Far Wise in Knowledge Management

9 Minutes

Not so long ago I took a subscription to download and read e-books. After the first book that I finished I got some statistics. One of them shocked me: the average duration of a reading session for this book, was 9 minutes. So for only 9 minutes in a row on average I would read the book and then put it away and do something else. I know I switch a lot between books, as I always read several books at the same time. But 9 minutes…

I wondered how I used to do all the reading for my PhD thesis in the past. Every researcher does a thorough literature research and I was not different. I remembering sitting in my office at the university, reading all these articles (printed on paper, how bad) and drinking loads of tea. Once in a while I would get up, chat with my colleagues, go to the washrooms and read again. Why (and how?) was I able to do this at that time, to focus on reading, and why am I no longer able to do this now? Or am I romanticizing my picture of the past and was I as easily distracted as I am these days?

One big difference is that at that time (1993-1998), Internet wasn’t so ‘interesting’, full with information, news in so many shapes (like Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and so on). Plus I came from doing my Master’s, which also involved lots of reading and concentrating on pieces of text.

Distraction, (lack of) focus, task switching – these are recurring topics, for me but also in the many books and blogs that I read. The metric in the e-book was a good reminder for me to stop doing all these things that I know are very unproductive. I like the Pomodoro technique, because I think this came close to my way of working during my PhD time. Basically, using a pomodoro-shaped kitchen timer, you work/study/read for 25 minutes uninterrupted and then take a short break. After a few pomodoros you’ll take a longer break. It’s a simple method and it works well, as long as you turn off all distraction (which is a good idea in itself). This way I should be able to get a higher average for reading duration on my next book!

Consortium for Service Innovation Member Summit 2019

This is a post from last year that was waiting to get posted (oops). 

Beginning of April 2019, I attended the annual Member Summit from the Consortium for Service Innovation. It was the first time for me, although I had visited smaller European (team) meetings. The location for this event was Cape Neddick in Maine (US), another 'new' in the list for me. For me this Member Summit was especially exciting, as Greg Oxton (former Director of the Consortium) and I were going to present the Intelligent Swarming framework. Theme of this year's summit was "Big knowledge and digital transformation". There is a great recap on YouTube by the Consortium (note that Matt avoids pronouncing my last name, as did Greg at the Summit despite practicing many times). 

Ten weeks working from home!

Like almost everybody, I work from home since mid-March. I had done it before, when we moved abroad I could finish my projects working from home. At the end of the day I had to call someone, for some social interaction. Also, I remember how efficient it was, having less distraction or meetings that weren’t related to the projects.

So, in March, I didn’t need much to settle to a new rhythm. I do a project with a not very technology-oriented organization, so it was interesting to observe my colleagues learning to use Zoom and finding home-work balance (especially difficult for those with children). We agreed to “talk” every morning online and helped each other with the tools. I think we all learned new digital skills (myself included). Even the project wasn’t delayed as much as I feared. Most of my colleagues look very much forward to the day that we can get back to the office. I have mixed feelings. As much as I miss the chatting, coffee breaks and lunches with my colleagues, I don’t miss the commute to Amsterdam (one hour by train). It saves me a lot of time and I can sleep longer, which is an advantage as well.

I read a (Dutch) study that shows similar results. Many workers would prefer to keep on working from home because it saves them travel time (68%) and the flexibility in spending time (61%). People that want to go back to the office, say that they miss their colleagues (59%), they benefit from the change of environment (39%) and are more focused in the office (35%).

Managers probably had to go through a change as well, mainly in trust. Before, one of the main reasons for not allowing people to work from home, is that they didn’t trust work would get done. Now, there was no choice. And, surprise, work got done! In my project, we lost a week because we all had to get settled in our home office and then we continued our work. It’s just too bad we couldn't celebrate the finalization of the project. We celebrated it virtually, but it doesn’t feel the same. Some things are not the same on a distance!

Sharing knowledge of experts

Today I read an article from Dorothy Leonard with James Martin in HBR online, titled "How your organization's experts can share their knowledge". I like the work of Dorothy Leonard, loved her book "Deep smarts", so I started reading right away.

On a side note, I realize I haven't blogged for a long time, meaning I never finished the drafts that I started. It has been a crazy time, especially in summer when my boyfriend suddenly got very ill (bacterial eye infection that took his sight in one eye - he's feeling much better now though we still have to wait if his sight will return) at the same time as I was training for a 50 kilometer trail run, so finding time to run between hospital visits and later assisting in my boyfriend's medication. A deep and high (I finished the 50k) in a few months time took all my attention.

