Request for Sharing KM practices benchmarks #vision #KM101
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Sahar Khanloo
Dear KM experts & leaders,
My name is Sahar. I am the Global KM Lead for Operations Systems at one of Danone's biggest business unit.
Having been in this role for the past one year I have achieved some successes but also had my fair share of struggles (and learnings!) anchoring KM in our day-to-day business. I am at a point where I would like to exchange some notes about what I have done to date and also look for input and inspiration on how to a) institutionalize but also b) operationalize our KM activities further.
To provide some context: Danone is rolling out different software systems (SAP being one of them) in all their factories worldwide. The software is critical for ensuring the highest quality of our products and for manufacturing them in a sustainable way. We have put in place local expert network that are meant to support end-users and to help us further develop the processes reflected in the software and the ways of working around them. We are currently using two platforms - Facebook Workplace for knowledge networking and communities and Alfresco for storing structured and formal information in the form of documents. There are more things in place than described here, which I can deep-dive into in a 1:1 exchange.
In September I am planning a 3-day workshop with about 50 of our global experts. I would like to present them also with some input into how other companies (ideally also operating in the food-industry) are tackling their challenges around capturing existing knowledge, connecting experts, providing the right organizational requirements to live knowledge management and continuous learning. In particular I would be interested in: communities of practice, incentivization, good practice documentation, KM vision and ROI, being perceived as a business enabler, technical platforms, collaborative mindset on all hierarchy levels. If you are interested in comparing notes and learning from each other about the successes and failures and the challenges still ahead becoming a learning company (in which KM plays a strong role), I would love for you to get in touch. We can set up a call or meet face-to-face. I am located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Thank you all. Have a great day.
Sahar
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Hi Sahar,
Sounds like an exciting time.
I’ll be glad to chat with you. While we don’t do KM-specific consulting anymore (our software is a digital coach for support/operations managers to help them think strategically while still rocking their day jobs), my career has been spent in operations. I’ll be glad to see if there is anything I can do to pay it forward.
Meetme.so/philv_extra dot com
Peace,
Phil
From: sikmleaders@... <sikmleaders@...>
Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2019 8:20 AM To: sikmleaders@... Subject: [sikmleaders] Request for Sharing KM practices_Bench marks
Dear KM experts & leaders,
My name is Sahar. I am the Global KM Lead for Operations Systems at one of Danone's biggest business unit.
Having been in this role for the past one year I have achieved some successes but also had my fair share of struggles (and learnings!) anchoring KM in our day-to-day business. I am at a point where I would like to exchange some notes about what I have done to date and also look for input and inspiration on how to a) institutionalize but also b) operationalize our KM activities further.
To provide some context: Danone is rolling out different software systems (SAP being one of them) in all their factories worldwide. The software is critical for ensuring the highest quality of our products and for manufacturing them in a sustainable way. We have put in place local expert network that are meant to support end-users and to help us further develop the processes reflected in the software and the ways of working around them. We are currently using two platforms - Facebook Workplace for knowledge networking and communities and Alfresco for storing structured and formal information in the form of documents. There are more things in place than described here, which I can deep-dive into in a 1:1 exchange.
In September I am planning a 3-day workshop with about 50 of our global experts. I would like to present them also with some input into how other companies (ideally also operating in the food-industry) are tackling their challenges around capturing existing knowledge, connecting experts, providing the right organizational requirements to live knowledge management and continuous learning.
In particular I would be interested in: communities of practice, incentivization, good practice documentation, KM vision and ROI, being perceived as a business enabler, technical platforms, collaborative mindset on all hierarchy levels. If you are interested in comparing notes and learning from each other about the successes and failures and the challenges still ahead becoming a learning company (in which KM plays a strong role), I would love for you to get in touch. We can set up a call or meet face-to-face. I am located in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Thank you all. Have a great day.
