its citizens are debating on national identity, and the meaning of being a French. At the center of the debate is the French Muslims who regard themselves as loyal to France, but less than half of the other Frenchmen believe in these professions of loyalty.  It is worth to underline that France’s national identity is a matter of perception – the in-group (Non-muslims France) sees the out-group (Muslims France) as not being French enough. The debate on “burka” illustrates this point. Sarkozy, in a recent speech, stated that “burka” in not welcomed in France.

Social Identity Theory

The disagreement on national identity that sparked heated debate among the Frenchmen could be rationalized by Social Identity Theory, which states that people are willing to give up their personal value in order to be identified with their group. But along with this acquired social identity – that promotes “we” instead of “I”, the in-group members will tend to stereotype and degrade out-group members, in order to elevate their group status, i.e. perceive their group as superior to others.

Debate or Dialogue?

Jonathan Eyal in recent Straits Times article (refer to ref no 1) suggested that the current nation-wide debate is beneficial for France, because by avoiding any discussion on the subject (of national identity), France’s ruling class has allowed extremist political parties to use the country’s national symbols as part of their campaign of hate. However, I beg to differ. A debate is focused on finding who is right and it is not constructive. A more effective form of conversation that can bridge differences is a dialogue. Unlike a debate, a dialogue is focused on building common grounds, collaborative, and assuming that many people have pieces of the answer.

Conducting a successful dialogue by no means an easy task, especially if each party has strong “us (in-group) against them (out-group)” mentality. However, a regular “forced” interaction though common activities, and an appeal to superordinate goals may reinforce common ground among the parties and therefore, increase the likelihood of successful dialogue. It takes time and resources to reap the benefits of of a dialogue.

References:

1. Eyal, J. (2009). Colour-Blind France Faces Identity Crisis. Straits Times, 14 Nov 09.
2. Korte, R. F. (2007). A Review of Social Identity Theory with Implications for Training and Development. Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol 31, No 3, pp 166 – 180.
3. Gerzon, M. (2006). Moving Beyong Debate: Start a Dialogue. Taken 29 Nov 09, from: http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/5351.html

Who could claim as a collaboration strategist?

Due to lack of regulation in insurance industry, the insurance agents in Singapore used to be able to claim as financial consultants. There was a lot of confusion between people who offered insurance services and financial services. Though insurance services could include investment linked plans and early retirement plans, they are essentially offering insurance, which is a different breed from financial services, which covered investment in stocks, bonds, properties, and other wealth accumulation devices.

The main reason for the insurance agents to call themselves a financial consultant is that people, i.e. potential customers, shuns insurance agents but not welcomes financial consultants. There is a lingering perception that financial consultants are better educated and more knowledgeable than insurance agents. Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) noticed the issue and sorted it via regulation that says who are eligible to use the title ‘Financial Consultant’ as their job designation or on their name card.

I can see the same scenario happening in the Knowledge Management (KM) world. We know that people scowl at us whenever we mentioned the word ‘KM’. Too often we are demoralized by the rejections, cynicism, and sneers from the people whom we talked to. Despite our good intention, people resist the word KM. However the opposite happens for using the word ‘collaboration’. Suddenly, we become heroes of the organisation and are welcomed by our colleagues. People are eager to listen to what we have to say.

Despite the magic that the word ‘collaboration’ brings, I urge every KM professionals to use it conscientiously since exploiting it without careful consideration would dumb down the word ‘collaboration’. And as a result it may someday loses its charm. Here is a real-life example of how the word ‘collaboration’ should not be used.

On early Nov 09, I attended a masterclass on collaboration at Hyatt Hotel by an expert from New Zealand. The masterclass was advertised in a KM society newsletter in Singapore, and the expert, whom I shall not name, claimed to be a collaboration strategist. Since collaboration is an intimate term for every KM professional and sponsored by my company to attend the course, I signed for it. Unfortunately, the bulk of the talk is about how to use Microsoft Sharepoint to facilitate collaboration / information sharing, which in my opinion, undermine his self-claimed job designation -  a collaboration strategist.

