. . . and an essential driver of Business Transformation!

I had the great opportunity to sit down with two CxOs from a European police organization a couple of weeks ago. The topic for discussion was to share experiences and discuss the common challenges and opportunities, that the business transformation of moving into a Mobile-first, Cloud-first world creates.

This was a 2.5-hour discussion, in a casual setting, with no slideware. My favourite kind of meeting, as there is no technology to hide behind or slides that create unnecessary barriers, for a free-flowing conversation and open dialogue.

So what can a Professional Services organization have in common with a police force, you may ask? Quite a lot actually, as it turned out. I am sharing some of the topics and questions we discussed below, as it builds upon a previous blog post, by adding more perspective and detail to those initial high-level points.

We had agreed on the following talking points beforehand:

• Business Transformation to a Mobile-first, Cloud-first world
• Project Management, processes & methodologies
• Change Management, progress tracking and success metrics

The world is transforming rapidly & we need to transform with it! As touched upon in my last blog, most companies and corporations are facing an environment and market pressures, where productivity gains and cost reduction (hard savings/gains) by streamlining the organization, no longer does the trick. We need to find other ways to improve productivity and maintain/grow margins and actively driving Knowledge Management (‘KM’) is one area, where many organisations (unknowingly?) are sitting on large unrealized potential gains.

The rate at which the business is currently changing, means we need to shorten Time To Decision and Time To Execution/Release, substantially. The traditional waterfall-approach no longer scales and the search for the holy grail that is perfection, is starting to undermine ROI and consume margins faster and faster. So we need to work smarter as working faster isn’t a realistic option in most cases.

Here are some things to consider, when trying to help your work-force work smarter:

1. Agile methodologies There are great advantages in running agile projects but there are also challenges as with any approach as one size never fits all.

• Simplicity and flexibility – as you run short development sprints, test, release and adjust, you can better incorporate user experiences from an early stage. It allows you to start simple and add complexity as needs arise and business requirements are identified.
• Incremental documentation – not necessarily less documentation, which many think is the case, but it is different from the traditional approach where documentation is created up front. There is a risk that development starts going in circles, unless requirements and decisions, including business reason for making them, are well documented and structured.
• Better user experience and easier adoption – assuming that users are involved from early on, as it enables you to ‘start small’ (or keep it simple) and add functionality as needed rather than design the entire solution before test/release.

2. Project Structures   Not only how a project is structured and scoped is essential but so is how it is governed. For larger project initiatives it may be much better to break projects up in smaller chunks and coordinate through a Program Office or PMO. Orientation should be by business owner/area and aligned with all up company strategy. This puts additional pressure on governance and best practice is to have each Business (process) Owner/Business Decision Maker represented in a formal Steering Group, with the objective to make business-based decisions and prioritisations between projects as applicable.

This applies to waterfall, as well as agile projects but the traditional multi-year waterfall projects should be avoided, as the changes in the business environment/market are so many and so fast, that in most cases running 2-3 year long projects doesn’t work. Neither do monolithic-style SW implementations, where development goes on for years before anything is actually released to the end users by the way…

3. Business & Solution Requirements  Teams need to be able to quickly and effectively connect, and easily collaborate on documentation and other content, to keep up the pace. By re-using knowledge and content, quality can also be maintained/improved, in spite of the faster pace, and avoid endless review cycles and revisions. 

Another area which is absolutely critical is to capture and manage business requirements, as most users are becoming much smarter, hence pickier, by the week. At the same time documentation of requirements need to be balanced with the shorter lifecycles and shorter Time To Release, so the traditional 120 pages long Vision Scope, may not be ideal, although a high-level scope and shared vision is critical.

Technology is transforming even faster – “I can’t keep up….!”  But it is not only the speed of change that is adding pressures on our organisations. It is also the growing complexity of the environments and eco-systems we operate in (I will intentionally exclude financial- and market pressures for sake of simplicity and focus on topic). Everyone can no longer be an expert in everything, so we need better ways to connect people and information, as to leverage the experts in our organisations wherever they may be located.

