Knowledge Transfer

Our organizations are based on the interactions of individuals, teams and other organizations into a complex adaptive environment. We need to manage productive relationships as part of a complex system and interactions among parts can produce valuable, new, and unpredictable capabilities that are not inherent in any of the parts acting alone. This is why knowledge management, having a learning culture, is such a fundamental part of the work we do.

There are seven major categories we engage in when we manage, maintain, and create knowledge.

Activity	Converts	Involving	Meaning
Socialization	Tacit-to-Tacit	different agents	Sharing of tacit knowledge between individuals
Introspection	Tacit-to-Tacit	same agent	The conscious or unconscious examination of one’s own tacit knowledge, as taken at an individual level
Externalization	Tacit-to-Explicit	agent to knowledge management	The expression of tacit knowledge and its translation into comprehensible forms interpretable by external agents
Combination	Explicit-to-Explicit	All users	The conversion of explicit knowledge into other variants of explicit knowledge
Internalization	Explicit-to-Tacit	Training and deliberate practice	The conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge
Conceptualization	Action-to-Tacit	Continuous Improvement	The creation of tacit knowledge from aspects related to real work actions.
Reification	Tacit-to-Action	Process/Procedure	The activity of bringing tacit knowledge into action (e.g. translating a mental model of a process activity into the actual operating tasks)

Knowledge Work Activities

As can be seen in the table above these seven activities involve moving between tacit and explicit knowledge. The apply to both declarative and procedural knowledge.

Examples of tacit and explicit knowledge

Socialization

Socialization is the level of interaction between, and communication of, various actors within an organization, which leads to the building of personal familiarity, improved communication, and problem solving. Often called learning the roles, this is the the process by which an individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an organizational role. Socialization encourages two-way information exchange, builds and establishes relationship trust, and enable transparency of information.

Socialization creates an operating style, enabling people to communicate with each other, have a language that they all understand and behavioral styles that are compatible. It reinforces basic assumptions and shares espoused values by helping create common norms and compatible cultures.

Socialization enables many influencing tactics which makes it critical for change management activities.

Introspection

The exploration of our experiences. Introspection can arise naturally but it can also arise deliberatively, for example journaling.

Introspection can also include retrospection, especially as a group activity. This is the strength of lessons learned.

Externalization

The work of making the tacit explicit. Knowledge management as continuous improvement.

Combination

The combination of knowledge drives innovation and a learning culture. This includes the ability to identify different sources of knowledge, understand different learning processes, and combine internal and external knowledge effectively.

Knowledge combination capability generates through exchange of knowledge between individuals and work teams is a process that allows the transfer of knowledge to the organization and that can be applied to develop and improve products and processes.

Internalization

As we move towards qualification we internalize knowledge.

Conceptualization

The insights gained from doing and observing work. Deliberative learning.

Reification

The process of translating work-as-imagined into work-as-done through work-as-prescribed on a continuous loop of improvement. The realm of transformative learning.

Knowledge management & effective change management

At ASQ BOSCON 2019 I spoke on “Knowledge management & effective change management.” From my proposal:

An effective change management system includes active knowledge management, leveraging existing process and product knowledge; capturing new knowledge gained during implementation of the change; and, transferring that knowledge in appropriate ways to all stakeholders. This session will focus on three key areas of knowledge management as it enables change. It will provide an understanding of the principles of knowledge management, including: transforming data into information; the acquisition and creation of knowledge; and the some shared best practices for dissemination and using information and knowledge for the purpose of change management and building a quality culture.

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Making Learning a Part of Everyday Work

Cultivating expertise, in short learning, is critical to building a quality culture. Yet, the urgency of work easily trumps learning. It can be difficult to carve out time for learning in the inexorable flow of daily tasks. We are all experienced with the way learning ends up being in the lowest box on the 2×2 Eisenhower matrix, or however you like to prioritize your tasks.

