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Sharing the knowledge about knowledge management

Updated - Tuesday 06 January 2004

The 50 people who joined the Knowledge Management Workshop from 15 - 17 September at the Sixth Water Information Summit benefited from a wealth of information presented in sessions and working group discussions.

As the Summit closed the participants transferred to the Introduction on Knowledge Management in Practice workshop. This included a presentation The knowledge value chain and a hands-on testing of a knowledge management (KM) tool with the audience.

Most participants, including IRC partners, had prepared for the workshop over the previous five weeks by taking part in community of practice through IW LEARN. Working online, they assessed their personal and organisational KM priorities, and drafted potential KM goals. This face-to-face workshop helped participants to explore a number of case studies and refine their KM goals and objectives.

Resource Centres Directors meeting

While knowledge management staff participated in the workshop, the Directors of IRC partner organisations stayed on in Delft for a Resource Centres Director's Meeting with IRC from 15-17 September.

The objectives of this meeting were to:

  1. Share experiences and learn from18 months of programme implementation.
  2. Develop strategies for achieving programme objectives, both at programme and country level, and relating them to the Millennium Development Goals and the WASH and Streams of Knowledge objectives.
  3. Clarify and define programme principles and strengthen partnerships between IRC and the resource centres (RCs) and also between resource centres.

The meeting had a number of successful outcomes.

  • Better mutual understanding between IRC and RCs on each other's roles and responsibilities for the development and implementation phases of the RCD programme.
  • Lessons from 18 months programme implementation.
  • Building blocks for a joint monitoring framework for the programme.
  • Enhanced strategic - and action planning, both at programme - and country levels.

Two tracks joining

On the final day the knowledge management groups and RCD group were combined. The knowledge management participants presented their practical KM plans to their Directors or bosses. They left Delft with individual plans to implement one KM activity within 10 weeks of their departure. IRC and IW-LEARN will provide support to help them achieve their plans.


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