In my previous post, I have explained that collaboration is beyond determining who does what and thus it requires more than collaborative technology. And much to my chagrin, this expert added the word ’strategist’ after the word ‘collaboration’. As impressive this title seems to be, it may mislead many people. Collaboration Strategy should include people, not only in getting their views on certain technological features in a collaborative platform, but also:

• creating collaboration-friendly climate in the workplace, for example: rewarding people for collaboration.
• identifying and encouraging most valuable collaborations in the organisation. The management should intervene when any of the most valuable collaborations does not happen.

A more suitable and fitting job designation for the expert would be collaborative technology architect or collaboration technologist, instead of collaboration strategist. I’m sure that the expert that I mentioned above was not the only person who abuse the word ‘collaboration’ to impress others. Thus given the condition, it is difficult KM field to mature further, unless there is a regulation on what these people – change management, KM, and IT consultants – could claim their expertise as, so that majority of KM professionals could have common understanding of the word ‘collaboration’ and who are eligible to claim themselves as a collaboration expert.

Will the real collaboration please stand up?

Collaboration is every managers and directors’ favorite word. It is often married with the word team work. Together these two words rule almost every best-selling management books and boardroom meetings in the world. Alas, few people are able to walk the talk – a fact that constantly being denied by majority of senior executives today. Thus, it is not strange when one claims that the modern management is addicted from collaboration lip service.

Though the above paragraph seems to indicate bitterness, I have moved beyond cynicism and been thinking about summoning real collaboration in the corporate world. As I learned more about collaboration through reading management books and articles, I surmise that there is a pressing need to understand two important aspects of collaboration:

1. Collaboration is neither cooperation nor coordination. Both cooperation and coordination are close cousins of collaboration, but they are different from collaboration in terms of level of shared vision and division of tasks. The differences among the three terms are depicted in the chart below:

    

   

   Collaboration vs Cooperation vs Coordination

2. Collaboration is costly. As you might aware, collaboration goes beyond determining who does what. It requires commitment and joint decision from all the parties involved – which are the reasons why collaboration is a resource intensive activity. Hence, you may not want to encourage collaboration for every business activity.

A closer look at the two aspects of collaboration reveals that there should be a driving factor that is large enough to make people overlook the cost of collaboration, and able to nudge people to commit to real collaboration. But what could the driving factor be? While there could potentially many answers to this question, I’m convinced that the possibility of summoning real collaboration will increase as people experienced greater survival anxiety, for example: fear of failure when taking big assignment, lack of knowledge to get the job done.

However, as Edgar Schein pointed out in his excellent book: ” The Corporate Culture Survival Guide“, the survival anxiety should not exceed the learning anxiety. People should be challenged enough to address common problems, so that they would collaborate, but the challenge should not be too great such that people back out, especially if they think that the problem couldn’t be solved even though they collaborate. This implies that although real collaboration could only be summoned by those who feel the need for it, KM professional / change agent could create collaboration-friendly climate by:

• Identifying the need for collaboration, for example: to develop innovative product, to deliver value added services to customers.
• Providing the necessary training and facilitating knowledge transfer across departments.

What I have Learned from Dr. Etienne Wenger

Dr Wenger and Me

I recently attended a Community of Practice (CoP) Masterclass by Dr. Etienne Wenger on 12 August 2009, at Grand Hyatt, Singapore. It was held just before the two-day KM Singapore 2009 themed “Knowledge Workforce – Knowledge Economy”, organised by information and Knowledge Management Society (iKMS). I learned a great deal from Dr. Wenger, not just about CoP but also about Knowledge Management in general. Here are some key takeaways:

On Knowledge Management

Dr. Wenger highlighted two issues of Knowledge Management (KM):

1. There is a lack of strategic conversation. Strategic conversation, according to Dr. Wenger, is conversation that revolves around two key questions: (1) “What are the capabilities that we need to be good at?”; (2)”Who needs to have these capabilities?”

2. There is insufficient attention given to KM at strategic level. Dr. Wenger was in the opinion that organisations shouldn’t operationalise KM, because the value of KM is at strategic level.

He opined that uncooperative middle managers were part of KM issues that the senior management needed to resolve. It was absurd for the senior management to leave the entire KM work responsibilities to the junior management.

On CoP and its measurement

Dr. Wenger believes that although CoP has indirect relationship to organisational performance, organisations should always try to link CoP with performance management. While justifying CoP’s ROI is a struggle, organisations implementing CoP should have a reasonable estimate to justify CoP.