You may think this is where the sales pitch comes, pushing Office 365 and SharePoint Online for effective collaboration? But it is not. I am focusing this piece solely on the people and process dimensions of KM as a vehicle for Business Transformation; not the Tools aspect. Implementing a KM solution, is our own experience 80% about People and Process and a mere 20% about Technology/Tools.

Shifting your organization to a true Knowledge organization, is a cultural change effort – not an IT project, or even a process implementation. It’s a cultural shift which requires every single individual in the organization to adopt some new mind-sets and leave some old behaviours behind. Here are a few:

1. Knowledge is no longer power – knowledge is a commodity and information hoarding no longer puts anyone at an advantage. Collaboration and knowledge sharing however, does.

2. Perfect is the enemy of good  - A common mind-set is that any document or artefact (solution) has to be absolutely perfect, before it is put in front of the intended audience/end user. Wrong! Users bandwidth is shrinking as fast as our bandwidth and most would rather get something fast that is continuously improved, than get nothing for 6 months. The more people who can review and provide structured input, throughout the process, the better the outcome and quality of end product but it is key to organise all input well as to avoid chaos

3. User centric approach - This is an absolute must in a day and age where, at least in the US, the Millennial portion of the population has now exceeded the Baby Boomers. The requirements on speed and ease of accessibility across any device or platform, is therefore becoming more and more critical, as user behaviours start shifting towards Mobility and Cloud as primary choices.

It is hard managing this type of intangible changes – like mind-sets and principles – that a cultural shift requires. And it is even harder to track progress and measure business impact as data is correlative, as opposed to causal, at best. Hence the need for many of us, as well as our Business Decision Makers, to start acknowledging and accepting that perhaps not everything can be tracked by hard numbers?

Thoughts? Comments? Questions? Your comments are as always very welcome!

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.

We are now operating in a world where the commoditisation of IT is fast becoming a reality for the current workforce. And it will be totally non-negotiable for the future workforce. BYOD is rapidly becoming BYOA. In this brave new world of Internet 3.0, the playing field has shifted - company size and history is less important than responsiveness and agility. The now legendary story of Blockbuster's rejection of the Netflix offer to form a partnership is instructive. The way in which talent finds its desired company and the terms on which it wants to engage are evolving rapidly. Going forward the single greatest differentiator for a company will be its ability to consistently leverage the talent and knowledge of its workforce to the maximum. Companies who are bound by tradition and hierarchy will struggle to compete and many household brands will become obsolete.

In this presentation, Rooven discusses this shift and talks about how he is helping clients to transform the way they engage and empower their workforce with digital strategies based on ‘Social Learning’, ‘Talent Insights’ and 'Decision Sourcing'.

Icon uk 2015 from Rooven Pakkiri

Join KMI and Rooven Pakkiri in London for a 2-Day Course on "Social KM"

February 22-23, 2016

Click Here for details!

What You Will Learn

This hands on course will enable you to:

• Understand the implications that social KM has on your organization
• Examine collaboration tools – blogs, wikis and forums to determine effective collaboration platforms for your own community of practice
• Drive the role of the community manager to gain and sustain user adoption
• Develop a strategy to create and manage your own community platform 

Let’s begin by determining the difference between a KM Program and a KM Project. In many of my Knowledge Management (KM) engagements, organizations look to initiate KM through a specific initiative or project. Once that project is concluded many of these organizations believe that their KM involvement is done and they move on to the next initiative. In order to have a sustainable KM presence at an organization we must move from the tactical approach of a KM project to that of a strategic approach of a KM Program. In order to accomplish this a Knowledge Management Strategy has to be developed.

