Given the 45th anniversary to of its launch this year, what can we learn about Knowledge Management from Pioneer 10?

Over 9 million miles away from our sun, a solitary spacecraft continues its long journey into interstellar space. Scientific investigations of great value were sent to Earth until March 31st, 1997, the official end of its main mission. Exhausted of all energy, it drifts along the solar winds of space, its last signal having been detected over 13 years ago. Some say that this is when its secondary mission truly began: To act as an ambassador to cosmic civilizations. To accomplish this, a gold-anodized aluminum plaque was attached to Pioneer 10. Carl Sagan and Frank Drake designed the message, with artwork prepared by Linda Salzman Sagan. 

This is the message:

Hydrogen, considered to be the most abundant element in the universe was chosen as it is a universal phenomenon and the hyperfine transition depicted could be used as a base for measuring time and distance, thus decoding the remainder of the plaque. The array of lines and dashes to the center-left of the plaque represent pulsars, which can be used to calculate the position of the sun to the center of the milky way galaxy. They can also be used to calculate when Pioneer 10 was launched. At the bottom of the plaque the solar system is depicted with the home planet of the plaque, and Pioneer 10’s trajectory out of our solar system. 

Lastly, a drawing of a man and a woman, their height able to be calculated based on the hyperfine transition key and a silhouette of Pioneer 10. 

First, let us go over what is “wrong” in the message: 

• The frequency of one of the pulsars is calculated incorrectly. That error was made by Sagan and Drake because the pulsar could not be calculated as precisely in the 70s as it can be now.
• The solar system is depicted incorrectly. We now consider our solar system to have 8 planets and 5 dwarf planets. Additionally, the arrow showing Earth and Pioneer 10’s trajectory may not be understood by aliens who did not “grow up” in a hunter-gatherer society. Lastly, Saturn has a dash through it, which was meant to signify its rings. A dash, based on the plaque and binary could be misinterpreted to mean the planet does not exist anymore or that some calamity occurred. 
• The male and female portrayed are the most debated on the plaque. The major issue back in the 70s was that both were depicted without clothing. The drawings of both were meant to depict all races but many viewed them as Caucasian. The female was also perceived as being subservient to the male.
• Lastly, the hand raised was considered a sign of greeting but aliens could consider this to mean “stop” or anything else for that matter.  

The “right” in the message:

• Despite the change in our understanding of what we consider a planet, 8 of the largest bodies are represented. A small version of Pioneer 10 was depicted travelling from Earth outwards so it truly was the best representation at the time for its origin (and still is).   
• The hand raised by the male had an additional use and that was to show the opposable thumb, which many consider to be one of the largest leaps in our evolution. If the female raised her hand too, it could be depicted that we all walked around that way, for the same reason her stance was a little different from her counterpart. 
• It was simple and concise and could be interpreted by cultures at both ends of the technical spectrum. 

What does this have to do with Knowledge Management? 

• When writing any type of Knowledge Base Article, keep things as simple as possible as even the simplest pieces could be interpreted differently. Wording should be concise and should “stick to the facts.” Do not create an article for the sake of creating it – the article must serve a purpose. 
• Maintenance of Knowledge. Takes steps to ensure whatever is created can be maintained by having a process to do so. A Knowledge Base Article is a living thing. 
• Your Knowledge Base Article will be there even if you are not. Only because one person created it does not mean that person “owns” it. Knowledge is for the betterment of all and not for a select few. 
• Your Knowledge Base Article is an Ambassador for your company. Use spelling and grammar check and most importantly be professional in your writing.
• Technology. While it is not the main force behind Knowledge Management, we cannot discount its power, so invest in the tools proven to increase successes. When writing an article, think about how a quick video, diagram, and other multimedia may help to supplement the document. The Voyager probes contained images and recordings while the New Horizons probe went all digital. 

In our last blog post, our featured author discussed how "knowledge change is not a technology project."  This week our author presents the case for the use of tech tools especially in dealing with issues of employee retention.  Endorsement of specific vendors by KMI should not be implied.

Implemented in organizations with high employee turnover, knowledge management tools are not only to facilitate knowledge accumulation and transfer but also to stimulate employees’ engagement and retention. Here how it works. 