Sahar
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Hi Sahar,
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Congratulations on commencing your KM journey and the progress you have made so far. The challenges you share in your last paragraph are the common sources of challenge in every organisation. The KM journey is unique for every organisation as they start at different places and are looking for different ways to leverage their knowledge to optimise decisions and create value. That said there are patterns of things that can be done to optimise your own strategy. I find getting the people together to facilitate conversations with all the players around strengths and barriers to knowledge flow is a great activity. This produces the tangible outputs of lists of priority projects as judged by the people involved (drives engagement & commitment) AND (perhaps more importantly) builds trust and relationships between the people who will be implementing those projects. This forms the core of your communities of practice (still the best way to execute action on the projects, as well as form a support network for the KMers, as it can become a lonely frustrating path without this). One of the biggest challenges to KM progress in my experience, is too much talk and insufficient visible value generation. It is important that you generate a flow of stories that are shared across the organisation (and beyond) to highlight the benefits that have been created from your KM activities. This may sound oversimplified, but these are the critical elements. Of course there are many things like process, tech, collaborative applications etc. However, the reality is genuine KMers want to be involved with purposeful projects that make a difference. This works best by aligning the people around actionable projects that deliver progress towards organisation goals. The six elements of the Knowledge Ready Organisation (from not for profit KMS Singapore) are a useful guide. These are discussed in my chapter of the free book Knowledge Management Matters Ed by John & Joanne Girard. Good luck with your program. Continue to ask & share here to get supportive feedback. SIKMLeaders is a great example of what you are trying to create internally! Kind regards Dr Arthur Shelley Author, KNOWledge SUCCESSion Founder, Intelligent Answers Producer, Creative Melbourne @Metaphorage +61 413 047 408 On 31 Jul 2019, at 22:20, sahar.khanloo@... [sikmleaders] <sikmleaders@...> wrote:
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Sahar, Thanks for posting in this community. Here are links to articles that address the topics you mentioned.
Regards, Stan |
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Sahar Khanloo
Dear Phil (@Phil Verghis)
Thank you for your interest. I will get in touch with you. Can you send me an email on sahar.khanloo@...? Anyone else also is interested will be great to join and share some KM stories, let me know or email me. Kind Regards, Saar |
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Sahar Khanloo
Dear Arthur,
Thank you so much for replying to the message. And indeed working as collective wisdom and sharing our success or lessons learned can benefit to move to the next level of KM within our organizations where ever they are. I find this group very inspiring, even if not replying every time to the messages but I closely follow up the posts and spend sometime in the week to look for Stan's massive library of information and knowledge (thank you Stan!) I will check the book also which you suggested and take your suggestion on the story telling and of course continue to work on building trust which will be a long but rewarding journey ... Kind Regards, Sahar |
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Guillermo A. Galdamez
Hi Sahar, I would like to add my congratulations as well. You have an exciting challenge ahead of you! There is a lot to unpack in your message, but I'll share some thoughts: KM Benchmarks I whole-heartedly agree with Arthur when he says that "The KM journey is unique for every organisation as they start at
different places and are looking for different ways to leverage their
knowledge to optimise decisions and create value." When it comes to KM, often there is a limited application of a benchmark when comparing your organization to others because it can like comparing apples to oranges. This being said, it can help you and your stakeholders create a shared understanding of where you are, and where you want to go in terms of knowledge management. KM Vision I consider this critical if you want to elevate the KM function to a more strategic role. It needs to be closely aligned with the organization's own vision and objectives. Even if it sounds a bit obvious, a common pitfall is to end up doing KM for the sake of KM. In other words, having no clear link between KM activities and value. What is the value that matters? That is for the business to decide ;) Which brings me to the next point. Stakeholder Buy-in Getting people on board becomes easier if you can demonstrate what value you are delivering to them. My company's bread-and-butter is KM strategy, and we work with a lot of organizations around the globe, in a lot of different industries. One of the best approaches we have found is inspired in the agile methodology: run focused KM pilots. Choose an issue faced by your stakeholder, and run a KM-based solution for 3-6 months. You want to go for the low-hanging fruit: Something that may pose a low risk to the organization but can deliver quick wins. Involve your stakeholders throughout, and build on your successes: Adapt, expand, and iterate on each initiative. I feel like this fits in nicely with your desire to be perceived as a business enabler. A final thought on this: Think of the value created by KM at the organizational level, the team level (i.e. middle management), and individual level. Cultural/mindset change This is usually one of the most difficult challenges. KM means a lot of things to different people (if it means anything at all!). Worse of all, for many of the staff in your organization, KM is one more burden piled on top of their day-to-day responsibilities. The way you incentivize your colleagues will be very different from one organization to the next. Some organizations may respond really well to initiatives like gamification, some colleagues may respond well to monetary incentives, while others may respond well to recognition. Often you will need strong support to overcome bad incentives that encourage people to hoard their knowledge. Hope you find this helpful! I know I didn't address the entirety of your questions, but I will follow up later when I gather more of my thoughts. Best of luck! Guillermo
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