Summary and end of conference

Dear participants or should I say non-participants

The last round of the conference participation has been rather disappointing. This may be due to a number of causes.

Initially we had problems with our platform resulting in communication problems as participants could not put their contribution on the web. But after this was remedied still contributions were very few. Another reason may be that the active participants of the previous round joined the much larger group of passive participants.
However Anna one of the non active participants moved over to the other side. She indicated that: I have benefited from the many good ideas which have been posted under these KM e-conferences without ever having contributed anything myself (= so typical, isn't it…?). I will not try to make full amends in the 11th hour, but just say thanks to you all, and add a few comments. The reassuring thought in this remark is that she benefited from the discussion and hopefully many more did because the challenges in the water and sanitation sector are huge with so many people still being deprived of adequate water supply and sanitation.
Another reason for low participation may be that we were just tired of the topic after having gone through three earlier rounds. But the last reason I can think of is that we do not have good experience with convincing our bosses to do more about KM. However, looking at the very few contributions received some indications seem to emerge.

Anna took a clear sales approach: I can see the challenge of convincing my boss that better KM either a) Makes his staff produce more in less time, or b) Can be presented as a (quality assurance?) feature of the company and provide a strong sales argument with clients. She indicated that she would try to convince hem by giving some good examples.

Jaap indicated something along similar lines by emphasizing the contribution KM can make. The KM activity should be something like better preparation for winning bids for projects, developing new services / products (like trainings, courses, information, lessons learned, briefing notes and partnerships) through better knowledge sharing mechanisms within and between organisations.

Vikram from India brings in an interesting point that it is important to involve the users in this e-discussion perhaps not directly but through their representatives as he argues that what ‘we’ contemplate as being important for them may not be what they themselves consider important. We can draw a parallel from this with our bosses. Although we may have a good feel for what they may consider important and therewith we can develop our ‘sales’ arguments, still it would be better to involve them directly in the process.

This thinking matches very well with the key question we pose in IRC’s forthcoming TOP on knowledge management. The key question when thinking about KM is: Knowledge to do what. Putting this question upfront implies that a discussion can be initiated with the ‘boss’ and other colleagues to explore where improved access to or use of knowledge can make a difference. So this brings in a different perspective. Instead of coming with a number of arguments to sell KM, we initiate a discussion where can we do better as an organization and how can KM help us with that.

I remember an interesting discussion about quarterly progress reporting which proved to be a bottleneck in an organization. Managers felt it as an obligation, but did not see the need for it. This changed when some indicated that they were writing the report in first instance for themselves, for their own control over developments and not as an obligation to the organization. Then people became more enthusiastic and progress reporting improved which was beneficial for the organization and for the other colleagues.

The boss may indicate that staff turnover may become a problem because it implies that valuable knowledge will leave the organization. Encouraging people to prepare internal reports, share information internally or to publish their experience on a regular basis at least reduces the loss of knowledge if a staff member leaves. In many cases it may also be possible to extent the link with the ex colleague if he or she was for example an active member of a community of practice, which could be continued.

The bottom line is that it is important to link to a number of perceived problems and needs and to get some ‘quick’ results. Starting small is another important aspect as huge investments in hardware to improve KM often have not paid off. Jaap indicated for example that getting the computer with internet connection out of the managers’ officer in a more public location in organizations in Africa proved very helpful for staff to get better access to information. Peter referred to improving the working of the discussion platform, which as we experienced can indeed be a nuisance. You may find more of this type of ideas in the forthcoming TOP on KM that will be published shortly on the IRC website.

With this message I close this round of the conference. However, if you would be interested in a new round of discussions in the next year, then please let me know by sending an email to visscher@irc.nl

Thank you all for your contributions and your interest in the topic.

Regards

Jan Teun Visscher