For learning to really happen, it must fit around and align itself to our working days. We need to build our systems so that learning is an inevitable result of doing work. There are also things we as individuals can practice to make learning happen.

What we as individuals can do

Practice mindfulness. As you go about your daily job be present and aware, using it as an opportunity to ability to learn and develop. Don’t just sit in on that audit; notice and learn the auditor’s tactics and techniques as you engage with her. Ask product managers about product features; ask experts about industry trends; ask peers for feedback on your presentation skills. These kinds of inquiries are learning experiences and most peers love to tell you what they know.

Keep a to-learn list. Keep a list of concepts, thoughts, practices, and vocabulary you want to explore and then later later explore them when you have a few moments to reflect. Try to work a few off the list, maybe during your commute or at other times when you have space to reflect.

Build learning into your calendar. Many of us schedule email time, time for project updates, time to do administrative work. Make sure you dedicate time for learning.

Share meaningfully. Share with others, but just don’t spread links. Discuss why you are sharing it, what you learned and why you think it is important. This blog is a good example of that.

What we can build into our systems

Make sure our learning and knowledge management systems are built into everything we do. Make them easy to use. Ensure content is shared internally and leads to continuous improvement.

Ensure learning is valued.

Plan for short-term wins. There is no nirvana, no perfect state. Ensure you have lots of little victories and shareable moments. Plan for this as part of your schedules and cycles.

Learning is a very effective lever for system improvement. At the very least it gives us the power to “add, change, evolve or self-organize system structure” (lever 4) and can also start giving us ways to change the paradigm (lever 2) and eventually even transcend paradigms (lever 1).

Lessons Learned and Change Management

One of the hallmarks of a quality culture is learning from our past experiences, to eliminate repeat mistakes and to reproduce success. The more times you do an activity, the more you learn, and the better you get (within limits for simple activities). Knowledge management is an enabler of quality systems, in part, to focus on learning and thus accelerate learning across the organization as a whole, and not just one person or a team.

This is where the” lessons learned” process comes in. There are a lot of definitions of lessons learned out there, but the definition I keep returning to is that a lessons learned is a change in personal or organizational behavior as a result from learning from experience. Ideally, this is a permanent, institutionalized change, and this is often where our quality systems can really drive continuous improvement.

Lessons learned is activity to lessons identified to updated processes — Lessons Learned

Part of Knowledge Management

The lessons learned process is an application of knowledge management.

Lessons identified is generate, assess, and share.

Updated processes (and documents) is contextualize, apply and update.

Lessons Learned in the Context of Knowledge Management

Identify Lessons Learned

Identifying lessons needs to be done regularly, the closer to actual change management and control activities the better. The formality of this exercise depends on the scale of the change. There are basically a few major forms:

After action reviews: held daily (or other regular cycle) for high intensity learning. Tends to be very focused on questions of the day.
Retrospective: Held at specific periods (for example project gates or change control status changes. Tends to have a specific focus on a single project.
Consistency discussions: Held periodically among a community of practice, such as quality reviewers or multiple site process owners. This form looks holistically at all changes over a period of time (weekly, monthly, quarterly). Very effective when linked to a set of leading and lagging indicators.
Incident and events: Deviations happen. Make sure you learn the lessons and implement solutions.

The chosen formality should be based on the level of change. A healthy organization will be utilizing all of these.

Level of Change	Form of Lesson Learned
Transactional	Consistency discussion After action (when things go wrong)
Organizational	Retrospective After action (weekly, daily as needed)
Transformational	Retrospective After action (daily)

Successful lessons learned:

Are based on solid performance data: Based on facts and the analysis of facts.
Look at positive and negative experiences.
Refer back to the change management process, objectives of the change, and other success criteria
Separate experience from opinion as much as possible. A lesson arises from actual experience and is an objective reflection on the results.
Generate distinct lessons from which others can learn and take action. A good action avoids generalities.

