Learning to fly: review of one day Gurteen Bizmedia conference with Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell
2 December 2004, Hammersmith, London

Introduction and speed networking
Presenting a Knowledge-based benchmarking approach
Sharing experience
Creating an Knowledge Asset
Sharing Knowledge
Review of the day
Links and other resources

Presenting a Knowledge-based benchmarking approach

The 'Learning to Fly' conference was really a workshop. An "experiential learning workshop" (Collison, 2004) in fact. How many people have filled in forms from conferences with 'more workshops please' or 'more interactive opportunities please' or 'more focused networking'? I know I have - I did when I visited David Gurteen's SNA conference recently.

After a brief introduction from David, he pulled out a whistle and all the delegates tried 'speed-networking'. We had two minutes to meet any person in the room and discuss anything, before the whistle blew again, and we had to move on to the next person. With a delegate list that read like a roll call of potential conference speakers, this was intriguing; there were people from DFID, the NHS, GSK, KPMG, PWC, the Inland Revenue, BBC, BP, Shell, CAFOD, UNITAR, the UN and more - all of them actively involved in 'KM'.

Presenting a Knowledge-based benchmarking approach
Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell

The point of the day, Chris said, was not for us to watch a selection of animated powerpoint slides, but to get a brief introduction to tools and techniques used by Chris and Geoff (and now many others), originally in BP. Referring to Adrian Ward's definition of KM:

"...It's not about creating an encyclopaedia that captures everything that anybody ever knew. Rather, it's about keeping track of those who know the recipe, and nuturing the culture and the technology that will get them talking..." (Arian Ward, work Frontiers International),

Chris plunged us into a video describing the US Army's astounding KM capabilities (drawn from a hurricane relief example) of distilling information, nurturing active networks and contacts, and ongoing coaching.

Chris broke success in KM down to four high level themes:

• Environment: his nudist beach principle ("...if I have to get naked, I would at least do it where there is relative equality") of shared beliefs, common values, effective peer processes etc.


• Technology: "...common is more important than current."


• Rewards: how to motivate thinking and questioning with a rewards system to encourage innovation while generating
  conversation and pride


• Leadership: Leaders need to be keen and need instant support in digestible form not deeply buried HR documents
  (e.g. how do I show that asking for help is OK?)

He then showed us BP's KM framework, using the metaphor of a "...transactional model with a bank.", where teams and
individuals continuously work to generate and enjoy benefits from having an active knowledgebase and knowledge networks. This was broken down into:

• Learn before: Specifically with the peer assist model (without any managers who invariably carry the
  "politics of hierachies")


• Learn during: Based on the After Action Review (AAR): a fifteen minute debriefing technique from the US
  Army focusing on What was supposed to happen, What actually happened, Why was there a
  difference, and What can you learn from it.


• Learn after: To retrospectively explore your experience from the point of view of someone who is looking
  for knowledge about this issue/project.

We were duly impressed. Chris is clearly a professional presenter with a lot to say about something of great interest to everyone in the room. But where were the case studies?

Geoff stepped in to discuss his work with the UN to combat AIDs. He was seconded by BP to work at the UN, and started
there knowing no-one and very little about AIDs (beyond what most of us are likely to know) - thereby disproving (in
his opinion) the 'six steps' theory (No I don't know Kevin Bacon either). He had worked with Chris in BP (when they
published the original 'Learning to Fly' book).

His belief that any useful tool must be ubiquitously usable (disregarding cultural differences, location etc.) would
be put to the test. There are success stories in the fight against AIDs (e.g. Phayao, Thailand reduced its local H.I.V. prevalance from 18% to 2% between 1991 and 2002) - Geoff's question was how to explore and define what the crucial elements of the Phayao community's success were, and how to communicate these to other communities.

While in Phayao (with doctors, victims, families, academics and other stakeholders) Geoff and the UN team ascertained
10 community practices with which the Phayao community had behaved around the situation. By identifying 5 levels of
competence for each practice, a tool was derived to "... provide conversation between different groups and develop a
unified and realistic approach to the problem...".