According to the 2016 BenchmarkPro survey, the average employee turnover rate in the USA equals 18.1%. While the highest rates are characteristic of the states with a lower median household income such as Montana (23.0%), Oklahoma (22.1%), Idaho (21.5%) and New Mexico (21.5%), turnover rates in the richest US states are also above the ‘healthy’ 10-15% - Maryland (19.1%), Massachusetts (17.1%), California (16.8%), New Jersey (16.4%). High employee turnover is a true headache in such industries as retail, healthcare, banking and financial services, as well as the IT sector where employees rarely stay with a company longer than a year.

How high employee turnover impacts organizational knowledge

In terms of knowledge management, high turnover rates mean that companies can face multiple knowledge-related challenges, including:

• lost knowledge if employees leave and don’t transfer their valuable knowledge in any form
• knowledge leaks if employees leave and reuse acquired knowledge at their new workplace
• knowledge transfer and constant learning required any time to introduce newcomers to their work
• knowledge gaps that (re)appear in different knowledge domains, and more

If left unaddressed, these challenges can lead to discontinued business processes and cause serious mistakes that will end up with lost money and damaged reputation.

Why turn to a knowledge management system?

With so many knowledge-related risks, organizations with high employee turnover can do nothing but turn to knowledge management to achieve the following goals:

• Make the turnover less painful and hire new employees with the needed knowledge level quicker
• Facilitate regular employees’ work in an unstable environment and reduce their efforts on transferring knowledge to newcomers
• Support productive teamwork
• Minimize newcomers’ mistakes and eliminate knowledge gaps
• Create incentives to retain employees

Now, let’s analyze how companies can achieve these goals through relevant knowledge management tools and techniques.

Good news for those who already use SharePoint: turning to SharePoint consultants or developers, they can adapt the platform to knowledge management needs.

Outlining workforce gaps with a knowledge map

Usually, organizations create a knowledge map to structure corporate knowledge and understand if its current level is enough to cover particular business needs. Besides that, companies can use their knowledge map to smartly and timely find new employees. By identifying key knowledge areas essential to business processes, organizations can mark out risky areas and relevant knowledge owners. Guided by the map, HR managers can form and support a base of candidates suiting critical knowledge areas and find employees with specific knowledge faster.

Automating knowledge transfer

Constant staff changes disturb regular employees. That’s a real nightmare for experts who should transfer their knowledge to newcomers over and over again. With this in mind, it’s reasonable to automate knowledge transfer to key knowledge owners’ relief. For example, an organization can create a dedicated knowledge center for newcomers to access the working materials prepared by experts and study them. To check up their knowledge, newcomers can take relevant tests right in the KM system. Test results will be then presented to a line manager and an expert. If results are unsatisfactory, a knowledge owner can schedule individual training. This way, an initial knowledge transfer can be fully automated or coupled with only a few one-to-one consultations, which reduces experts’ involvement substantially.

Storing team knowledge on collaboration sites

The value of collaboration sites at companies with high employee turnover increases dramatically. When team collaboration takes place in a single collaboration hub (these can be dedicated SharePoint team sites), a new team member will be able to learn the collaboration history, view project-related documents, get consultations of teammates and dive into the working process much easier.

Eliminating mistakes due to knowledge gaps

To minimize mistakes made regularly by newcomers, companies can use at least two knowledge management tools. First of all, a centralized knowledge base with well-structured instructions and recommendations can guide newcomers throughout their working process. Secondly, newcomers can use a knowledge map to quickly identify knowledge owners and connect them in order to ask for a piece of advice and solve problematic or complex tasks successfully.

Reducing employee turnover with a knowledge management system

Unfavorable corporate culture, boring or unimportant work and the lack of recognition are constantly on the list of popular reasons to quit a job. To change this, companies can use their knowledge management system to create comfortable working conditions that will stimulate employee retention.

Recognizing employees’ contribution and ensuring personal growth

A knowledge management system can include a system of points attributed to employees who regularly contribute to the development of organizational knowledge (develop a particular knowledge domain, organize a community of practice, make research work, etc.). ‘Knowledge’ points can be included in a personal development plan so that employees could see their professional advance, as well as into employees’ general rating for line managers to reward top contributors with relevant incentives.

Turning off stress and enabling a supportive working environment

Employees are always afraid to make a mistake especially if they don’t have the needed knowledge and can’t find it anywhere. Provided with strong search capabilities, a knowledge management solution will allow employees to find relevant pieces of knowledge or knowledge owners who can assist a newcomer in solving a particular task. With the possibility to contact experts and teammates, employees will feel more comfortable at work, which increases employees’ satisfaction and confidence.

