Archive for category Community knowledge management
How to conduct performance reviews simply
Posted by David C. Buchan in Coaching others, Community knowledge management, Self improvement on February 19th, 2010
Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes
Michael Carter and I were chatting this morning about conversations in the workplace and we came around to the topic of performance review as a series of conversations. This is how I prefer to conduct performance reviews.
For managers and supervisors
Pre-interview questionnaires? Bin them.
Competency models? Bin them too.
Forms to fill out during the interview? You guessed it. Right to the bin.
Complicated meeting arrangements? Just pick a time.
Now you have the space for the following questions.
- Where is the business/department/team now? As a manager or team leader this is where you describe where you think the company is going. It sets the context for the remaining questions.
- What are your priorities? Your employee now knows where you’re going and you can openly discuss where they want to go within that plan. Heaven forbid you might find there is a mis-match of priorities here but in all my experience I’ve always been able to find something that aligns the two.
- What do you think you’ve done well? Allow the employee to discuss what they’ve done well since the last review (which, by the way was no more than three months ago was it?). You will be able to confirm and add more observations.
- What would you like to improve upon? Gather ideas for further education and find out, then agree, on how you can support your charge.
- How can I be a better manager for you? Now listen. DO NOT ARGUE. Any remaining dissatisfaction will surface. Come to agreement on how you can be a better manager. It may require the employee changing their behaviour as well.
For employees
If you are an employee, the process is even easier.
- What am I doing that you want me to keep doing?
- What am I doing that you want me to stop doing?
- What am I not doing that you need me to do?
Timing?
Whenever needed. Nothing in a performance review should ever be a surprise to the employee. At Arthur Andersen I was guaranteed an appraisal of some sort every three months or sooner if I had completed a project within that time frame. I find three months is a good timeframe. It gives time for behaviours to change but not so much that you need days to cover it all and so end up covering nothing.
Storytelling for Community Engagement
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on May 20th, 2009
Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes
This morning I listened to an engaging talk on storytelling by Shawn Callahan of Anecdote. I’ve known of Shawn’s work for a while and this is a great opportunity to see and hear his ideas on how stories are a powerful, yet often misunderstood element of our workplaces.
Finding your organisation’s experts
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on May 4th, 2009
Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes
Jack Vinson has a good article on finding your experts using expert locator systems as part of your knowledge management strategy.
The Question. If you are going down the path of expertise locators, be sure to check with yourself about why you need such a thing in your organization. Are people having trouble finding people that must be working in the company? Are the local experts unwilling or unable to provide the right level of assistance? Are people spending too much time recreating solutions or answers that already exist? These are all symptoms: have you established an underlying reason for these observations or behaviors.
This is a good question and of the type so often never asked in an organisation. Why are we doing this must be asked before we begin on the how otherwise we can miss alternative options which may be better suited. It is even possible to find, as Jack’s piece suggests, the problem has already been solved. How often do you take a moment to ask why?
The Coaching Forums
Posted by David C. Buchan in Coaching others, Community knowledge management on February 23rd, 2006
Reading time: < 1 minute
The Coaching Forums have been created as a public space for coaches to develop the coaching profession. If you are a coach, are interested in becoming a coach, or even want to share your experiences as a past client of a coach, then The Coaching Forums are the place to do it. I post there regularly and moderate (meaning I looks after) a forum on Ontological Coaching, which is coaching with with a practical understanding of language, moods and conversations for powerful change.
How to share knowledge like a librarian
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management, Personal knowledge management on September 28th, 2005
Reading time: 2 – 4 minutes
Last week my business partner was lamenting the fact that I had thrown out some hard copy printouts of articles that he’d found valuable (no, he doesn’t normally go through the recycling but this time he was looking for something which had been tossed out by his P.A.). A lengthy discussion ensued about the processes we could undertake to make such valuable knowledge visible and shared by all. The premise was, “If it was all available centrally, we would all have access to the knowledge”.
Nothing was being deliberately withheld, but it wasn’t always put forward either.
In answer to the requests that were made, I’ve started “pushing” relevant articles to the others in the business and guess what? They don’t have time to read them.
The following considerations are not taken into account by a centralised system.
- We categorise things differently
- The depth of topic understanding and subsequent learning needs differs between individuals
- My personal knowledge management system works for me with my workflow and available technologies. It may not work for others
- You never know when a knowledge resource may, if ever, be needed
And so the idea of becomming librarians was born.
To research a topic I ask an librarian who will direct me to the most appropriate resources within their knowledge management system. Just because it is publically accessible does not mean it is my knowledge management system. We can do the same in the office.
Some interesting things will happen.
- I no longer have to determine if material is relevant to others, only if it is relevant to me. Perhaps something will get lost. That’s balanced against the time of sharing centrally.
- I no longer clutter other’s in trays with something which may not be relevant to them. At best, it interrupts their train of thought as they decide if they have to read it or not. And vice-versa.
- I have to request information. That means I have identified a gap and know what I’m after. That saves time on behalf of the recipient of my request.
