knowledge loss kaplan presentation_wednesday 24th july_1200pm – 1245pm_v3a
TRANSCRIPT
Losing Your Minds: Capturing, Retaining, and Leveraging
Organizational Knowledge© Working KnowledgeCSP All Rights Reserved
One View of Knowledge
2
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Context• Major Government Intelligence Agency• Key Analyst with 40+years experience announces retirement• Unique—considered a valuable national resource• 2 months to retirement
Your Task• Capture his knowledge • What is your strategy?• I had a week - you have 5 minutes - but there are many of you
Solve the Knowledge Loss Problem
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• You can’t capture everything he knows and you wouldn’t want to do this
• Determine what is the “critical and relevant” knowledge• Critical and Relevant = top three most urgent problems upon
which he is working that his successor will continue to address• Evaluate if one person can do what he did – they can’t• Broke into three positions• Captured knowledge used to determine job description to
hire right resource – position had changed• Use successors to capture knowledge if time permits• Approach – Targeted Interview
The Solution to this Knowledge Loss Problem
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Change Drives Knowledge NeedsAn Operational Case for KM
• Determine kind of knowledge needed to mitigate the impact of change on the normal operating performance of the organization
• Organizations that can effectively leverage their knowledge will shorten not only the severity of the impact, but also the duration of the impact
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Workforce Turnover and Knowledge Loss• People loss = knowledge loss
• Who: leadership and workforce
• An organizational change challenge
• Causes: retirement + promotion + career change + job change + downsizing + dismissal
• Potential Impacts o losses in critical core knowledgeo losses in productivityo reduced qualityo reduced consistency in practice o reduced ability to successfully adapt to changeo loss of business or mission failure
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What are you doing to begin the conversation or encourage a “sense of urgency” about workforce
turnover challenges?
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Operating Faster than “the Speed of Change”
Organizations that plan for and adapt to workforce turnover: • routinely capture and retain critical and relevant knowledge
• can access “the know how and know why” of the decisions they have made and how they addressed past operational challenges
• have enabled an ability for their workforceand leadership to “connect, collect , and collaborate” in addressing both challenges and opportunities
• possess the ability to respond quickly to “right the ship” or take advantage of an opportunity to drive a better outcome
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Obvious – Intuitive … so why is it still a big challenge!
• Lack of formal, consistent knowledge capture and reuse frameworks that are an integral part of organization operating or business processes - part of the way the organization works
• Lack of broad senior leadership commitment to provide the necessary resources and take the necessary action to address knowledge capture and retention challenges
• It is difficult and labor intensive (costly) to capture what is in people’s heads”
• Requires a unique skill set that is both “art and craft” -- technology is not the answer
• Knowledge and skills transfer is seen as “extra work” to be tackled “when we have time”
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Guide for Sharing Effective Practices
Descriptive Title
4 critical sections (on one page):
1. Business process (or other learning topic) and context within which it has been applied2. What it is and what it’s used for3. Results and experience from it’s use4. Key learnings and advice
Plus:
• Contact information for the people who have used it• Where to find documents and other artifacts to help in it’s application• Date provided
See Accompanying Template
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Document for Reuse ….with the reuser of the knowledge in mind!!
• The business context & relevant category in which the practice (or other learning subject) has been used & learning occurred.
• Specific guidance on what needs to be addressed at each stage of the practice• Key process and procedure steps• Advice in the form of guidelines, checklists, stories and FAQs containing both local and
validated common experience.
• Links to people who have used the practice.• A reference library of artifacts and documents or links associated with the
implementation of the practice.• Reference to the Function and/or Community who keeps the practice current and
renewed with improvements from it’s continued use• Feedback from the end user to keep it relevant and alive.
If you really want people to use a better practice, it needs to be documented in a manner that makes it easy to understand.
Operationalizing Learning
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• What are some of the tools and techniques your organizations are using for capturing and reusing knowledge?
• How well are they working?
