Content Responses:

Predominantly 2 types of responses depending on where

In-situ, in this case wherever the plan is located

While we are looking primarily at text, the responses could actually be a same content type e.g. idea on top of an idea or just a related idea, responding to an youtube video with another video, in this case responding to a plan with another plan that may be similar or related

Ex-situ, example as a link back from elsewhere or even back channels

These off site response could be within the intranet, or outside. I have not seen simple ping backs being implemented within intranets, so we are little far away from this future.

Giving some direction to content responses have been tried for example deBono’s 6 Thinking Hats or simple cost/risk/revenue comments

Emotional Responses:

We will only consider ‘like’ emotional response here, this will get overly complex when we add other emotions e.g. hope/fear, happy/sad, pride/shame

“Why only ‘like’, why not ‘dislike’?” is a fundamental question. Response to this comes from Max Weber "I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am."

If you see too much of what I dislike, you may not like me, and I don’t like it.

So what if there are 20 ‘likes’ for the project plan in question, would you commission them for the project?

Would it affect adversely on recruitment for the project if many ‘dislike’ the plan

Social demand / Cost-benefit Actions:

In our example, Project has a plan > Project has a Manager > Plan has a reviewer > Reviewer is a volunteer > Reviewer spends time (cost) > Reviewer benefits from review > Manager benefits from review > Review costs the Manager > Review costs/benefits others (externality)

While these are not direct actions on the artifact, they provide an important basis for reasons to act. Specifically on the demand side i.e. desire to get the plan reviewed, ability to review, and willingness to review.

Network Actions:

These include share, tag, and follow type actions across a network. Every intranet worth its salt respects its users to subscribe on content, tags, person, groups, with almost no push to inbox actions. Negative action here would be removal from personal stream, reporting spam or abuse.

Another phenomenon that has to be taken into account is the back-channel of social. In the case of a plan, there may be a private email thread floating around or a twitter conversation that neither the PM nor others are even aware. But it happens socially anyways.

Here is the taxonomy for all actions from above

A simple framework for action/change thus in any reasonable sized system should handle all 3 (reason, will and desire). One may be more magnified than the other, and in fact, they should be. When this happens, a series of actions unfolds with no clear attribution possible. These are system responses and agents are playing part. Here is where stories that people tell each other and social objects come in, bringing players from all over the system for action willingly.

A simple metaphor for this framework is the simple head-hand-heart to reason-will-desire respectively. In action/change scenarios, all 3 operate simultaneously, but you can never determine outcomes. If boundary conditions are favorable, outcomes are impactful and always contextual.

Now to orient a bunch of leaders on this head-hand-heart framework is easy, make a list of past failed initiatives like below

When you fill this up, you will notice that the last column will be the most sparsely filled or even empty.

Coming from an industry that runs on perennial initiative fatigue, I was not surprised when I filled one for myself.

Try it …

Collaborate with its original meaning, “to work with” has to be delineated further. “Work” today is non-linear than what it used to be (even 5 years back) and “with” is very disjointed as well.

Continuity typically is on a work item (e.g. system requirement or issue). To achieve continuity within groups there has to be an overlap of function (e.g. development), identity, effort (e.g. of coding), space (a physical space, a code base). Work in Progress items are more suited for continuity, e.g. developers working together on a release (10.3.4 or R14) or version, talk abstracted or abbreviated language among them that lends continuity. End-products are not given much prominence for example the specification itself or any of the process documentation created during the process.

Coordination is for actions done by individuals in a specific time and space (e.g. check *.ini before service start up, capture log immediately after error, build after check in from all developers is complete). Within groups most understand the rules or rituals and follow them, usually there is not much to intervene here. If the number of people that need to be coordinating increases then a linear sequence with fall backs and alternate paths are developed usually by managers. That flowchart is presented in review meetings with no relevance to actual developers. I find Paul Graham’s maker manager distinction very relevant here.

Communication is often a channel decision, and people choose channels that they are most comfortable.

As in managers email, developers list, clients chat or instant message, friends SMS, and family calls

Channel is a tough choice to make specifically because

· enterprise software are aged and fragmented,

· email inbox more and more looks like somebody else’s to do list,

· managers cannot control requirement change over chat messages,

· and documents never are updated

Rule of thumb that has worked for me is take work to a channel where all the parties are already present. If there is no channel, create one and allow free access.

Metrics around velocity or work, closeness of drop dead date, progress on work items, my items (both in and out), are all derivable from most systems. This I feel one of the basic reasons why basecamp succeeds.

Coherence

· is meaning derived from the work,

· is making sense of where we are, and knowing where the effort is going,

· is relating to the bigger picture

This never comes from status meetings with a formatted ppt, most developers consider that meeting as a break and try to speak as less as possible and take back no action forget about coordinated actions. A concept map on the other hand provides a better way to look at things zoomed out or zoomed in, more clearly with relationships and dependencies.