Creating extra opportunities

Companies can also think about giving extra opportunities to their staff. For example, employees can share their ideas and store them in a bank of ideas located in the knowledge management system. Best insights will be then discussed with line managers and experts and turned into real projects. This is how employees will get a chance to implement their own project and advance in their career.

Even one KM activity can bring several outcomes

Obviously, companies struggling with high employee turnover are focused on replacing employees and keeping business processes uninterrupted. Due to impressive investments into HR management, they can cut other corporate investments, especially the ones into such activities as knowledge management. However, it’s not always right.

High employee turnover is an exceptional situation when even scattered KM activities can be of a great value. Companies can adopt at least one of the described solutions to get multiple outcomes at once. For example, having a knowledge map on their hands, companies can simplify the hiring process and invigorate the connection between newcomers and experts, while collaboration sites will support knowledge transfer, uninterrupted teamwork and the introduction of newcomers to the working process.

This article is referencing concepts and terminology common in “Knowledge Management” (“KM”) and “Adoption & Change Management” (“ACM”) and assumes that the reader has at least some experiences in one or the other. It also references the use of SW solutions and “collaboration tools” as a means to realizing organizational benefits, and value, of KM concepts.

I have inserted links to articles explaining some of the concepts where appropriate.

I have touched upon this topic in a few of my earlier posts, how we often mistake a Knowledge Management, or a Collaboration tool project, for being a technology project. I will go out on a limb here and be Boolean:  It is not.

I am also intentionally calling it “Knowledge Change” as opposed to “Knowledge Management”, because when we try to implement a new KM process, solution or Collaboration tool, we are inevitably facing a Change Management effort. Not a “system implementation” effort or “adoption” effort. Perhaps in the rare exception, if an organization is already fully embracing KM principles, have defined and successfully implemented a knowledge-centric business model and managed to create and nurture a truly collaborative culture, they could possibly be doing a 1:1 replacement of one KM platform to another. I think anyone who’s been involved in any KM/Collaboration effort would agree with me when I say that is a close-to utopian scenario.

So, let’s focus on the large majority, rather than the rare exceptions.

Most of us work in organisations that truly wish to embrace a collaborative culture and leverage the collective knowledge of the organization to achieve more. Pretty much common sense in any knowledge worker organization, isn’t it? But it is a lot easier said than done as many of us also work in organisations that have a long(ish) history of engineering-driven, development-centric and traditional organisational structures. In this case I am thinking of organisations that quite typically are hierarchical and organized around geography and/or functions, rather than organized around capabilities or knowledge areas.

There are probably a fair number of barriers as well, in the shape of policies and processes, that prevents knowledge from flowing freely and effectively between those functions and/or geographies. And in some cases, there may even be barriers in-between levels within the hierarchies, in terms of roles and seniority.

Finally, the demographics of the work force will also likely, yet inadvertently, create additional barriers based off what kind of moral values and/or academic principles we were exposed to in our formative years. Someone born in the 50’s or 60’s for example may have a much higher focus on “perfecting before sharing” than someone born in the 80’s or 90’s. I believe that nationality/culture also plays a role in that area.

Does any of this sound familiar?

In those cases, implementing a new Knowledge Collaboration platform or Collaboration solution, is so much more complex than process change or a tools implementation project, because it immediately becomes a project to change culture and behaviours.

Here are a few things that are at the top of my mind, that I think you may find useful to consider.

• To change culture, you must change individual behavior
• To change behaviour, you must undo existing habits
• Undoing habits takes leadership, dedication and patience

I am making an assumption here that everyone has a good understanding of what we mean by [Organisational] Culture, are familiar with Peter Drucker’s statement that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”[1] etc., so I will not delve into defining “culture”.

A second assumption I am making is that most of you are familiar with Adoption and Change Management fundamentals and know Prosci’s ADKAR or Kotter’s 8-step Change Model, so I will not go into those but skip right into the more challenging parts associated with those: Sponsorship, leadership and perseverance.

Culture is more than Vision, Mission and Values

So it takes more than a few strategy sessions, or management consultants to change it. Culture is the collective values, actions and behaviours of the company employees, so if we want to change it, we need to change the mind-sets and behaviours of everyone who works there. From top to bottom. Having active and visible (Executive) sponsorship is fundamental but it is not enough. We must avoid falling into the trap that so many of us have fallen into and forget about the middle management layers. They are crucial to drive any sustainable change because they are the people who manages the majority of the work force and if they do not ask for the change, it will most likely not happen. It matters a lot less what my CEO says, in practice, than what my direct manager and perhaps his/her manager says, doesn’t it? “Middle management” is the key change agent that can make the difference between failure and success.

