Tag Archives: Knowledge Management

Breaking Down Silos

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At a conference I attended, knowledge management team members discussed a vibrant KM community as a way of breaking down silos. Sharing information person to person across departments and divisions is a great way to share information. This type of sharing can also be time consuming and rely on serendipity. Often, Communities of Practice can solve cross departmental and divisional problems.

Recently, APQC* talked about breaking down silos as well. Silos can protect information, but silos also “prevent groups across an enterprise from collaborating toward common goals like process improvement or innovation.”

Silos can be a product of competition. Departments will sometimes hoard information so members get better bonuses or credit for finishing a project ahead of schedule. Silos can also be the result of the way information storage systems were developed.

There are many ways to break down silos in addition to person to person.

  1. Publicize your projects
  2. Publicize your tools
  3. Read newsletters, articles and project reports (the other side of numbers 1 & 2).
  4. Attend cross functional meetings about a variety of topics. You never know what you will learn
  5. Assign cross departmental liaisons
  6. Respond to requests for information within your company, or externally according to company guidelines.

Publicizing your projects not only helps others understand what you are doing, but allows you to share how you got the work done. This is a great way to talk about the innovative spreadsheet you created to make work easier or the slide deck template you created to ensure all team members were using something that identified them as part of the department.

Do you use special tools? Do you use standard tools in an innovative way? One of the best ways to break down silos is to use standard tools and share how you use them. Don’t share a standard IT tutorial, but share how you took the tutorial and made the tool your own.

Read newsletters, articles and project reports to find out what innovative tools or processes were created to accomplish team goals. Many organizations publish a newsletter. In large organizations, many newsletters are published. Skimming a variety of these information sources regularly gives you insights into what is going on in other parts of the organization. I have seen a KM Specialist translate IT’s missives into tutorials that helped her team work smarter. She, then, shared the information on the department website and with other KM professionals via a newsletter. The readers could then take the same information, reuse it and morph it into something else that was new.

Attend cross functional meetings about a variety of topics. You never know what you will learn. While we are all busy, you find some of your best ideas by attending events and meetings where you are a little out of your comfort zone. You also make connections that you otherwise would not have made. You have to pay better attention, thus you hear things you may not have heard before. Sometimes these ideas turn into something that can help you in your work or provide a connection that you wouldn’t have otherwise found.

Assign cross departmental liaisons. Since KM people often work alone, they tend to seek out other KM people and, naturally, act as liaisons. When you do not yet have a dedicated KM person on your team, it is important to assign someone to reach out to other departments until you can budget for a dedicated KM person.

Breaking down silos is a great way to be able to reuse information others have developed.

References:

  • APQC, Breaking Down Silos For Better Collaboration article

*Nota bene: APQC is a membership institution and you may need access through your organization.

Onboarding as a KM Activity

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On-boarding is a Knowledge Management activity because we transfer knowledge about the workings of an organization to new members of the community. Most companies have robust general on-boarding processes that involves a variety of trainings and meetings in different formats. Knowledge sharing specific to your department is not always included in the on-boarding process.

Sharing department and team practices, tips and tricks when a new person starts helps them get up to speed faster and feel more included. For example, sharing the most important places to store information enables a new team member begin to assemble important navigation information. Information that seems self-evident isn’t always to someone who is not familiar with the culture.

You can easily create an on-boarding program in your department using existing tools. Contact your KM team.  Check the resources already in place or those that may easily be findable. Start small. Decide on the key pieces of knowledge that will help your new team member feel productive quickly. Perhaps there are some basic resources that would help your new people get oriented faster such as the URL to department portal page, a list of bios of the leadership team, links to relevant information silos that may not be obvious to someone new. Also, recorded trainings, any local help pages and tips and tricks for using an internal search engine are helpful in getting people up and running quickly. Perhaps showing people what to store where would prevent problems later?

Gather the basics together in a formatted document or on an Intranet page for easy access.  Send the document or instructions on how to access the information regularly to new team members. Eventually, you could turn this document or page into a 15-30 minute meeting, in which you could show the resources. A once a month, in-person, orientation meeting for everyone new would also introduce new team members to each other to start creating bonds. Inviting the entire department periodically would give seasoned members of the department insights into the Knowledge Management program and, maybe, teach them a thing or two.

The organization-wide on-boarding gives new employees a good overview of the entire organization, its policies and procedures. However, a local, more department or project focused on-boarding/training will help new team members feel more comfortable and help them feel more proactive faster.