Anyway, back to the article on expert knowledge sharing. Leonard talked about the difficulty of knowledge sharing by experts before in her book "Deep smarts". In this paper she comes with a new term, a "knowledge cascade". It is "the diffusion of experts' "deep smarts" to and through multiple learners in a way that minimizes the burden on the experts". I like this concept, as experts are often asked to solve the difficult issues (that require their attention) and perhaps coach people and answer questions at the same time. Leonard and Martin describe four ways to create this knowledge cascade. They give an important role to the "nexpert", basically the person next in line to the expert, who is the first to learn from the expert. The four ways are: Pay it forward, Present a challenge, Set up a 'campfire' and Translate.

Pay it forward means that the nexpert directly teaches or mentors others from what they've learned from the expert. In the second, present a challenge, the nexpert creates a scenario or problem-set based on the expert's experience. This is a bit more difficult than the first to develop, but for the learner a better way to actively learn than just listening. I liked the idea of setting up a 'campfire'. This is a meeting of a mix of experts and novices in which the nexpert presents lessons, which are discussed and expanded, which generates new knowledge. The final way to cascade knowledge is translation. It means creating an artifact that captures the expert's knowledge so it can be passed down to others. Examples are guidelines, a checklist or a wiki. This sounds like "externalization" in the SECI model by Nonaka and Takeuchi (from tacit to explicit knowledge).

It's a short article, with four suggestions (there are probably more) to use the expert's knowledge and experience without putting all the burden on him/her. 

 

Still overloaded with information

Once in a while an article or research gets published about how people feel overloaded with information. Lately it was a Dutch study (article in Dutch) that got a lot of attention, while it actually told not much new. 28 % of employees felt overloaded with information in 2018, an increase of 3% compared to 2014. When we studied information overload (more than 10 years ago!), it was mainly email that caused the feeling - nowadays it's a combination of email, mobile phone and app messages. What made this study interesting is that the researchers dug a bit deeper than the usual "do you suffer from information overload" question. 60,000 Employees between 15 and 75 of age were questioned. The topic information overload was part of a bigger research question about working conditions in the Netherlands.

So from the study we learn that higher educated people suffer more than lower educated employees. There was no difference measured between men and women. Managers complain most about the number of information they get, people in the ICT-industry are the second in the list. For a large percentage of the people who suffer, it was reason to think about finding another job. The last finding indicates that it's a serious issue, but I wonder if it would really help to change jobs. Do people expect that there will be less information overload in another company? Managers will probably still get information from 'above' (their leaders) and from 'below' (the team members they manage).

Questions that come to my mind (I didn't read the details of the study): is it the quantity of information or the quality? Our own study indicated that especially the lack of quality was an issue (people were wondering why they got this message, what was expected from them and had to interpret the information to find out what was in it for them). Although nowadays I can imagine quantity of information has increased, so it will be a combination. Another question: is it a personal lack of skills, habits or it is a bigger, more generic issue? Has quality of information gone down (think fake news), which makes it harder to filter out what is useful (so then even good skills aren't sufficient). Maybe AI can help us in future to filter and select the information we need.

I'm afraid that information overload is an issue that will stay, for a long time at least. We can partly help ourselves by rigurously cutting off the flow (unsubscribe to channels, less apps, etcetera), ignore the feeling of missing out. Changing habits is incredibly hard, but it's a place to start where we are in control.

 

 

 

Intelligent Swarming Framework published

Something I worked on for the last few months, the framework for Intelligent Swarming, has been published by the Consortium for Service Innovation. Before you think I did this on my own, let me add that I was one of three authors. There were bits and pieces of information about Intelligent Swarming in slides, workshop notes, case descriptions present, but it was time to structure it and write it down. I was picking Greg Oxton's brain, who knows more about Intelligent Swarming than anyone else. He's called "Father of KCS", but I think it applies to IS as well. I'm glad the job is done and I'm proud of the result. I know it's a first version and I'm sure more versions and updates will follow as companies gain more experience with this way of working. As Greg put is: this framework is more a "what" and "why" for Intelligent Swarming than a "how", as the way IS is filled in depends so much on the company, like we did at Tricentis.

