DEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND PLANNING www.nt.gov.au Knowledge Management An Introduction and Agency Initiatives DDLP2011/0272~0015 11 May 2012
Transcript
DEPARTMENT OFLANDS AND PLANNING
www.nt.gov.au
Knowledge Management
An Introduction and Agency Initiatives
DDLP2011/0272~001511 May 2012
www.nt.gov.auDEPARTMENT OF LANDS AND PLANNING
Today
• Knowledge Management 101• Case study – KM in DLP• Resources available• Next steps
Presenter
Presentation Notes
Likely that you are already aware and active in KM in your agency – whether those initiatives are called “knowledge management” or not. OCPE launched a suite of tools, resources recently – purpose of this presentation is to draw attention to those resources, and describe some of the initiatives underway at DLP which build on OCPE’s vision. Sarah Temple, Director of HR at DLP, joins me today and will be adding to the strategic HR context for this work.
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT 101
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OCPE:
• People and their knowledge are our greatest resources in the NTPS
• Knowledge is something people create from experiencing and learning and we are all 'knowledge workers' in the NTPS
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Working definitions
Managing knowledge to help solve business problems
KM = tools, processes, policies for business improvement - through a
“knowledge” lens
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People + Process + Technology Technology only a (small) part of any solution Shifting emphasis from collection to connection Culture is critical Practical tools, processes, policies Commonsense – but needs a catalyst Change management Create (Adding – Innovate as an aspect of creation) Capture Share Collaborate/Connecting
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What is knowledge?
Data Information Knowledge
Explicit vs Implicit/Tacit
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Implicit knowledge isn't explicit knowledge that we're not currently thinking about. Implicit knowledge isn't there the way ore is buried. It's "there" only in the sense that we can generate it when required. *** David Weinberger *** Vast academic discussion on KM in management circles – but distinction can tie in knots. Is important to be clear about what is trying to be transferred, and tailor the means to the content. Teaching skills Imparting information
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Drivers – why should we focus on managing knowledge?• Increasing rates of staff turnover• Few staff in NT with specialist expertise in
some areas• Work satisfaction and retention• Intergenerational differences in
approaches to work• An aging workforce
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Following the line of HR linkages, the drivers for KM are people-based – staff turnover, expertise, intergenerational differences manifesting in the way staff access and share knowledge; the aging workforce May recall a slide from a presentation last quarter, by Jenny Stephensen, on the implications of an aging workforce – lots of demographic data and forecasting material. Baby Boomers started retiring in 2011. Impact on corporate knowledge – what will we miss, without that knowledge on tap? What mistakes will we re-make? What blunders, due to lack of context/history/understanding? What skills are we losing? What implicit knowledge/judgment are we losing access to? Staff staying on for less time – need to be more quickly up to speed, no luxury of taking time, shadowing – FTE limitations Difficulty in recruiting Statistics available about rework, making same mistakes – what cost to productivity?