Acquiring new habits would be a lot easier if we did not have to get rid of existing ones

Just think about your last New Year’s resolution – how many days did you last on that diet, or going to that gym 3 days a week, once you got passed Jan 1st? All of us have habits. Good ones and bad ones and they are all hard to change but most difficult to change are the bad ones. Then add to that the dimension of having previously been rewarded for one type of behaviour (“the bad habit”), now being asked to do something different (“the good habit”). It will be hard for everyone and it will be even harder for people with tenure. Therefore, rewards and recognition are key, but they are not a silver bullet.

Patience is a virtue that very few of us possess

Learning anything new takes patience and practice for most of us, as well as perseverance. But it does become a little bit easier if the people we look up to and respect are leading by example, or if there is a reward at the end. But carrots and sticks alone won’t do it either. It will take repetition, consistency and alignment between the spoken and the acted messages, and role models that repeatedly demonstrate the desired behaviours. In addition to awareness, readiness, knowledge etc., which are the Change Management 101’s, we need to walk the talk. We need to stick with the program and keep pushing the same message over and over in various ways, shapes and forms.

There are of course many more challenges, opportunities and aspects of driving cultural change in the context of KM (as in any context!) but I am going to leave you with these three and I hope that this article will spark some healthy conversations and generate some knowledge sharing. This is a big topic and there is a lot we can all learn from each other.

[1] Some argue he never said this, but it is most often attributed to him, so let’s go with that for now.

While “going agile” is not an end in itself, there are circumstances where an agile content strategy can help achieve desired business outcomes. In part 1 of this two-part blog series, we discuss content team implementation of agile ceremonies which have brought success to EK clients. In part 2, we’ll follow up with a discussion of traditional Scrum roles and how they can be applied to content teams.

Agile Content Team Ceremonies

More than just meetings, agile ceremonies are designed to empower teams by maximizing the investment of each team member’s time. Here are some examples in which EK has successfully employed agile ceremonies to empower content teams.

Content Sprint Planning

Anyone who’s ever worked on a content team knows that creating a prioritized content backlog is arguably the greatest value which agile can add to content strategy. Content tasks often come to content teams in a flurry of urgent requests and unrealistic timelines. Adding incoming requests to a product backlog and making that product backlog visible to stakeholders can go a long way towards setting realistic expectations for content production timelines.

Once the content backlog is established, sprint planning meetings provide an opportunity for content teams to engage in dialog with the product owner and discover the business objective, audience, and topic of content tasks.

In this example the product backlog consists of all tasks in the “To Do” column.

As with any sprint planning meeting, estimating the amount of effort it will take to accomplish each content task is essential. We’ve found simple metrics to estimate effort such as T-shirt sizes (small, medium, large, extra large) are helpful for non-technical teams like content teams. Reformatting that PDF to ensure it’s 508 compliant? That’s a small task. Producing that new user help video? That’s a large task.

Once T-shirt sizes are agreed to for each upcoming task you can chart the content team’s velocity. As with any agile team, ensure the team commits to a realistic amount of work for the sprint – based on their known velocity. But let’s be honest – it’s highly likely that a content team will be asked to take on more than they can realistically handle. It’s also highly likely that “urgent” tasks will be requested mid-sprint. Business stakeholders requesting urgent content tasks will have to be educated about new agile processes – and their business value.

Content Daily Stand-Up

Once a content team has committed to completing the tasks in the current sprint (the main outcome of the sprint planning meeting), daily stand-up meetings are essential to achieving this collaboratively set goal. The typical format is 15 minutes in which the entire team answers three questions:

• What did you complete since our last stand-up?
• What do you plan to work on today?
• Are there any roadblocks in your way?

Daily stand-ups are an opportunity for the entire team to explicitly commit to meeting the goals of the current sprint at the beginning of each day. This may mean dynamically adjusting tasks which are assigned to team members. If one team member has completed a first draft of a new publication, perhaps another team member can jump in and offer to review it and give feedback. If one team members is a stronger writer and is struggling with a visual design, they can ask for assistance. The focus of the daily stand-up is on the team working together to complete all of the tasks in the sprint, shifting tasks and offering expertise as needed to best make that happen.

Content Sprint Review

The focus of a development sprint review is to ensure that the goal of the sprint is met – often a final check against acceptance criteria. Usually, the team presents to the product owner. Content publication is usually not as technical and the business requirements are relatively easy to understand. An entire ceremony to validate that acceptance criteria are met is not as valuable for content teams.