Knowledge manager’s job gets interesting if more than one of these dimensions is handled. Just saying

All images in this post are links, click away. I have checked and rechecked the links, if any are broken do let me know.

Part I

The chapter starts with Daniel Pink portraying the first drawing class of Drawing on the Right Side of the brain experience. The class is structured to trick the left hemisphere then “the mind is free to see relationships and to integrate those relationships into a whole”. If seeing relationships is so critical in what ways can we accomplish this, at least in drawing negative spaces, shadows, distance between features come handy. Start from below to trick the left and activate the right.

Part II

What does it take to see relationships and the 3 types of people

1. Boundary Crossers

Who solve other domain problems with their perspective and leap if thought. Nicholas Negroponte archives from Wired is a great place to start

2. Inventors

Who can get into a flow state and possibly blend concepts from one domain to other. At http://markturner.org/ you can get more details on conceptual blending and how it applies to invention

3. Metaphor Makers

Who can imagine metaphors and forge connections and communicate those experiences to others

Part III

This part explains “What does it take to see the big picture”. Here he explains how entrepreneurs and innovators who have the capacity look holistic, across various aspects prosper.

Part IV

This part explains the final day of the drawing class where he actually accomplishes a better self-portrait. I have been drawing for more than a year now and I personally see significant improvements in the portraits I draw.

Symphony Portfolio

As with every other chapter the portfolio part of this chapter is interesting

Hear Music Activity

Start to hear some great samples from the classical music genre, you can find at least one good rendition with a single search.

· Beethoven’s 9 th Symphony

· Mozart’s Symphony 35 Haffners Symphony

· Mahler’s 4 th Symphony in G Major

· Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture

· Haydn’s Symphony 94 in G Major Surprise

Hit the Newsstand Activity

I would say hit the library on a Friday and browse older issues of magazines that you have never read, borrow them for the weekend

Draw Activity

One of the exercises that Daniel Pink suggests is a 5 line self-portrait, try it. It is fun, with just 5 lines can you draw your face?

Maintaining Metaphor log Activity

This is a simple exercise; just capture any compelling or surprising metaphors that you come across. Not just that try capturing metaphors that you use by simply being aware of what you are speaking. One week and your log will be so wide and rich, after this you can actually see the power behind creating meaning with the metaphors.

Following Links Activity

It is a fun exercise to follow just a single link from a web page and going deeper and deeper. After you have reached the 6 th level, just try making the connections between them all the way back to where you started and see how we can actually learn by serendipity.

Random Website generates random urls. Another great way is Google Reader Play.

Look For Solutions in Search of Problems Activity

Using 2 powerful questions from Yale professors Ian Ayres and Barry Nalebuff to examine existing solutions (possibly in your project)

· Where else would it work?

· Would flipping it work?

Why Not? How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small

Creating an Inspiration Board Activity

When on a project, just keep tacking compelling pictures, fabric, page to a physical board. Over a period it will serve as a wild collage from which connections can be made and will always expand and enliven your work.

Reading References

http://theliterarylink.com/metaphors.html

With some limited period notice (i.e. 1 day), Google released the following http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2011/10/new-in-reader-fresh-design-and-google.html

What this means now is most of the functionality that I was using with bundles and shared items from Google Reader will no longer be available.

All this is done in favor of Google+ with the assumption that my network/a circle in Google+ and the human readers on this modest blog are portable across.

That is so not true.

Anyway with such grand user demography and usage data at click level that Google has,

even a mature product’s evolution seems to me as a victim of some arbitrary decision.

I want to give a very simple illustration of a business model. Most of you in India at least may have seen this business, the Yellow Coin Telephone.

All I knew was, I pay 1 Rupee and talk for a couple of minutes, but how does that owner make money, how does Idea make money, what is the investment, what is the margin, how and when does it break even, are there service levels that are necessary for this, and more questions

Here is how it works,

CAPEX: If I want a phone, I place an order with Idea paying 3500 bucks. Idea installs the phone and gives me free 500 bucks talk time (zero for BSNL).

PRICE: For every call made I get to keep 40 paisa (as against 30 paisa for BSNL payphone)

BREAKEVEN: If 3000/0.40 calls are made, i.e. at 7500 calls I break even, after which anything I get is profit, For 7500 calls to be made it typically takes less than a month in a bus stand (where people run out of charge or do not have a mobile phone), may be more than a year in a not so busy locality.

SLA: My phone has to be up all the time, no excuses, and the operator guarantees this with a penalty clause (not in BSNL)

SELLING: No S G A here

OPEX: Space, and nominal running expenses

When you visualize a business in such real terms, it becomes much clearer, don’t you think?