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What can we gain across NTPS?• Build a strong and capable workforce through continuous
learning and sharing knowledge– Increase productivity– Ensure continuity as staff transition– Orient and integrate new recruits quickly– Strengthen relationships– Foster innovation
• Save time, money and effort– Improve results by applying the best of what we already have– Develop deeper understanding of current challenges
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Source – OCPE Which Business Improvement needs might be met by KM initiatives? Increases productivity by improving employees’ understanding of their role, the agency’s business and the task at hand Saves time, money and effort by learning from others’ experience, avoid repeating mistakes and duplicating effort Ensures continuity when employees move through roles and pass on their valuable experiences before they do so. Orients and integrates new recruits Develops deeper understanding of current challenges by tapping-in to experts who are masters in their field and who readily share knowledge, experience and insights on challenging topics. Strengthens relationships, as people learn from each other and build alliances and partnerships. Improves results by using the best knowledge and information we already have to provide a foundation for new work. Achieves breakthroughs by collaborating with a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups to achieve innovation in the NTPS Fosters innovation, to drive the development of creative solutions and fresh thinking that are required to meet the challenges in servicing a diverse and widespread community Builds a strong and capable workforce through continuous learning and sharing knowledge Efficiency Silos within organisations Reinventing the wheel within teams Remaking the same mistakes Slow integration of new starters Workplace culture Competitive vs Collaborative Undermining own legacy vs Sense of stewardship Innovation Finding new frontiers Need for cross pollination
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AGENCY INITIATIVES - DLP
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Leading and Sharing• Strategic direction accords with OCPE
framework• DLP structure – Director and unit with
specific KM responsibility• ODC oversight• Working collaboratively with HR
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Sought involvement of Organisational Development Committee in KM, incorporated into their Terms of Reference – for strategic oversight and consultation on priorities, new ideas, experiences
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Our experience
• Retirement or loss of key staff with significant knowledge and experience
• Risk management• Silos• Generally positive – when asked
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With an aging workforce and senior public servants with many years experience planning to retire over coming years, this has become a key catalyst to thinking about knowledge management. The need to tap in to “what’s in their heads” has become more pronounced and the subject of discussion with the impending loss of 10 to 20 years of corporate knowledge. The risk to business continuity, productivity and attainment of organisational objectives becomes a very real concern and likely outcome if plans are not put in place to share and acquire this knowledge. In DLP this happened following the cessation of a public servant with 20 plus years experience in road network management. There was great difficulty in finding a replacement and after much time and effort to recruit externally, focus became internal, with the development of current staff. That staff member left behind an office that was wall to wall paper – definitely a collector. The physical artefacts – documents – have been catalogued, but what we can’t replace easily is experience, nous, judgment. This experience has led to a greater sense of acquiring explicit knowledge through tools developed by DLP and discussed later on.
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Approach so far
• Quick wins• Environmental scan• Initiate collaboration• Structural elements in place• Strategic direction
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Awareness Policies and procedure
Tools Culture
Initiatives
KM priorities 2011 onwards
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Alignment with Wheel: In People and Communication, working on building Awareness In Processes and Systems, and Technology – developing Tools, looking at Policies and Procedures Investigating work that could be done in building a Culture that consistently supports knowledge sharing to be more efficient, effective. Emphasising that we have access to technology, being careful about how it is applied – avoiding large ‘white elephant’ systems when what we actually need is an understanding of what the people on our floor do, why we might need to talk to them, and having active mechanisms to support the succession process. Managers screaming FTE constraints; building it in makes good business sense, saves resource time.
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Raise awareness
• Provide a catalyst - have the conversation• Manager/Staff exit planning discussions,
using the Role Handover Guide• Risk scenarios• What is your legacy?
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A rising tide lifts all boats Turn a battleship one degree at a time.
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Policies and procedure• Transition to Retirement Policy• Plan Do Review – setting priorities linked
to KM and using the Capability Leadership Framework
• Application to Attend Training Form
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Small and subtle but targeted changes – knowledge activities a component of transition to retirement; requirement to share training outcomes PDR – next cycle a more considered approach to KM – encouraging managers to frame goals/priorities which focus on knowledge capture, transfer by providing sample goals to amend CLF – frequent references to the need to share knowledge, across every level – to marshal expertise, collaborate, share, mentor Policy The Department is committed to managing its workforce in a manner which recognises the Department’s operational needs for workforce flexibility, knowledge transfer and retention, and employees’ individual requests for a preretirement agreement. This policy is a subset of the DLP Worklife Balance Policy. Eligibility … Have an ongoing commitment to and cooperatively contribute to knowledge transfer for period of TTR. Envisages mentoring, job sharing, knowledge transfer/capture as explicit part of transitional role Cautions managers to consider - Managers need to give due consideration to workload management, including reallocation of duties (factoring in knowledge management related tasks) or position redesign to accommodate any reduction in hours. This process may require consultation with other employees in the area.
