Passing the Torch: Knowledge Management and Transfer Techniques

1
Passing the Torch Knowledge Management and
Transfer Techniques
Nancy B. Kiyonaga Director of Workforce and
Occupational Planning NYS Department of Civil
Service [phone]
NBK_at_cs.state.ny.us
2
What is this all about?

• Knowledge is the most important raw material of
  government working with knowledge is its most
  important process and knowledge is what citizens
  expect government to provide.
• Thomas A.Stewart
• Editorial Director
• Business 2.0 Magazine

3
Whats Going On?

• The work force is aging
• Fewer candidates are in the "pipeline" due to
  downsizing over the past decade
• Finding qualified candidates may be difficult in
  a wide range of occupations
• There are fewer people in succeeding generations
  than there are in the baby boom generation
• Retention of remaining employees may be difficult
  due to interagency competition

4
Work Force Succession Planning in New York State

• Commissioners Breakfast
• Guide Issued
• Interagency Workgroups
• Agency Reports
• Fall Conference
• Local Governments
• Website (www.cs.state.ny.us)

5
Interagency Work Groups

• Knowledge Transfer
• Management Leadership Competencies
• Management Mobility
• Mentoring
• Retiree Resource Pool
• Recruitment Selection
• Retention
• Staff Development

6
How Knowledge Fits . . . .
Wisdom
Knowledge Information Judgment
Information Data Context
Data Unorganized
Facts
7
Types of Knowledge Explicit

• Structured - Data elements that are organized in
  a particular way for future retrieval e.g.,
  documents, databases, spreadsheets
• Unstructured - Information not referenced for
  retrieval e.g., emails, images, audio or video
  selections

8
Types of Knowledge Tacit

• Knowledge that people carry in their heads. It is
  difficult to access and most people are not even
  aware of what they possess or how it is of value
  to others. It provides context for ideas,
  experiences, people, and places and is not easily
  captured.

9
Knowledge Management

• A systematic approach to finding, understanding
  and using knowledge to achieve organizational
  objectives.
• Consists of deciding
• what is to be shared
• with whom it is to be shared
• how it is to be shared
• Sharing and using it

10
Knowledge Transfer

• The process of sharing knowledge between one
  person and another
• If knowledge has not been absorbed, it has not
  been transferred

11
Knowledge Transfer / Management Strategies

• Best Practices Sharing
• Communities of Practice/Interest
• Documenting Processes
• Document Repositories
• Job Aids
• Job Rotation
• Job Shadowing
• Knowledge Audits

• Knowledge Fairs and Open Forums
• Knowledge Maps/ Inventories
• Learning Games
• Lessons Learned Debriefings
• Mentoring
• Storytelling
• Structured On the Job Training

12
Community of Practice / Interest What

• A group of individuals sharing a common working
  practice over a period of time, though not part
  of a formally constituted work team
• generally cuts across organizational boundaries
  and enables individuals to acquire new knowledge
  faster

13
Community of Practice / Interest Examples

• NASPE
• IPMA
• ASPA
• ASTD
• NYS Recognition Network
• NYS Organization Development Learning Network

• NYS Personnel, Training, Affirmative Action
  Councils
• Federal Govt. Knowledge Management Group

14
Community of Practice / Interest Why

• Provides a sanctioned mechanism for sharing
  knowledge
• Leads to improved network of contacts
• Provides peer recognition and continuous learning
• Provides a mechanism for sharing tacit knowledge

15
Community of Practice / Interest When

• When sharing tacit information is important to
  achieving better results
• When knowledge is being constantly gained and
  sharing it is beneficial to meeting
  organizational goals

16
Community of Practice / Interest How

• Determine what knowledge people need to share
• Determine the purpose of the group, e.g. solving
  everyday work problems, developing and
  disseminating best practices, etc.
• Clarify roles and responsibilities
• Provide resources and support

17
Community of Practice / Interest Steps

• Identify community members
• Devise ways to collaborate, e.g meetings, on-line
  messaging or chat rooms, shared databases, etc.
• Hold initial event to engage member interest
  explain mechanics
• Check on progress

18
Community of Practice / Interest Roles

• Functional Sponsors
• Core Group
• Community Leaders
• Members
• Facilitator
• Logistics Coordinator
• Historian

19
Community of Practice / Interest Dos Donts

• Management should not dictate action

• Membership should be voluntary
• Recruit those who are seen as experts and trusted
  as information sources

20
Document

• A container for information
• Paper
• Electronic

21
Document Management Systems

• Management of the intellectual property that is
  locked up in the documents of an organization
• Management of the entire life cycle of a document
  from creation through multiple revisions and
  finally into storage and records management

22
Document Repository
Where documents repose. . .
A formal document repository is a collection of
textual showrooms that can be viewed, retrieved
and interpreted both by humans and by automatic
systems
A document repository adds navigation and
categorization services to the information stored
23
Job Shadowing - What
Spending a day or more accompanying someone in
their work place to observe and learn about a
particular occupation.
24
Job Shadowing Tips

• Share a little history of the job
• Talk about the roles responsibilities
• Describe the personal attributes that match the
  job
• Discuss educational requirements,the career
  ladder for the job and related positions
• Describe your experience, likes, dislikes

25
Information Audit - What

• Identifies the information and resources and
  services people need to do their jobs
• Shows how resources and services are actually used

26
Knowledge Audit - What

• Identifies the knowledge assets of an
  organization
• Provides information on how the knowledge assets
  are produced
• Identifies where there is a need for a internal
  transfer of knowledge
•  