To increase the opportunity for success, the KM Strategy must be positioned at the Program Level and this strategy will drive specific initiatives that align with the mission and objectives of the KM Program. The KM Strategy includes formal procedures to collect knowledge throughout the organization, a well-established infrastructure, networks for transferring knowledge between employees, and tools to facilitate the process. The KM Strategy will lay the foundation to align specific tools/technology to enhance individual and organizational performance. This is accomplished by incorporating the following three (3) components into the fabric of an organization’s environment:

• People, those who create, organize, apply, and transfer knowledge; and the leaders who act on that knowledge
• Processes, methods of creating, organizing, applying and transferring knowledge
• Technology, information systems used to put knowledge products and services into organized frameworks

According to an April, 2013 article by Robert Simmons a principal within Forsythe’s IT operations management practice on implementing a Knowledge Management Program, he points out eight specific steps as follows:

Step 1: Establish Knowledge Management Program Objectives

Simmons points out that articulating the end state is important to establishing the appropriate program objectives, identifying the business problems and the business drivers that will provide momentum and justification for the endeavor (Simmons, 2013).

Step 2: Prepare for Change

Simmons indicates that a major component of establishing a KM Program is to execute change management. The change management strategy will address the cultural changes that need to take place on how employees perceive and share knowledge, as well as addressing the changes within the organization’s norms and shared values that need to take place. A change management strategy will establish an approach for managing cultural change and produce a knowledge-sharing, knowledge-driven culture end state of the KM Program (Simmons, 2013).

Step 3: Define High-Level Process

To facilitate the identification, capture, cataloging, use and maintenance of the corporation’s knowledge assets, effective KM processes need to be established (Simmons, 2013).

Step 4: Determine and Prioritize Technology Needs

Simmons indicates that depending on the program objectives that have been established as well as the process controls and criteria that have been defined, a prioritization of the knowledge management technology needs can occur (Simmons, 2013). It is important to understand how the knowledge Management technology will address the knowledge processing and cultural knowledge needs of the organization as well as how the KM solution will be adopted by its users.

Step 5: Assess Current State

Assessing the current state of knowledge management within your organization should focus on the five core knowledge management components: people, processes, technology, structure, and culture (Simmons, 2013). This assessment according to Simmons should uncover the gaps between current and desired states, and the recommendations for addressing/closing these gaps. This assessment will become the foundation for the KM Roadmap (Simmons, 2013).

Step 6: Build a Knowledge Management Implementation Roadmap

Simmons stresses that “before going too far, you should re-confirm senior leadership's support and commitment, as well as the funding to implement and maintain the knowledge management program” (Simmons, 2013). This is crucial to the development and execution of the program.

The KM Program Strategy should be presented as a “roadmap of related projects, each addressing specific gaps identified by the assessment” (Simmons, 2013). The roadmap will indicate timelines, milestones as well as dependencies. The roadmap should indicate the initiation of specific projects to execute the KM Program Strategy.

Step 7: Implementation

Implementing a knowledge management program and maturing the overall effectiveness of your organization can require significant personnel resources and funding. Implementation of the KM Program will involve the execution of the roadmap, insuring that short term goals and wins are realized to gain momentum and maintain the support of key stakeholders (Simmons, 2013).

Step 8: Measure and Improve the Knowledge Management Program

In order to understand if your organization’s KM Program and its associated initiatives (projects) are effective, establishing the appropriate metrics/measurements are necessary. These metrics must be utilized in a way to measure the actual effectiveness and comparing that to anticipated results (Simmons, 2013).

The failure rates for knowledge management initiatives are at 50% (Frost, 2014). Knowing this we must determine, what is the cause and effect? Is it because of lack of senior leadership/support? Is a cultural issue? Or much more? I believe the reason why knowledge management initiatives fail are varied and it stems from the key indicators listed below.

In examining why KM Programs/Projects fail, besides the lack of a KM strategy other key indicators include:

• Lack of Executive Leadership/Sponsorship
• Inadequate Budgeting and Cost Expectations
• Lack of participation from all levels of a corporation
• Inadequate processes and technology
• Lack of Knowledge and Resources
• Lack of education and understanding of KM
• KM does not become ingrained into the corporations work culture
• Lack of a Knowledge Sharing Environment
• Lack of metrics to measure the impact of KM on the corporation or insufficient/incorrect metrics being captured
• Lack of monitoring and controls in place to ensure the knowledge is relevant and is current and accurate

The organization must view knowledge management more than just a function of the call center or a cost of doing business. KM is a method of enhancing the collective know-how of the organization, improving productivity, and enhancing overall organizational value. KM will improve efficiencies that will increase a corporations’ profitability, enhances the quality of work, performance, and overall value of the corporation. KM allows tacit knowledge to be leveraged, transferred to increase the quality of work performed across the corporation. This tacit knowledge allows KM to eliminate the “reinvent the wheel” syndrome. This transfer of knowledge is a core value of knowledge management.