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Form: Describe how you will share your learned knowledge/information with your team members. For example: write an article; schedule a knowledge sharing section at a team meeting; write a trip report, make some Power Point slides summarising the X most interesting things you discovered at the training; let your team know where they can access the conference papers/materials:
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Culture
• Sharing• Shift emphasis: Collection vs Connection• Internal Communications Working Group
and Stakeholder Engagement Working Group
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Human Synergistics work at other agencies - constructive Collection vs Connection - Repositories for documents vs Networks among staff CE – yes, people leave, but there are still some pretty bright minds still here. Balance – equip staff with what they need to be effective, without over investing in capture. Mind is not a vessel to be filled, it is a fire to be kindled – Plutarch, Greco Roman philosopher Subcommittees of Executive Leadership Team – KM representation at senior, strategic level Engagement – how we might better capture and more effectively share interactions with key stakeholders, what that means behaviourally for our staff Internal Comms – building an open, transparent, networked culture
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Tools• Role Handover Guide• Expertise location via enhanced Staff directory• Showcase program• Emerging Leaders Program – Living Legends
Project
• Linkages to information and records management tools, training
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Not everything can be captured. Not everything is worth capturing. Investment in capture – will it be referred to in future? Blogs Wikis Knowledge Base Knowledge Café After Action Review Expertise location Storytelling Mentoring Coaching Mind maps Living Legends – celebrating, acknowledging, thinking about whether/how to capture Refer back to our long standing public servant, the collector. Exit discussions are seeking to focus on broader picture – what are the key relationships that will help those left behind to fulfil that function for government. Everything is fragmented. We evolved to handle unstructured fragmented fine granularity information objects, not highly structured documents. People will spend hours on the internet, or in casual conversation without any incentive or pressure. However creating and using structured documents requires considerably more effort and time. Our brains evolved to handle fragmented patterns not information. Credit: Dave Snowden. The real world is complex, fragmented and inherently messy and that is not necessarily a bad thing! As Dave says, we have evolved to handle that. Documents? A document is where knowledge goes to die.
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DLP initiatives to come
• Continued focus on sharing and collecting implicit or tacit knowledge - mentoring programs
• Reflective project management• Innovation
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Partnering with HR to ensure consistency, alignment Thinking carefully about what makes sense to capture, what can be meaningfully transferred. Investment in capture vs expected utility Public servant – documents catalogued – ever referred to?
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RESOURCES
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David Gurteen, of Knowledge Café fame Dave Snowden 7 Principles of Knowledge Management Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted. We only know what we know when we need to know it. In the context of real need few people will withhold their knowledge. Everything is fragmented. Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success. The way we know things is not the way we report we know things. We always know more than we can say, and we always say more than we can write down.
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NEXT STEPS?
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Some “take home” questions• What role does HR have in KM?• How prominent is the knowledge issue in your
agency? • Where do your agency/team’s greatest
‘knowledge risks’ lie? – Which teams? – Which positions? – What is being done to address these risks?
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May already be active in this area? Don’t necessarily call it “KM”, because it is really just good business sense – but it might need focus or priority, a push, to get initiatives happening
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More questions…
• What shape are your current knowledge initiatives in?
• Are the available tools working well? • Are you getting maximum leverage from
existing processes? eg exit interviews, training budget
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• What encourages a knowledge sharing culture?
• What business needs could have a knowledge-based solution?
Still more questions…
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Where to from here? Suggestions1. What support do managers need to
action the knowledge elements of their Workforce Development plans?
2. Asking the questions, providing the tools3. Initiate collaboration with your Information
& Records Management team
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Detailed and pragmatic workforce planning is critical to understanding the location and severity of knowledge risks Move beyond the dot point “strategy: knowledge management” – what does that look like? What tools will be used? How will staff be helped to make time to devote to those activities? Is there scope to use a Transition to Retirement Policy to underpin activity? When could a Role Handover discussion be most usefully broached? Not 5 minutes before they are due to walk out the door.