Scenario Based Training Klein Hintze.dotx

1. A billing leakage, that is if I do not start billing the new support personnel as soon as possible I am losing billable hours

2. An additional problem, if elder/more experienced people are left to support results in reduced profitability (experience costs money)

3. A pain, as there is 25% attrition/retirement in the industry on average and makes the problem more substantive

This is a KM problem and needs attention as it affects business directly. If you are a KM Manager, really only skill that is needed is what Klein calls as "helping practitioners "tell stories"", not just any story but stories that uncover what makes an expert expert.

Stories are inherently emotional and deep domain. For KM Managers it is easy trap as it has most elements of distraction like conflicts, pressure, politics, a new language of the domain itself that we cannot fathom, among others. So when interviews or structured elicitation is done here is the recommendation on what to gather without getting distracted

1. Cues and patterns that experts see but novices don’t, I used to illustrate with the military story of counting tanks from Klein but over a period, these were replaced with real internal stories. For the practitioner to trust you, a minimum level of understanding the expert’s job is mandatory.

2. Heuristic is one of the major dimensions in the ASHEN framework where experts generally have a short (not necessarily safe) way to tackle a situation. If you cannot make the expert articulate the heuristic, even after conversion the captured knowledge will be vacant. But if you just have the experts rattle out heuristics, it is of no use either. The conditions/situation are more important than the captured heuristic.

3. Decisions made, in the typical heroes journey there is this increasing level of conflict making decisions harder. In experts’ life, this increasing level of conflict is prevalent and generally, they are very much aware of what the situation was and what forced them one way or other.

4. Anomalies in situations are the anti-climax type incidents, examples here may be limited in number but are very close to the heart for the expert, and they remember mostly why it is an anomaly. Even if this does not come out in a single interview, over a period this comes to surface.

Typical Critical Decision Method (CDM) involves 4 sweeps as below

1. Incident Identification

2. Timeline verification

3. Deepening

4. What if queries

Working Minds: A Practitioner’s Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis has excellent practice guidelines on how to do CDM and creating a record of the lived experience. What you get as output is not a Standard Operating Procedure, but actually a story of when a SOP will fail and what to do if an expert is not around.

Most PSUs (public sector units) in India report to market how much they provision for gratuity every year.

And gratuity is a simple calculation, viz. Gratuity = 15 / 26 X Number of years of experience X Base salary

With this we can calculate

Number of Man years (experience) lost for the year = ( Gratuity provision X 26 / 15 ) / average base salary

I did this for one of the largest PSUs of India namely State bank of India and here is what I got

Number of employees = 222933

Total Staff Cost = 14480 Cr

Provision for Gratuity = 1565 Cr

Provision for Pension = 2473 Cr

Average Salary = 0.0468 Cr (4.68 lakhs) (this number includes both base salary and other perquisites/bonuses)

Number of Man years (experience) lost for the year (min estimate) = ( 1565 X 26 / 15 ) /0.0468) = 57962 man years

Even if you consider double this average salary as Base salary this accounts for 26000 man years (experience) loss per year.

That is a significant level of experience to lose every year and seeing that provisions have increased by almost 40 times this issue will only get much worse going forward

That is one of the grandest problems of KM I have ever encountered

UPDATED: doubled average salary at retirement as it was more realistic

Knowledge Continuity 3 D

Business continuity (for target vectors like performance, functionality, availability, ability to change, etc in IT Services) is provisioned by Knowledge continuity.

Knowledge Continuity cuts across 3 dimensions

1. People Interface/Relationships

· Such as between roles that work only in few phases (tester, BA, Architect) or between vendor and business user

2. Time

· Such as tenure in domain/account/technology

3. Content

· Such as standard operating procedures and heuristics of how experts handle crisis and how it is traded or exchanged

Common reasons that lead to loss of continuity include

1. Forgetting

2. Attrition

3. Too much or too little governance/processes

KM Strategy

Knowledge management as a strategy for achieving continuity intervenes by each of these dimensions

1. Interface: Building newer relationships across diverse groups

· Participative culture builds relationships and sustains rituals

· Diverse (not in bred) relations are formed as part of social network stimulation

2. Time: Bridging gap between expert and novice

· High Cost Experienced Resource versus Profitability equation

· Concept mapping and expertise transfer as methods to reduce time to become expert in the knowledge domain

3. Content: Sustained Knowledge creation socially

· Wiki as a preferred tool, how peer review helps in increasing quality of wikis, differences between closed and open wikis

· Structured Story Listening methods and AARs (after action reviews)

Success Determinants

Success of such KM strategy will be determined by the following

1. Culture prevalent in the enterprise, specifically drivers that create habits

2. Information and Communications Technology and its social utility value (the bargain)

3. People Policies