- I have to respond to requests for information in a considered manner. People get better quality results.
- My personal knowledge management system can be 100% adapted to fit my needs, without compromise.
- I can make my catalogue system public for others to access when I’m not around or a general search is required — just like a library’s. (Aside: I don’t have a full solution to this, but del.icio.us helps.)
The only standing promise is one that we will help each other when asked.
As soon as the idea was mooted, a weight lifted from everyone’s shoulders. That’s always a good sign of a winner.
Using photos to jog memories
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on September 15th, 2005
Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes
Shawn Callahan extols the virtues of using photos to remember what has happened on a project.
Remember the last time you sat down to flick through a photo album and see the photo of Uncle Johnnie (substitute your own relatives here) building the sand castle with little Katie and you instantly recollect the story of how Johnnie got incredibility drunk that night and fell into the bonfire. The next morning he vowed to be a tea totaller. The same story recollecting effect can be created in your organisation with each each project you undertake.
I really like this idea and agree that flickr is a good solution. If you’re reluctant to start a photo archive today it may be because you are thinking…
- I don’t have time to categorise everything so that I can find it again — well, flickr uses tags which are quick and sorts by date using the information from the digital camera itself. Photos of a project ar relevant to the people that were on it. They will remember the categories/stories themselves. For others it really doesn’t matter so there is no need to invest the time
- I don’t have time to take good photos or I’m not a good photographer — who cares? You want to capture the moment as it was, not as you thought it should be portrayed.
- The rest of the world will see us or the client will wonder why we are taking photos rather than doing work — injecting some humanity into work is always a good thing. And the rest of the world? Perhaps you will inspire them.
Maverick System Thinkers
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on September 3rd, 2005
Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes
Sometime in 2000 I was sitting in a room with my Arthur Andersen colleagues being told that we were all to exhibit the characteristics of mavericks. It was one of the new values designed to motivate us. Unsurprisingly it never took hold and as I read Maverick by Ricardo Semler at the insistence of my business partner I can understand why. I don’t think the instigators of the new vision even bothered to read the book. The way the ideas were presented were completely contrary to the ideas themselves.
What saddens me is having recognised this wasn’t the first time. Senge’s Fifth Discipline was rolled out in much the same way. A hierarchical directive requiring compliance without any regard for the systems and cultures in operation.
How to create self sustaining online forums
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on July 5th, 2005
Reading time: 1 – 2 minutes
Shawn Callahan writes
I know I’ve mentioned this before, so at the risk of boring people with repetition I will just say that getting ActKM going required us to manufacture conversation (we had a roster of posters) so it looked like something interesting was happening. It was only when we attracted about 100 members that the conversation was self sustaining. We then had a group people wanted to join.
Interesting to read yet I can’t say I’m at all surprised. With so many conversations screaming for our attention we will naturally fall towards those which we assess are reliable and likely to last for a while. There is probably an assessment of competency along the lines of “these people know what they are talking about and I can see evidence of that”.
Bottom line is that Shawn has a great strategy for making your newsgroup into a community. It can only do that by providing real value rather than popularity.
Garma Festival
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on August 16th, 2002
Reading time: 2 – 2 minutes
This morning on tv, I saw an article about the Yolngu People of North East Arnhem Land. They have a regular gathering called the Garma Festival which provides them a place to share knowledge and culture.
Yolngu culture in north-east Arnhem Land ? a heartland of Aboriginal culture and land rights ? is among the oldest living cultures on earth, stretching back more than 40,000 years.The Garma Festival is a celebration of the Yolngu cultural inheritance. The Garma ceremony is aimed at sharing knowledge and culture, and opening people?s hearts to the message of the land at Gulkula. The site at Gulkula has profound meaning for Yolngu. Set in a stringybark forest with views to the Gulf of Carpentaria, Gulkula is where the ancestor Ganbulabula brought the Yidaki (didjeridu) into being among the Gumatj people. The festival is designed to encourage the practice, preservation and maintenance of traditional dance (bunggul), song (manikay), art and ceremony on Yolngu lands in North East Arnhem Land.
The festival is an important step in the establishment of the Garma Cultural Studies Institute, to be built on the site at Gulkula by 2003.
It is an important reminder that knowledge is not just about business but delves deeper into who we are and also where we have come from. All of the indigenous tribes of the world are recognised for their story telling and connective ability – something the business world had lost under a mire of technology and process but is now starting to find again.
The Power of Story
Posted by David C. Buchan in Community knowledge management on July 2nd, 2002
Reading time: < 1 minute
Stories are a powerful way of sharing knowledge. How many times have you had the theory explained but not ‘got it’ until the example has been given.
In every book on Knowledge Management you will find success stories of knowledge sharing in the large organisations. Shell, Xerox and others are often cited as prime examples of what to do.
Whilst the names add importance to the story, with a little effort we can all find stories just as powerful within our own organisations, or indeed, within our own personal lives. Which is more relevant?
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Charter for Compassion
