Sharing Knowledge by Design
Sharing Knowledge by Design - Building Intellectual Capital in a Virtual World by Nancy Settle-Murphy and Stan Garfield
In this Communiqué, jointly authored by Chrysalis principal Nancy Settle-Murphy and Stan Garfield, Hewlett-Packard's worldwide Knowledge Management Leader for Consulting & Integration Services, we map out ideas about how team leaders can create a knowledge-sharing system in their own virtual backyard. Who knows? One relatively modest knowledge-sharing system may be the springboard by which an enterprise-wide system is born.
The authors provide a set of ten ideas on how to build knowledge-sharing into the fabric of teams and into the organization as a whole. The focus is on growing the capacity for knowledge sharing in the organization, rather than on any specific KM technologies.
The piece also includes a link to Stan Garfield's Setting up a Knowledge Management Program: Guidelines, Resources and Tools, which is a list of priorities, strategy and goals for KM programs. He also includes a list of resource, including a pointer back to this blog. (Thanks!)
I got itchy when I read the Chrysalis piece for a few reasons. There are some very practical pieces of advice, but it rarely gets to the point of reality. It is high level and easy to say yes to, but hard to internalize and do. Here are a few examples.
1. It suggests you set up a community of practice by starting a mailing list. Uh, a mailing list is not a CoP and you don't just set up a CoP... it is a living breathing human group formation, not just a list of emails and some articles. (I know, overreacting here.)
2. It suggests that KM needs to be driven by leadership when we know in practice, that this is not that common and when really great knowledge sharing is happening, it often comes from the mid level down where people NEED the knowledge, not at the level where someone is collecting it for the organization. (I think I'm getting rebellious and starting to suggest that people should have KM initiatives and CoPs that are ground up acts of rebellion and spirit in an organization, not a task imposed from above!)
I'm getting worried that we are missing the point with our evangelism of knowledge sharing, creating lists and formulas. I'm not sure what I'm grasping at, but I FEEL it. I figured you could relate to that Jack!