On Starting CoP

Dr. Wenger mentioned that he noticed an increasing trend of CoP that started from bottom-up and top-bottom at the same time. One of the reasons of CoP starting from bottom-up and top-bottom was to avoid issues that each approach brought. The problem with bottom-up approach is lack of management support, which translates into lack of resources such as time, manpower, fund. While the issue with top-bottom approach is the tendency to over-manage CoP using numbers (KPIs) that could stifle the CoP development.

On Keeping CoP Alive

Dr. Wenger opined that there was a need to maintain candidness when members of a CoP share knowledge. He noted that some CoPs have no manager-level participants, a condition which allowed candid knowledge exchange among the members. He mentioned that the practice of CoP was the one that drawn people together to form a community. The practice itself became the curriculum that set the CoP direction.

He further shared that CoP required Sponsors – someone who possessed sufficient authority (power) to advocate and drive the KM initiative across departments and divisions. Sponsors were usually more than one people at different levels of management, who had the right amount of influence to manage KM.

He cautioned the audience not to encourage participation in a CoP that was caused by geographic, gender, or other things that were external to their relationship with knowledge domain. He also urged the audience to give the CoP’s peripheral group a chance to hold CoP leadership.

Q & A with Dr. Etienne Wenger

Q: What if the subject matter expert is not willing or does not have time for CoP?

A: You may need to find a junior person, who is interested to do the actual work of community facilitation, but this person needs to be endorsed by the senior person, otherwise nobody wants to join the junior person.

Q: How to best launch a CoP?

A: First, talk and find out what worries the operational managers. Second, find a community leader. This community leaders need to have two characteristics: (a) this person has wide personal network; (b) this person has legitimacy. Third, Make strategic argument and connect it with the organisation’s strategy. For example: CoP is one of the way to develop the organisation’s strategic capabilities.

To ensure we didn’t leave out any details when we planned to initiate a CoP, Dr. Wenger recommended to use the community-design template:

Key issues	Why important	Key activities	Purpose / outcomes
.	.	.	.

For more information on CoP, you can check Dr. Wenger’s website or read his books. I personally enjoyed his second book, “Cultivating Communities of Practice“.

5 Free KM Tools to Boost Your Outdated Intranet

In time of economic recession, many companies will cut their KM-related expenses like building a collaborative platform, or upgrading your old intranet. On the other hand, we as KM professionals are well aware that Knowledge Management (KM) is the engine that maintain corporate capability and drive innovation, and therefore, we know that cutting a company’s expenses on KM is akin to witholding the company’s growth.

While you are probably more worry about your job security rather than think of KM-related spending, your job – nurturing and promoting KM –  depends on the quality of your company’s KM Infrastructure. In this Information / Knowledge Age and given the rising number of Gen-Yers entering the workforce, the inadequacy of KM infrastructure’s functionality will impede your KM efforts, i.e. your KM initiative will have less impact on eliminating redundant work, or preventing knowledge loss. Furthermore, your knowledge assets will remains in the deep pockets of organisation. For KM to be permeated in the whole organisation, you can’t afford to neglect the KM infrastructure maintenance and development. One of KM infrastructure tools that is part of every knowledge worker’s daily work is the corporate intranet.

With the advent of social computing and web 2.0 tools, you may find it necessary to upgrade your outdated intranet that is based on web 1.0, where updating information is part of IT staff’s job. The issue with web 1.0 is updating information is a cumbersome process that slow down information flow. Fortunately, with the proliferation of open source software and cloud computing (web based) application, upgrading your outdated intranet can be done with almost no budget (free). Here is the list of 5 free KM tools that you can consider:

1. Content Management System (CMS).

Unless you are working for a company living in a stone age, you will find many work-related information in your company’s intranet, which is essentially a Content Management System (CMS). CMS functions as a repository for KM-related applications, especially that of information management such as document management, workflow, news updates.  A popular CMS is Microsoft’s Sharepoint which has two versions: (1) Windows Sharepoint Server (WSS) – which is a free basic CMS application; (2) Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server (MOSS) – which is a full blown CMS plus Collaboration functions.