Contact me if you want more information or sample documents

 

-A version of this article was first published at Roche and Genentech-

New Knowledge New Opportunities

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For the past three years I have worked at large pharmaceutical company in knowledge management (KM). I worked with great people, passed on KM techniques and strategies to help improve efficiencies and I learned A LOT.

APQC CKM

APQC CKM

During that time I also studied for a was awarded Knowledge Management certification from APQC. The APQC program is an amazing experience. It is one I would highly recommend to anyone interested in knowledge management certification.

In the next days and weeks, I will share some of what I learned at both the pharma company and from APQC.

I hope you will engage with me. I am interested in the KM problems you find at your company and what you are doing to resolve them.

Be the Knowledge Consultant in Data-Driven Initiatives

There wasn’t anything live going on today so I watched a session called “Be the Knowledge Consultant in Data-Driven Initiatives.” It was another 30 minute session, which seems to be my sweet spot at the moment. It is sponsored by Dow Jones, which made me a little leery, but I watched it anyway.

The agenda included:

  • Biggest potential for information teams to deliver value
  • Increasing visibility and adding value
  • What is the “knowledge consultant”
  • Gauging your environment for opportunities and partnerships

The session started with introductions and ended with next steps.

Biggest potential for information teams to deliver value

The first point was about the ingestion of 3rd party data. Solutions information professionals could provide included advising on the capture of unstructured data such as news and press releases. Compliance and building searches for the automated discovery of data. These points seem so basic that I can’t believe information professionals aren’t doing them already. As Manager of Library Services, my team and I were regularly running a series of searches we called ‘Client and Issue tracking’. This service was exactly what the presenters are offering.

The presenters also discussed re-use of 3rd party data. Licensing data once doesn’t mean you can use it for everything you want. The license terms dictate how you can use 3rd party data and many info pros have excellent skills in licensing all types of external content. It is important to discuss how external content might be used and license it for as many potential uses as possible, within the budget.

The presenters also said that licensing content as an evolving area in our profession and I have to disagree. In the legal area, library managers and electronic services librarians (AKA equivalent titles) routinely license a variety of different content, negotiate contracts and otherwise provide access to a variety of different content. While norms in this area many not be consistent, librarians and info pros talk to each other (one of the reasons we have SLA) and a common topic of discussion is contract negotiations.

One point with which I agree is silo busting. Connecting information is key to providing a company with more ways to use their own information. This isn’t always possible, or can be difficult, depending on the owners of the silos. Info pros are in a good position to know how the different silos can work together, because of the knowledge gained when various patrons ask for research. Librarians can see connections between different departments when the same questions are getting asked by people who may not know each other.

Increasing visibility and adding value

Dow Jones and Jinfo created a series of webinars based on the thoughts of information managers. One of the points that was consistently made was that info pros should be an agent of change. Embracing new opportunities will prevent you from seeming stodgy or afraid.

According to the presenters, there is an increased demand for data literacy. People want to know what is data, how is it structured and how can it be used. Our jobs are already spreadsheet heavy, so these skills can be an easy leap.

Being a data curator is another opportunity to add value. A data curator understands all the data sets in the organization and who controls them, and what data is accessible. “Accessible” data may be data that is licensed, but not owned. Partnering on issues such as integration and storage requirements is a good way to get a seat at the table. Info pros are already experts at annotating, publishing and presenting information. We understand how information/data is structured and can help others with that as well.

The next section was about who in the organization was using data and presented by a representative from Dow Jones.

They identified, from a survey, the following people/offices as the chief users of data:

  • CDO – chief data officer
  • data scientists
  • data strategy office
  • Innovation office

Frankly, the roles listed above must have had broader definitions and other titles associated with them. I have never heard of a chief data officer in the C-Suite. It could be new, but it sounds like a director position under the CIO or CKO.

Who is the “knowledge consultant”?

They like information professionals as knowledge consultants. They mention again that we can connect parts of the business who are working on the same problems. We can also connect departments with information and data they may need, but not know is available.

They suggest working with stakeholders to find out which projects are underway, so you can advise on what information or data might be available.

Every information professional should know what information is available in the organization. This can mean you have to delve into book chapters or lengthy files to get more detail. Knowing what you have is critical to being able to share it.

Your company culture also comes into play in terms of collaboration and hurdles to information sharing to overcome. Company culture, in this context, can fall into four categories:

  • data centric and synergistic
  • data centric and siloed
  • data emergent and synergistic
  • data emergent and siloed

Gauging your environment for opportunities and partnerships

Questions that must be answered are whether your organization is data-centric or data-emergent. It is also helpful to know whether your organization is synergistic or siloed.