Lack of Executive Leadership/Sponsorship

Successful KM initiatives depend greatly on management backing and has been documented and proven over many years of implementing KM initiatives (Davenport, De Long, and Beer, 1998; Chong and Choi, 2005; Wu et al, 2010). In contrast, failure of KM initiatives have been a consequence of inadequate management support (Singh and Kant, 2008; Weber, 2007; Pettersson, 2009).

Developing and operationalizing a KM strategy and subsequent program involves the creation, acceptance, and adoption of processes, values, and systems that are either company-wide or in the very least span across functions, departments, and communities. The implementation and long term success of such far reaching changes require top and central management backing, both from the perspective of resource and political support but also to ensure day-to-day acceptance and use of knowledge management.

Sustained management support in particular senior leadership support is necessary for continued KM success because of the following factors:

• KM requires strong guidance, decision-making, and change implementation
• KM efforts require a clear vision and the example set by management, as well as implementing policies that serve as a way to legitimize KM and highlight its importance in the organization
• In order to prevent lack of enforcement of responsibilities and lack central management responsibility
• Failure can occur due to a lack of leadership support in the organization
• When KM is used as a political instrument to gain influence and leverage within an organization
• To incentivize the use of KM a standard for rewarding that enforce appropriate behavior need to be set by management. The extent to which this is useful should be discussed among leadership.
• Management must provide the resources necessary for KM implementation. KM requires a great deal of financial, human, and material resources; this includes the assignment of competent professionals and a sufficient budget.
• Management must stem the lack of understanding of the benefits, complexity and requirements of KM by instituting an awareness campaign that includes but is not limited to lunch-n-learn briefings, KM training both instructor lead and online, and the ability to attend and participate in KM conferences.
• Management needs to ability to present ROI. The need for solid performance indicators is extremely important for management to continue investing in KM.
• KM must not be just another task to do, it should be a part of what is done by everyone in the organization. It must become part of the corporate DNA to have longevity and lasting success.

Without the enforcement of managerial responsibilities, an organization may end up with no control of the shared or reused knowledge. Management can mitigate this through the creation of the Knowledge Manger, KM liaison and KM Champion roles within the organization. These roles will be an extension of management and will facilitate the distribution of managerial responsibilities of KM and increases the level of KM acumen and at all levels of the organization.

- excerpted from Dr. Rhem's book, Knowledge Management in Practice, due out at the end of the year.

First generation KM, nicknamed the tool era, was crawling with technology solutions.  Many years later we are still looking hard at technology and we seem to be heading towards a new generation nicknamed the Sharepoint era.

It seems clear that the future is likely to involve more technology, not less. The temptation therefore is to engage more with it and, in terms of KM, we are now presented with an array of tools which have taken up center stage in the development of the strategy. Careful consideration is now given to the social component which was missing from 1st generation KM. Developing KM meant spending money on intranets which finally ended up being used as information repositories. Today that drab outfit has been replaced by social platforms which actively engage users and are looking to become authentic knowledge creation and transfer stations.

What cannot be overlooked, however, is that technology is not the core solution. KM effectiveness won´t be measured for the quality of the platform; it will be measured by how much it has impacted in the organization´s results. You need to design the KM strategy, carried to the point of identifying and developing the organization´s critical and strategic knowledge. This goal requires creativity, deals with complex issues and requires coordination among many functions in the organization. Also, avoiding culture carries some severe penalties.

Once we have connected the dots and developed the strategy we can start to look at technology. What has changed from 1st generation Knowledge Management is that “social” technology has being integrated into the fabric of people and we didn’t have this before.  Workspace collaboration is changing as we speak and we can´t turn a blind eye to Gen Y and Millennials social behavior.