In short, when swarming in the service organization, we no longer use the tiered model of escalation, but a network of expertise. The model depends on collaboration to solve issues and the "intelligent" refers to getting the issue to the person who can best solve it and finding the right experts who can help. Collaboration means asking for help or offering help and we use technology to support this (think: how do people know you need help, how do you ask for help, how can others offer help?). The framework explains that this model is efficient, but not in all cases. Whether Intelligent Swarming is right for your organization depends, amongst other things, on the complexity of the issues that you're trying to solve. 

 

Resilient Service Organizations – Conference visit

When I saw the program (in Dutch) of Srvision & Trends in Tooling 2019, I had more than one reason to be enthusiastic. Resilience organizations is a topic that interests me, so the theme “Service Resilience” was one reason to attend. The other is that one of the presenters talks about swarming in combination with the Cynefin framework. Since I refer to his work in the upcoming Intelligent Swarming framework, I thought it would be nice to hear (and meet, if possible) Jon Hall talk. Here is my summary of the day. All presentations can be found in a Dropbox folder, as well as pictures drawn during the presentation. Also, read the blog post of the organization (“Bouncing back with ITIL4).

Can we read too many books?

[I had this post in draft version for a long time, but never finished it. The question "Can one read too many books?" is again relevent now I'm member of the jury for management book of the year 2019 and I had to read a large selection of management books for the first round]

A while ago I read a Dutch article, called "The 6 dangers of reading too many management books". I wanted to post a comment about it, but I'm so annoyed now to see that I didn't save the link! So, all I can reflect on is the title.

Can one read too many books, or management books in particular? I love books, so for me it's easy to say "No!". I don't see it as a waste of time and I believe books help me in providing a different point of view and to learn new things. Last year, as member of the jury for Management book of the year 2018, I read about 70 books. I didn't read all of them fully from front to back, still it was a lot of reading. What I can say is that there are not many "good" management books, whatever that qualification means. Of course, a book can still be usefull for a certain reader group. The jury uses a number of criteria for selecting the management book of the year, such as: originality, actuality, lasting and use of reference materials.

Actually, I think there is more danger in reading too few (management) books. I once had a VP who had one favourite book, his Bible, which he referred to all the time (of course, the whole department had to read that one book). Because he hadn't read other viewpoints on the same topic, I found that his viewpoint was too optimistic. That is one thing reading multiple books or articles does, give you several points of view on a topic. 

Maybe a danger of reading too many books, which applies to me, is that they don't stick. I don't use enough what's inside or don't reflect enough on my actions based on what I read in the book. Hence, I don't learn enough from the books that I read. I know it and I always intent to, but then there are new books appearing and I continue reading those books. I think I'm not alone here, otherwise there won't be so many books appearing each year. 

Intelligent Swarming - Tricentis case

A bit more than a year ago (December 2017) I started working with Tricentis (an Austrian software testing company) on our first Intelligent Swarming adoption. I don't think I ever wrote about swarming in this blog, so I have some catching up to do! In short, in an Intelligent Swarm there are no levels 1, 2 or 3, but support engineers collaborate to solve complex issues. To find the right people to make a "swarm", profiles are needed based on skills, experience and interests (hence the "intelligent", for intelligent matching). 

For Tricentis, the change from a tiered support organization to a swarming organization worked out quite well. They soon saw metrics go up and although there were still some hurdles to take, it seemed like the right way of working for Tricentis. I was asked by the Consortium for Service Innovation (that created the Intelligent Swarming principles that we used) to write a case description about Tricentis. You can find it on the website of the Consortium. Even better, I'm currently working on a manual about Intelligent Swarming with the Consortium. This manual is going to be presented at the Member summit in April, so I'll update when it's ready.

Being a shy extrovert

I always thought that I'm an introvert and I've heard people saying it too. I didn't however recognize myself in the book Quiet by Susan Cain and when I did a test, it showed that I'm extrovert. First, I just didn't believe the outcome, but I started looking into the topic introvert / extrovert and think I'm probably a shy extrovert (not scientifically proven though). I love to be around people and love working in teams. I just need to get over the hurdle of the first conversation and please, don't put the spotlight on me. Reading more about it, I see why it's easy to confuse an introvert with a shy extrovert person. Most extrovert people I know are of the outgoing type (and maybe I'm making the same mistake too, by thinking someone is introvert, while being shy extrovert). Over the years I've gotten less shy, apart from the spotlight aspect.