Far Wise in Knowledge Management

How projects really work

It's an old one, this cartoon (2006). It's not only funny, there is a truth in it. I found it in a blog posting in our new internal collaboration enviroment.

Download How projects really work

     

(1) (2) (3)

 

(1) How the customer explained it

(2) How the project leader understood it

(3) How the analyst designed it 

Blogging activities - invisible though

I was surprised to see that my last blog post (before yesterday's posting) was from June. Long time ago. I've been active blogging though, but in another blog. My company started an internal online collaboration initiative, based on Lotus Connections. It started in the Software group (I'm in Hardware), but I was part of the pilot group and started my new blog there. In May, this environment was gradually rolled out over the company and I made sure our Hardware Quality group was part of the soft launch. A busy period with lots of boot camps, demonstrations and other promotional activities. Now, everbody is "on", although not everybody is active participant.

It's interesting to see how some people quickly see the benefits of an online collaboration / sharing environment and others only will never use it or they have to be forced. I've met a lot of new people, so then it's easy to feel the benefits. As far as I knew, I'm the only person in Hardware working on knowledge management but now I've met people in other parts of the organization with similar interests and working on similar activities. I can't break silo walls, but on individual level I can at least look for collaboration with other groups. Makes me feel less of a "loner" too (which I don't want to be at all!!).

So if I've been blogging a lot, it was not visible for the outside world. Of course I made use of postings I wrote in this blog, applying what I learned after starting this blog (how to write, about what). The feeling that I have been doing well, in trying to write about things that interest me, thus is not reflected in this blog....

Cleaning up and accountability

You've probably read it on several places: Bloglines is closing down. I was shocked when I read it, I had no idea this could or would be happening. Naive probably, when I thought something I like so much would always be there. Now, I've moved to Google Reader because I prefer a web-based reader.

The good part is to clean up all the blog subscriptions and all blog postings that I saved over the years. Some blogs have died, I just kept them in the list because it was easy or for some postings that I kept "unread". So, it's actually good to be forced to go through them (before the first of October, which gives me a deadline). [Update: closing date is now November 1, 2010)I come across interesting postings and sometime I'm surprised how relevant old postings still are.

In one of those old postings, I found a quote that I like:

This is a story of four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody.
There was an important job to be done and Everybody was asked to do it.
Everybody was sure Somebody would do it.
Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it.
Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybodyʹs job.
Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldnʹt do it.
It ended that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done.

- Unknown 

When I shared this with some people, I thought we should print it on a Delft blue tile and give it to all the managers. To put on the wall, so they'll be remembered all the time. (Although they don't know the Dutch tradition with the tiles)

I'm not sure if those managers will like my idea (our VP did)