27
Knowledge Audit - Why

• To identify the people issues that impact on
  knowledge creation, transfer and sharing
• To identify which knowledge can be captured,
  where it is needed and can be re-used
• To determine the most effective and efficient
  methods of storing knowledge
• To facilitate access to and transfer of knowledge

28
Information Knowledge Audit Together

• Gives you the ability to assign a level of
  strategic significance or importance to the
  knowledge assets
• Provides an indication of the criticality of the
  information

29
Knowledge Mapping
An effort to discover the location, form,
ownership, value and use of knowledge to learn
about peoples expertise to find opportunities
to make better use of existing knowledge in the
organization and to identify barriers to
knowledge flow
30
Knowledge Mapping

• Highlights areas of specialty knowledge and
  expertise
• Encourages better use of information and
  knowledge and reduces reinventing the wheel
• Saves time searching for experts in a particular
  area
• Saves the time of experts by helping others
  locate needed information quickly

31
Assess Categories of Knowledge

1. What do employees NEED TO KNOW
2. What do employees ALREADY KNOW
3. What do employees ALREADY KNOW that ORGANIZATION
   DOESNT NEED
4. Measure the GAP between NEED TO KNOW BUT DONT
   ALREADY KNOW

32
Need
X
Dont Know
Know
Dont Need
33
Mapping Who Goes to Who for KnowledgeA
Sociometric Map
A
F
G
Chain Star Sinks Isolate Pair
B
C
H
D
E
I
J
K
L
34
Your Personal Map
Starting with a node representing yourself, map
the people with whom you share information, both
internally and externally. Try to represent
whether you are only receiving information,
whether you are only giving information, or
whether it is a two-way exchange.
35
Knowledge Fairs - What
An event that showcases information about an
organization, or a topic. Examples - Xerox
Team Day NYS Tax Department TaxPo NYS
Organization Development Learning Network
Meeting
36
(No Transcript)
37
(No Transcript)
38
(No Transcript)
39
(No Transcript)
40
(No Transcript)
41
Learning Games What

• A type of structured learning activity used to
  make learning fun. They can be used to
• help prepare people for learning
• review material presented
• evaluate how much learning has occurred
• practice what has been presented

42
Learning Games Why

• Increase participation
• Engage peoples creativity
• Address different learning modalities
• De-stress learning
• Add variety to training programs to keep people
  engaged

43
Learning Games Types

• Scavenger Hunts
• TV Quiz Shows, e.g. Jeopardy, Family Feud, .
• Board Games, e.g. Trivial Pursuit
• Name That games
• 20 Questions

44
Lessons Learned Debriefings
What Session(s) conducted at the completion of
a project where members of the team evaluate the
teams process and the projects results. They
identify what was done right and what could be
done better the next time
45
Lessons Learned Debriefings
Why Identify and capture the things that went
well and the things that could be improved so
that team members are aware of and can use the
broader teams learning in their future projects.
These can also be shared with future teams so
that they can learn from experiences of others.
46
Storytelling What

• The use of examples to illustrate.
• Two types
• Organizational stories - narratives of actions,
  interactions or events that are communicated
  formally or informally.
• Future scenarios describing how things will be
  different once a particular initiative, change is
  fully implemented.

47
Storytelling Why

• Capture context
• Familiar format
• How we make sense of things
• Easy to remember

• Engage feelings minds so more powerful than
  logic alone
• Help listeners see relevancy to own situation

48
Storytelling When

• To impart meaning and context to ideas and facts
• To aid communications
• To engage buy-in, market an idea
• To capture attention

49
Storytelling How

• Have a message, an underlying idea being conveyed
• Be relevant to listeners situations
• Be simple, brief, concise
• Test before using

• Be true rather than invented (if at all possible)
• Be plausible
• Provide easy mental leap from story facts to
  message

50
Structured OJT - What

• Instruction that takes place on the actual job
  site , usually involving learning skills or
  procedures in a hands-on manner following a
  defined process.

51
Structured OJT- Tips

• Use good performers who can also teach coach
• Provide training resources for those coaching
• Analyze the job, breaking into tasks, and develop
  procedures and aids for teaching
• Describe, Describe Demonstrate, Trainee
  Performs, Trainee Describes Performs, Trainee
  Practices
• Tell trainee where to go for help
• Follow-up with trainee

52
Discussion Questions

• What role can/should HR staff play in a KT/Km
  effort?
• What kinds of things is your organization already
  doing that can be built on?
• Which of these strategies could be useful in your
  organization?
• What are you personally doing to ensure sharing
  of the knowledge you have?

53
Getting Started...

• Get the word out into the organization that this
  is important
• Start with high-value knowledge - core business
  processes programs where most vulnerable to
  departures
• Start small yet work along multiple fronts
• Leverage existing approaches

54
Contributors to Success

• Organizational Culture
• Relationships
• Rewards Incentives
• Trust
• Senior Leadership Support

• Infrastructure
• Link to economic value
• Clarity of vision for KT/KM
• Language for KT/KM
• Multiple Channels

55
Selected Resources

• KM.gov
• Common Knowledge Nancy M. Dixon
• Working Knowledge Thomas H. Davenport
• The Springboard Stephen Denning

• Communities of Practice, HBR Jan-Feb 2000
• If Only We Knew What We Know Carla S. ODell
• www.brint.com/km/

56
To contact us

• Nancy Kiyonaga
• NYS Department of Civil Service
• [phone]
• NBK_at_.cs.state.ny.usgt
• www.cs.state.ny.us

• Debbie Berg
• NYS Governors Office of Employee Relations
• [phone]
• Dberg_at_goer.state.ny.us
• www.goer.state.ny.us