So if you’re looking to start your KM journey don’t get carried away and start off with technology. Yes we live in new and exciting times, but technology is powerless unless you have a clear strategy. Don’t get hooked to the “Sharepoint Era”.

The heart is a fascinating organ. It pulsates throughout the body, and you want the pulse because that means you are alive; The heart does the body work! The same applies to your business. VTMs are the bodies that do the work for your business and product success.

You might ask, what are VTMs? Employees are often geographically dispersed working on projects with their cohorts known as virtual work. The employees, Virtual Team Members (VTMs), are responsible for their job tasks that are often intertwined with coworkers. A good perspective as a leader or facilitator of virtual teams is to view distance projects from VTMs' perspectives. Examining what that consists of can help foster efficacious virtual projects. VTMs are the pulse of distance work.

One of the reasons that VTMs are the pulse of distance work is because they are often the employees in front of customers—engaging with clients. If there is any ambiguity surrounding VTMs' duties, this might impact your business and bottom line. VTMs might be classified as sales representatives, field workers, instructional designers, account executives, or any distance business contributor within your organization. The commonality is that they are employees working at a distance often engaging with others on shared tasks and often engaging with clients to promote a product or business service.  

Think About It

Here's a virtual scenario to think about as a manager. You introduce a new product to your employees in the office. Your leadership team is responsible for presenting the information and literature to your VTMs. VTMs are to promote this new product to clients during business meetings. You (leader) send the information, likely by email. Perhaps you setup synchronous meetings, and disseminate a FAQ sheet. You might reason that you have covered your fundamentals and met your manager's request. You might even follow-up with your VTMs to see if they are doing well promoting this innovative product.  

Now, consider this scenario. You are the VTM. You attended the required meetings about this new product. You read the literature, and you fairly understood the product; you are off to your client meeting. You arrived at your meeting ready to reveal the dynamics of the product with your client. Your client asks, “How is this different than what I am currently using? I have the accessibility, transparency, and customer management control benefits that you have discussed. Where is my value added?

The VTM is confounded. He understands the product but does not understand comparative data and how it corresponds to what the client currently has because leadership failed to personalize the product to each client's needs or explained comparative data.

How did management/leadership miss the preparatory steps when it seemed that the preparatory steps were implemented? Did anyone speak with the VTMs, collectively, individually, to ensure that they understood the value added for their accounts? Or, did management place information on a slide presentation and deduct that all VTMs are good account managers; they must know how to sell; they got it!

The VTMs needed personal speaking points, an assessment of the products and the value to each client, a portable device with some ancillary information specifically for the client, and the VTMs needed to fully understand the product's uniqueness.

How should these issues be assessed? The answer in a few phrases is to know your VTMs. Help them understand the business. Reach out to them. Do weekly calls so that everyone understands what the other VTM is doing. Send out comment cards/forms that VTMs must complete, even anonymously. Have VTMs discuss their field experiences.

Remember the Pulse

Isn't it easy to forget that your heart is beating because you are busy going about your life? That sounds obtuse! But, until the heart flutters or you are fatigue and go to the physician to discover an irregular heartbeat, are you mindful of its purpose. Hopefully, this is not the reality of your experiences. VTMs are the pulse of the organization. They are the heartbeat that interfaces with customers. VTMs have layers that should be considered if you have virtual workers. Here are points to bear in mind:

• Connection - Managers need to connect with their VTMs weekly or twice a month. Listening calls, not only more business promotions, can help VTMs feel comfortable and express what is occurring in the field. VTM to VTM connection is also a critical part of distance group work.
• Synchronous - Having synchronous meetings to explain what VTMs are accomplishing and experiencing will allow them to freely be forthcoming and connect with the business. VTMs discussing on the call or webinar products and account instances aids an element of synchronistic communication.
• Feedback - Providing feedback to employees and speaking with them individually to see if they understand the business, products, and are encountering any resistance are all worth management investment.

If you want to continually expose virtual workers to field assignments and clients, then do not forget about the virtual worker. Make sure that you have exhausted all possibilities to connect with VTMs - the pulse of distance work.