First, make a development plan for your team. Break down the knowledge needs so you know who has what skills or who can learn needed skills.

Keep your eye out and try to identify areas that are working on data projects or may be working on data projects in the future.

This was an interesting session. I think it would have been more powerful if they had given specific examples of how info pros are working on data driven projects in their organizations.

They recommended two handouts, which are actually webpages:

Agile Principles and KM

I am struggling a little bit with scheduling at the SLA 2020 conference, but decided to dive in and try watching a pre-recorded session after watching the opening remarks live.

Applying Agile Principles to Ensure the Success of Your KM Strategy by Guillermo Galdamez

Agile is often cited as a requirement in various job descriptions, so I thought this would be a good session to attend. Also, it was listed as a 15 minute session. Since I had to be bright-eyed and bushy tailed at the crack of dawn (East Coast time is being used for the conference while I am on West Coast time) for the opening remarks, I thought a short pre-recorded session would work.

Guillermo’s session was very helpful and I think there are things I can take with me to my next opportunity.

One of his most helpful slides was the cost of not having KM in your organization:

  • Impeded decision making
    • Creating information anew doesn’t always provide the full picture
  • Knowledge loss when employees depart
  • Slower learning, upskilling
    • People don’t know who has specific skills, knows the institutional history or where to find training, so an employee has to recreate the skillset, which takes time.
  • Productivity loss
    • this can come in the form of sending an email for some information and having to wait for that information
    • It can also be that the information cannot be found, so the employee has to recreate it. This takes time when they could be working on something else.
  • Inconsistent and incomplete information
  • Limited innovation and strategic thinking
  • Ineffective collaboration

All of these lead to lowered employee satisfaction and morale.

Guillermo also briefly laid out the Common elements of a KM strategy:

  • current state assessment
  • benchmarking
  • visioning and target state definition
  • road mapping
  • implementation

I have used these principles for a long time, but it is great to see them laid out in a coherent manner.

The presenter also gave a brief overview of Agile, which the audience was reminded, is more about interactions than technology. In addition, he said:

  • Focus efforts on creating a usable product with business value
  • Engaging with customers is the best way to build trust
    • this begs the question of all the substandard customer support out in the technology world.
  • Leave room for emergent solutions / responding to change is more important than following a plan

He talked about 5 principles to include Agile in your KM practices:

One

  • Create an opportunity to learn after each milestone
    • this will bring closer alignment to the customer’s needs
    • it will also improve the team’s performance and, I think, create more satisfaction for the team

If the team discusses what went well and what could have been improved in a way that focuses on learning rather than blame, people are happier. They are happy to move forward, they don’t leave the meeting feeling underappreciated and undervalued. This approach can help to build trust within the team.

Two

  • Make team’s work and workflow visible
    • helps team members coordinate their work, which is helpful if one step is dependent on another. It also keeps the team well informed.
    • increases team accountability
    • brings clarity among complexity

Three

  • Invite constant feedback
    • inviting feedback ensures the team understanding of customer needs and objectives
    • surfaces conflicting priorities or requirements
    • co-creation leads to ownership
    • allows for knowledge transfer between project team and stakeholders

Often this can mean meetings, but the opportunity to ask for clarification or identify new issues is really valuable. Constant feedback also focuses on the collaborative aspects of meetings.

Four

  • Break down recommendations into smaller activities, then iterate and expand
    • smaller tasks reduce risk and are easier to accomplish. They also make the whole project seem less daunting
    • value is delivered earlier and team members see progress, which is great for morale
    • users are better able to understand and relate to activities with a targeted scope
    • there is an ability to adjust course as well.

With smaller tasks, the team can focus on solving a particular challenge as a team. More brains are better and the task can be accomplished faster than if one person was beating their head against the wall.

Testing in a limited timeframe also gives people an idea of how a feature will play out. Key stakeholders can see  progress as well.

Five

  • Engage stakeholders frequently
    • builds trust and understanding
    • identify issues sooner
    • makes difficult conversations easier

In situations like working from home because of a worldwide pandemic, having trust is key. Creating trust by being in the same room with stakeholders before the pandemic can be key, but we are improving our ability to communicate via video during the pandemic as well. It is also a good way to set expectations and objects as well as discuss obstacles.

 

These 5 principles are pretty basic, but just right as well. If  a team included all of these in a project, I think the team and project would be successful.

 

 

My only problem was that I couldn’t find the slides and would have liked to review them later.