We gradually publish results of our research towards the human factor in knowledge management for development. In this post we introduce the knowledge management framework we used to come to the specific questions we used in our research.

Introduction

There are many books written on knowledge management and the authors have come up with an enormous amount of knowledge management frameworks [Browse through examples here]. Some are deceptively simple, others extremely difficult to grasp. The one we find most useful is the very practical model of Collison and Parcell taken from their great book “Learning to Fly”.

We recommend reading this book to fully understand this generative model. There is a summary available through their via their website.

The knowledge management process

A very short outline of the KM model by Collison and Parcell

• People and teams agree on certain objectives. Organization-wide this is the mission and strategy, but on a smaller scale they could be developing a certain policy or building a specific house for instance.
• When people start performing the activities needed to attain the goals they set, they should enter the “knowledge circle”.  Before the team starts a task they could search for experiences with others that did the same assignment once. This promotes learning and prevents people from reinventing the wheel in certain circumstances. During and after the activities reflection on the attained results thusfar and checking with other sources of knowledge might lead to valuable learning opportunities.
• All these learning activities should be connected to some sort of knowledge bank. If you want to learn before you act, you can withdraw knowledge from this source. If you want to contribute, you will have to submit your knowledge somewhere.
• However, it is not possible to capture all knowledge necesarry and available. Therefore it is important to let your team connect with some sort of network of people that have the required knowledge and experience ready to be tapped.
• Finally the environment or culture of the organization surrounds the model, which is critical to strat and support behavior in knowledge processes.

How to apply this knowledge management framework

• Preventing wheel reinvention, praticularly in large international organizations
• Accelerating the integration process following an aquisition or merger
• Identifying, capturing and sharing good practice in organizations
• Dealing with cultural barriers that hold back organizations
• To build, nurture and support networks and CoPs
• Creating a culture of continuous improvement and learning
• Involving leadership in the right behaviors to reinforce knowledge-sharing

We have used this model as a framework for our research, since we think it is practical, simple and complete.

Measuring behavior in knowledge processes

In our research we used the following questions to measure behavior in knowledge processes, extracted from the above mentioned model:

• How often do you actively search for prior experiences within your organization before you start a new assignment?
• When you start a new assignment, how often do you actively search for relevant information from outside your organization?
• How often do you thoroughly reflect on your goals, results, and the process when you finish an assignment?
• How often do you formulate learned lessons into a document that is shared within your organization?
• How often are you active in sharing and discussing lessons learned with people from other organizations?
• How often do you actively participate in a group which is focused at sharing work experiences?

All questions where preceded with a short elaboration of the decribed situation.

Results of the knowledge management research

The research showed the following results:

As you can see in this graph, there is no significant difference between men and women.  Women tend to score a little bit higher on searching for information prior to their tasks, while men score a bit higher on the other four activities, but the differences are very small.

It is interesting to look at the reported frequencies of the knowledge management behavior. When searching for knowledge prior to an assignment searching outside of the organization scored higher than searching inside the organization. We currently analyzing this difference further.

According to the research people do reflect on their activities, but formulating them into a document, and thus contributing to the above mentioned knowledge bank, scores a bit lower.

The same counts for sharing and discussing lessons learned with other organizations. Not surprisingly the non-profit staff scored higher here than the group of people from the private sector.

Finally, though the amount of communication methods have vastly increased over the last years, the participants of the research are not yet using them to the fullest. Futher research is needed what methods and instruments they use and how they use them.

Conclusion

Looking at the reported frequencies there is no significant difference between women and men when it comes to behavior in knowledge processes. Searching outside the organization scores a little bit higher than search for knowledge inside the organization prior to an assignment.

People often reflect after their assignment, but the lessons they learn get captured less frequent into a knowlege bank. Despite of the emergence of social media, being part of a community of practice within the professional context is not yet the common standard.

These are very general outcomes that we presented to share how we developed our questions. A more detailed analysis can be found in other blogposts and the research itself.