Please note that although WSS is free, it can only run on Windows application (except on Microsoft Windows XP/Vista Home Edition), which is NOT free. WSS should be good enough for a small and medium enterprises. However, as your business processes and operations become more complex, you might want to upgrade to MOSS (which cost a bomb). Thus, you might want to take note of the possible cost escalation in implementing WSS before you decide to use it as your CMS.

Other free alternatives to WSS are Drupal and Joomla. These are two open source softwares that require little technical knowledge – except for the installation process – to implement them. One of the positive features in both softwares is the availability of various widgets that can be installed to expand or enhance the softwares’ functions.

2. Wikis and Discussion Forums

KM Infrastructure development will not be complete without Wiki or Discussion Forum. Luckily WSS comes with these two functions. If you are using open source CMS like Drupal or Joomla, you can install the respective widgets.  You can also use web-based application such as Wetpaint.com, or Webs.com

3. Video Conferencing / IM

Unfortunately if you are using WSS – which doesn’t have any collaborative function – you will not be able to collaborate online. If you are using Drupal or Joomla, you might be able to find IM widgets, however, the widgets’ performance might dissappoint you. One free alternative is to use Skype.

4. Social Network

The above three tools might be sufficient to transform or replace your old intranet system with no cost,  however they are unable to provide a corporate directory function that open up access to knowledge sources in your organisation. One way to have a free corporate directory (or Yellow Pages) is by allowing staff to use their social network such as Facebook.com or MySpace.com.

The recent case of British Spy Chief’s personal details that were leaked on Facebook is unfortunate and it is an example of social network misuse. To prevent confidential personal information being leaked to the public, you can take some preventive measures, for example: creating a close group in Facebook, creating your own social network in Ning.com, or limiting work-related information that can be shared in a Social Network.

While there is no easy way to secure confidential information in public domain’s social network, there is no guarantee that confidential information in private domain’s one will remain secure. For example: A disgruntled staff may copy confidential information to his/her portable harddisk or thumbdrive, and share the information publicly.

5. Corporate Blogs

Though you can’t have a blog function in WSS, you can incorporate a blog widget in either Drupal or Joomla. Other alternative is to use either Blogger or WordPress. To ensure accountability, you can list the blog’s authors using their real name. If you have several blogs in your organisations, one blog for each department for example, you may want to link them using Google’s Friend Connect or Yahoo’s MyBloglog to preserve your corporate’s identity.

How to promote KM in your organisation

If you mention Knowledge Management (KM) to people who don’t quite understand of the term KM, you will probably see blank stares. Try as you might to explain the meaning of KM to these people, you probably will get a one-phrase, “oh we are already sharing knowledge”, or a polite nod without an appreciation of what KM can bring to their organisation. As a result, many KM professionals tend to withdraw to their Ivory Tower, lamenting the ignorant people who don’t understand KM. This somehow reminds me of Harry Potter novels where the wizards live in their own magical world, separated from non-magic folks (muggers). Unfortunately, we as KM professionals, can’t just simply use our magic wand (as if we have one!) to implement KM and coerce everyone to share their knowledge.

Though many KM practitioners will agree that in order to flourish, KM needs to be understood, appreciated, and practiced by all members of an organisation, there seem to be lack of efforts to bring down KM from an exclusive knowledge, where only people who are trained in KM can practice it,  to a common knowledge, where every member of an organisation embraces and practices KM. In other words, we – the KM practitioners – ought to promote KM in a jargon-free language. According to Davenport and Prusak, one way to do so is by conducting knowledge fairs, or KM awareness activities where participants list down what they know and what they need to know, and trade their knowledge. Some KM experts even advocate not to mention the term KM and simply encourage knowledge sharing among staff.

To successfully conduct knowledge fairs or KM awareness activities, you will need to launch some publicity to inform and educate staff about knowledge sharing and KM. You will need to persuade your fellow colleagues that participating in KM-related activities will benefits them, i.e. answer your colleague’s “WIIFM” – What’s In It For Me. Simply telling your colleagues that they will be able to exchange knowledge or gain new knowledge is often not sufficient because the idea of knowledge sharing is so general that people usually will not think of what can they gain from it.