In practice there are a lot of similarities between the techniques to facilitate a good lessons learned and a root cause analysis. Start with a good core of questions, starting with the what:

What were some of the key issues?
What were the success factors?
What worked well?
What did not work well?
What were the challenges and pitfalls?
What would you approach differently if you ever did this again?

From these what questions, we can continue to narrow in on the learnings by asking why and how questions. Ask open questions, and utilize all the techniques of root cause analysis here.

Then once you are at (or close) to a defined issue for the learning (a root cause), ask a future-tense question to make it actionable, such as:

What would your advice be for someone doing this in the future?
What would you do next time?

Press for specifics. if it is not actionable it is not really a learning.

Update the Process

Learning implies memory, and an organization’s memories usually require procedures, job aids and other tools to be updated and created. In short, lessons should evolve your process. This is often the responsibility of the change management process owner. You need to make sure the lesson actually takes hold.

Differences between effectiveness reviews and lesson’s learned

There are three things to answer in every change

Was the change effective – did it meet the intended purposes
Did the change have any unexpected effects
What can we learn from this change for the next change?

Effectiveness reviews are 1 and 2 (based on a risk based approach) while lessons learned is 3. Lessons learned contributes to the health of the system and drives continuous improvements in the how we make changes.

Citations

Lesson learned management model for solving incidents. (2017). 2017 12th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2017 12th Iberian Conference On, 1.
Fowlin, J. j & Cennamo, K. (2017). Approaching Knowledge Management Through the Lens of the Knowledge Life Cycle: a Case Study Investigation. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 61(1), 55–64.
Michell, V., & McKenzie, J. (2017). Lessons learned: Structuring knowledge codification and abstraction to provide meaningful information for learning. VINE: The Journal of Information & Knowledge Management Systems, 47(3), 411–428.
Milton, N. J. (2010). The Lessons Learned Handbook : Practical Approaches to Learning From Experience. Burlington: Chandos Publishing.
Paul R. Carlile. (2004). Transferring, Translating, and Transforming: An Integrative Framework for Managing Knowledge across Boundaries. Organization Science, (5), 555.
Secchi, P. (Ed.) (1999). Proceedings of Alerts and Lessons Learned: An Effective way to prevent failures and problems. Technical Report WPP-167. Noordwijk, The Netherlands: ESTEC

Knowledge Work is the product

Johanna Rothman recently provided some insightful thoughts about Project Work vs Product Work. While focused on software, Johanna has some points that are valuable outside of software as she focuses on the importance of long-lived teams, applying a product work mindset to team functions.

The more we create long-lived teams who have already learned how to work together, the easier it is to work together. Even if that work is project-based work.

I think the critical thing for me is how much we have to view each team, each project as having as one of it’s key deliverables knowledge management.

However, we also need to recognize that in this day-and-age the modern corporation is a transient collective. Companies do not do a great job of showing loyalty, there are a lot of options for the modern knowledge worker, and people regularly move on.

For me, this is why it is so important for not just projects, but day-to-day work to have as part of the inherent ways of working, processes to bring the tacit to explicit. The lessons-learned is a great place to start but we should be constantly be striving to identify “what have we learned”, “what do we need to make explicit” and “how do we make it explicit” as part of our work.

Knowledge management Circular_Process_6_Stages (for expansion)

Returning to the 6 stages of knowledge management:

1. Have a way to capture what knowledge bits. For example, if you have a visual board, make sure this is explicitly part of the board. Make it part of your day-to-day.
2. As a team assess the collected captured (and generated) knowledge and determine what is suitable for retaining.
3. Share it – pass it up, pass it down. Make it available by tying it into your companies knowledge management system.
4. Turn it into artifacts that are reusable. Pre-job briefings, procedures, work instructions, whatever is relevant.
5. Live it. Confirm you are using it.
6. Remember knowledge management artifacts are living. Things change and need to be updated. We can always refine. Continuous improvement is key.