For content teams, it is really easy for the completion of daily tasks to go unrecognized. Does anyone stop to take notice when a routine article is published? It’s not only large publication milestones that deserve recognition.

Sprint reviews in the form of “Demo Fridays” can be a good strategy to ensure that the work of your content producers is valued. Each member of the team has the opportunity to show off all new content which was published during the week. The ScrumMaster sets the tone here, and it should be celebratory, honoring tasks completed, noting attention to detail and quality, and acknowledging roadblocks overcome.

Content Sprint Retrospective

Sprint retrospectives cultivate the culture of continuous improvement which is so essential to content teams. Content production is a bit of an art, with an emphasis on soft skills like writing with style and clarity. These skills require continuous honing – there’s always more to learn.

The goal of a sprint retrospective is not to improve content production skills, but rather to improve the agile processes which enhance content production. However, the inclusion of sprint retrospectives in the processes of your content team models the continuous improvement which is so critical to the overall culture.

Recently a content team which worked with EK discovered and implemented a process improvement due to a retrospective. The content team was using Trello to manage content tasks and a subset of business stakeholders were uncomfortable with the platform. This was causing poor communication during the editorial process. These particular business stakeholders were creating a spreadsheet where each row was a task. Rather than force the business stakeholders to use Trello, the team revised their process to link from Trello to their stakeholders’ spreadsheet. The hybrid approach enabled more regular communication with the stakeholders, but still honored the content team’s processes.

Conclusion

Agile ceremonies are just one component of agile processes, but they are a highly visual and recognizable one. When people talk about “going agile,” they often default to agile software development, but agile ceremonies (and other agile practices) can empower many kinds of teams – including teams of content producers. Do you need help empowering your content teams with agile practices?  Contact us at Enterprise Knowledge – we can help.

In your organization, is there a distinct strategy behind the people side of your organizational change, or is there simply a collection of tactical communications or training activities that need to be “managed” during a rollout? Change leadership requires the courage of swimming upstream, often against the ingrained habits of your organization.

There is a difference between truly leading change and just managing it:

• Change Leadership: Executives and managers take a personal interest in the change project succeeding and unite people behind a common vision.
• Change Management: Relying on predetermined communications and training to meet behavioral change goals. While these tactics will undoubtedly be a part of every change plan, they are not enough to ensure adoption.

We often see this challenge in our knowledge management initiatives, where regular emails about a new collaboration tool do not lead to desired levels of adoption. Regardless, whether your organization is currently going through changes related to people, process, technology (or all at once), change leadership is crucial to success. Change leadership underlines the importance of the change and ensures appropriate resourcing and priority. Change leadership is also better suited to a complex, rapidly-changing environment, which reflects most organizations.

How to Lead Change

Don’t treat behavioral change like an afterthought. Many change practitioners are brought in right before a launch or even after a project has already failed once. This makes the job of encouraging adoption much more difficult: at EK we find that most people take time to process new changes and integrate them into their daily work – something that the change team may have already done because they were aware of the change sooner. This concept is especially true for difficult changes such as changing roles or organization structures. Leading change in this way means that the behavioral change required from people is a priority from the onset of the project.

Ensure sponsors show their dedication. Often, all change activities are delegated to external consultants or those within an organization who do not have influence on the direction of the change. While bringing in experts can greatly increase chances of high adoption, fully outsourcing change activities will undermine the change effort. It is crucial that people who have institutional trust and decisionmaking authority take on the role of sponsor and that they make a concerted effort to be involved, active voices throughout the change. An absent sponsor on a project where change is “managed” can make the people being asked to change feel like they have no say in the outcome and can exacerbate resistance.

Enable people to change, don’t force them. Sometimes leading change means adjusting an approach based people’s previously misunderstood needs. Making the change easier to digest with the help of the people involved is an evolving conversation. This requires less focus on dealing with people considered “troublemakers” and more on truly listening to and acting on people’s concerns – perhaps about user experience, unnecessary features, or institutional knowledge that is not being tapped in the change project. To create even more opportunities for people to change, you could try an iterative, or agile approach to rollout. This will help build trust as people’s input improves the technology, process, or organization structure after each iteration.

Are you managing change but not yet leading it in your organization? EK’s change management consultants can help you put together a strong change strategy. Contact us to learn more at info@enterprise-knowledge.com.