Blythe's Recorded Reflections

Random Star Wars Post

This post is not KM related and probably violates some kind of unwritten blogging rule, but did anyone see the new Star Wars movie? I saw it over the weekend and thought it rocked. The story and the special effects. If you haven't seen it and you are into that kind of stuff, I recommend it.

Back to the blogging rules...are there any? How many people have I irritated by posting a random thought? You can be honest. I might learn something. -CTM

[Courtney Mohr's Radio Weblog]

Hey Courtney - saw your blog about Star Wars - I saw the movie this past weekend too. Did you see my posting about my KM quote from Star Wars? It was my way of combining entertainment and reflecting on knowledge management all in one exercise. I was not irritated by your blog, but just one vote here.

What makes a Great Process Owner in a Knowledge Economy?

The conversation at the end of class was a new way to describe why it is so hard to "do" process but the extra KM wrap-around help is required not an optional item for the effort. If in the industrial economy productivity was defined as targeted output with minimum error/minimal input with a clear focus on reducing the input in terms of cost, effort, and cycle time, then in the knowledge economy productivity is defined as innovative and contextually applicable output/current input with a clear focus on creating some new output with the current input. So, what is radically different is context is king and innovation breeds growth in change versus stability, meaning a constant changing context.

So with this clearer picture of a process in it's most robust sense - what makes a great process owner today? (Atleast within an HR organization I know and love)

Define & maintain process maps
Determine key inputs and outputs (knowledge, information, data, people, & capital)
Document the whys behind process decisions (sequence or administrative steps) and record these in the process documentation
Create standard tools and techniques (including technology, policies, experts contacts, reference tools, templates, workflow automation, scripts, etc...)
Process perfomer role performance expectations
Process performance measures (cost, delivery(cycle time), and quality)
Declared link of process to Line of Business Scorecard Measures or Value measures
Identify linkages between processes inside and outside of functional system as well as business processes.
Gather service-level feedback from HR Delivery on a quarterly basis
Communicate process measure results quarterly to HR community with contextualized feedback (whys behind measures) and proposed actions based on results
Steward process analysis that uncovers trends, seeks root causes through collaborative problem solving, described links to dependencies, and tackles leverage points.
Build variations ot the process to accomodate unique Line of Business, role, or volume/scale needs or due to differences in regional infrastructure.
Gather feedback from users on tools and process in multiple ways
Gather, analyze and share information from users on average time to complete tasks and time-saving tips
Communicate decision about process as a result of analysis.

Did I miss anything?

Applying UHC Experiences to our Project

The conversation tonight had some interesting application to Ravi and my project...As the presenter discussed the "members"...It reminded me of the intended audience of the site Ravi and I are working on, Course Owner, Generalist, Recruiter, and HR Leader and how the likes and dislikes mentioned tonight of UHC's members might relate to the HR audience and their likes and dislikes with a community site? I chunked the comments into what, how and who and put like and dislike next to each other to see if some insights emerged for the community site audience.

WHAT:

Liked about the What - Current and accurate information, Multidisciplinary discussions, diversity of feedback
Disliked about the What - too much information, did not know enough about people that were submitting
Insight about the What - Current, accurate, integrated, targeted, contextualized --> different views for each of these communities?

HOW:

Liked about the How - convenient, quick to use, fast response time, easy to use, email notification
Disliked about the How - confusing to navigate, difficult to gain entrance, preference for list server communications
Insight about the How - Convenient, secure/easy balance, feedback, quick --> How can we provide feedback to users?

WHO:

Liked about the Who - Increased collaboration and sharing among UHC members
Disliked about the Who - not much participation; did not hold interest
Insight about the Who - increased sharing with those already sharing, no particvipation will kill it --> Which audience community already shares? about what?

KM Study of Star Wars

It may be that this class has clouded my perspective on life so that I now see references to knowledge management everywhere. When watching Star Wars there was a comment that went something like, you as a Jedi should know the difference between knowledge and wisdom. Isn't the whole Jedi training regimen about wisdom? Knowing right from wrong and understand how to discipline oneself? It struck me that although this was clearlyu set far in the future and they had made major progressions in artificial intelligence (droids and modified clones) the difference between knowledge and wisdom is still something that is taught through apprenticeship and reflection. Why else would Yoda speak in hints and riddles that end with a pronoun?

Process Management Software

Haven't blogged for a while - had some technology difficulties not related to Userland - Computer crashed and burned. Now it is alive and well - I think.

I found the conversation last week about tools an interesting one. Specifically as related to my project - building a portal for process information that can become woven into the tools users already use to do their jobs.

I found a product by Nimbuspartners (UK firm www.nimbuspartners.com) called Control that has a very cool product but I am wondering who else plays in this enterprise process management space. We need to evaluate other players in this space.

The coolest piece of this software is the ability to enter assumptions about the cost of time and the time it takes to do tasks and to model costing for resources - a very important feature for service processes. It also seems to allow for authoring of process maps as web-pages that could be put on our interanet portal so that we do not have ot worry about end-user licenses but just the authoring licenses - so it could be a very inexpensive way to communicate and support process changes.

Connecting Systems Thinking & Knowledge Management?

If you take the following statements to be true:

A - The definition of Knowledge Management is Information + Context + Goal.

B - The definition of a system is considered to be a collection of organized and arranged parts that interact together to function as a whole.

C - Systems thinking addresses three levels of explanation for a system
1 - The event "There was a robbery last night at 7-11"
2 - The pattern of behavior over time "Robberies over the past 3 months have increased"
3 - The systematic or structural causes of behavior "Job loss, poverty, police persence and other variables have impacted the number of robberies"

Then does it makes sense that within systems thinking:
A - the event is considered information or data
B - the pattern of behavior over time is contextualized information, and
C - the goal is to determine the structural causes of behavior.
If the event and pattern of behavior over time combine to help reaach the goal of determining the structural cause of behavior, and this together is knowledge management.

I found this connect interesting because systems thinking is a methodology for crafting strategy, diagnosing issues, business planning, and contingency scenario planning - areas that are the professed targets of ambitious knowledge managers. So could it be that this is in fact a knowledge management process?

Prof/Peer Question: Problems Searching My Own Site?

I tried to search my own site using Google and was unable to do so, here are the directions on the google site for how to do this (which I believe I followed).

http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html#domain

I searched for one of my own postings "weblogs everywhere" by entering the following into the google search box:

weblogs everywhere site: http://radio.weblogs.com/0106065/

It found nothing?? Any suggestions?

Weblogs everywhere!

Here is a link to thoughts on weblogs from David Gurteen, a KM Guru from the UK. I was surprised to see him discuss this topic at length in his monthly newsletter. (BTW: I subscribe to and enjoy his monthly newsletter on KM.) He also some interesting things on AARs on his site.

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/0/4E208DEFEB28267780256B8F004954FF/

Profile and Experience with KM -

I am an OD professional who has experience implementing KM initiatives. I took a theoretically rich class last quarter on KM where I was introduced to literary giants and humbled greatly.

Beginning to build an online portfolio at www.blythewestbrook.com if interested in reading more about my work experience.

KM noodling lately has been on how tacit knowledge supports service process development and execution.

Also just checked out new search engine that is supposed to give google a run for the money - nifty. www.teoma.com

Initial Posting

After a quick introduction to this tool in KM class - I was able to swiftly get my own weblog up and running. Hope to add some thoughts on the readings for tonight and next week later this week.

I think when I complete my charter for people process repository (including a future vision of robust workflow) it will help me scope what peice of this project is achievable to complete during this quarter for the "group" project.