Some KM professionals tap on their informal network (relationships) to persuade their colleagues to engage in KM-related activites, or to practice KM. However, many of us, especially those who are new to the organisation that we work for, are not able to leverage on relationships to encourage participation in KM-related activities and to build common understanding of KM. Furthermore, depending on relationships alone to boost participation in KM-related activities may not necessarily help to promote KM practices in your organisation.

Indeed, promoting KM related activities and educating your colleagues on the concept of KM are by no means easy tasks. KM is not a discipline that can be grasped in one night. How then can we publicise KM? Although there is no hard and fast rule, we can learn two things from the discipline of marketing. First, you should familiarise your colleagues with KM through some advertisements that they can participate in, since such advertisements will stimulate conversation and create awareness. For example: the cadbury’s advertisement.

Notice that the advertisement above has nothing to do with chocolate, which is the commodity that cadbury is selling, but the purpose of such viral marketing is more to generate buzz and encourage participation, than to hard-sell chocolate.

Second, you should have evangelists that tell people that KM is good and it benefits whomever that practices it. Many marketing gurus advocate developing a group of evangelists to promote product, because the evangelists usually are people who have used the product and thus their testimonials carry more weight than those of the manufacturer. Similarly in KM, you should develop and nurture a group of KM evangelists – a group of people who practice and appreciate KM.

Using A.S.H.E.N to discover what you know (or lost)

Michael Jackson (MJ) is dead and the world wept for him. Some people claimed that there will never be another MJ. His talent in song writing and singing is exceptional and unique. As we lament the lost of a legend – a magnificently talented singer – we might also be affected by our reliable and talented colleagues or employees who hand-in their resignation letter.

Depending on the available budget and time, organisations often struggle to find a good replacement for their star employees. However beyond the constraint of limited organisation’s resource, more often than not, many employers are clueless in finding a good replacement for their leaving employee. Both the HR department and the immediate superior – the two groups of people who screen candidates – are often rely on job description, job requirement, and interview techniques.

While the above hiring mechanism may help in filtering out unsuitable and incompetent candidates, the tools are geared to discover the candidates’ skills, experience, and attitude – which do not add up to replace the lost knowledge assets. The knowledge that walks out the company door, due to staff attrition, needs to be replenished more effectively to prevent the deteriotation of corporate (or departmental) capability.

In this knowledge-age, organisations may led to believe that nobody is indispensable and talent is overrated. However, the impact of talent lost to the corporate competitive edge is real and can’t be underestimated. Unless the company has a robust succession planning in place, replacing a talent is always an opaque process. Even the mighty Apple, the producer of iPod and Mac, has problems to discover the value of Steve Jobs, their charismatic CEO. NASA lost its’ ability to send people to the moon because they unsuccessfully replace the old engineers with the new ones who have different types of knowledge assets.

A.S.H.E.N Framework

Dave Snowden, the Chief Scientist of Cognitive Edge, has proposed A.S.H.E.N – which stands for Artifacts, Skills, Heuristics, Experience, and Natural talent – framework to identify knowledge assets. Artifacts are things that produced by people, which include documents. Skills are expertness, practised ability. Heuristics are methods that people used to do work. Experience is an ability that is acquired through time. and Natural talent is an ability that is difficult to emulate.

With A.S.H.E.N model, organisations would be able to examine what their employees know, and to mitigate risks associated with the lost of knowledge assets. For example, an employer or a supervisor should find out from the employee who is leaving, the following items:

1. Artifacts. Where did he file his documents?, what types of documents did he create?
2. Skills. What are his skills?
3. Heuristics. How did he get things done?
4. Experience. What kind of prior experience he has that help him in his work? What sort of experience that he gained from the course of his employment?
5. Natural talent. What are the aspects of work that he excel in and noone can do a better job than him?

However, to minimise the impact of lost knowledge assets, the employer should attempt to transfer the knowledge in the leaving employee’s head. Transferring knowledge can be achieved through codification strategy – where the exiting employee documents what they know, personalisation strategy – where the leaving employee mentor / coach his successor, or both strategies.

Codification strategy is best used to transfer explicit knowledge – the artifacts, skills, and heuristics aspect of knowledge assets, while personalisation strategy used for transfering tacit knowledge – the experience aspect of knowledge assets.  Unfortunately, there is no way to transfer the natural talent aspect of knowledge assets.