This tool is a "... good enough" (Parcell, 2004) table to be filled in by the delegates. It fits nicely on one page of a printed document. It is simple. It encourages the delegates to discuss their position on different competencies, and builds a common language for later communication with different communities.

It is an expressly basic communications tool around which 'expertise' or 'good practice' (or just productive social
behaviour?) could be discussed, 'measured' and compared between communities. From the differences in competence
between communities, it should be possible to match likely 'experts' with 'not-so-experts' in conversational spaces -
ie to share knowledge, develop knowledge assets, and ultimately, to limit the damage AIDs was doing to their
communities.

Once a community had filled in its table, and given itself marks for the different competencies, the measurements
could be represented as a very simple graph. This graph could then be very simply compared with other communities'
graphs to provide an instant (albeit basic) representation of 'who knew what about what', and how to get 'those who
knew' (the sharers) with 'those who didn't (the learners). A cumulation of these graphs develops into a 'River Diagram' - outlining the general know-how of the groups and areas of extreme difference as well as those of general 'low scores'.

From the River Diagram, it is possible to extrapolate a 'step chart' with names of those people/communities who would be best suited to share knowledge - as one will have knowledge to share and one group will have things to learn. But how would you capture the knowledge?

Having shown us this process, Geoff went on to describe the development of a knowledge 'asset' - an instantly accessible living hypertext document outlining the 10 key 'things to know' about a situation. This starts with a meaningful title, links to a set of stories and quotes, to a 'lessons learnt' report, or contacts with experience etc.

He gave us an example from BP, about downsizing. One of the titles was to "run a safety campaign" (not perhaps the first thing a manager considering during the downsizing process). Clicking onto this title the reader finds that, from the experience of other managers during downsizing phases, accidents rise due to workers' stress (it seems obvious when you think about it with hindsight). The reader can find posters of old campaigns, contacts and networks to help the manager (not unlike the US Army example at the beginning).

It wasn't just Geoff and Chris talking about this. We also had a KM practitioners from UNITAR, BBC and the ODI who were invited to tell us how their experience of using these techniques had worked in their environments. Their stories were very different but the themes were the same: focus on creating the correct environment, build the time taken to share knowledge into the organisations' processes, choose good facilitators and keep the information / knowledge alive with continuous knowledge sharing culture (a double loop of learning rather than single loop).

Sharing experience

Otherwise known as the 'Peer Assist', this was the beginning of the interactive bit. (nearly) All the delegates had filled in a knowledge competency table (see above) in advance, and Geoff had produced step charts for us. Each group represented a KM practice. I chose to follow their recommendations (although you could chose any group), and sat on the 'Learning before, during and after' group.

Our group reflected a selection of people with '5' scores (exceptionally good practice) and '1' scores (could do a
lot better); there was a large gap which we could narrow. The delegates on my table were from all sectors, and
held many responsibilities (not all 'KM'-related - indeed - some of us did not even consider ourselves to be KM people).

We had to select a facilitator. I understand that all manner of sneaky ploys were utilised on other tables to sneakily select a facilitator (including: "oh you have the instructions Geoff just handed out, you should be the
facilitator...", and "oh but you have a pen, surely you are better equipped...?"). I have a big mouth. I get myself
into deep water all the time. I have never facilitated before (unless you consider prising the bubble machine off my 4 year old nephew to give to his 3 year old brother facilitation), so decided to risk it. It wasn't unlike choosing to edit KB really, but that is another story.

Each delegate had five minutes to tell a story related to 'learning before, during and after'. One delegate was
assigned scribe duties while I kept time and facilitated (until my story when I rambled on a bit if I am to be
honest). The scribe tried to capture the key themes and learning points from the story, and we moved on. We were
encouraged to ask the story teller questions of detail and clarification, but not discussion. We then attempted to
capture the stories (on very small pieces of paper), and then uncover and agree on the common principles emerging from all the stories.

Given these emergent common principles, we attempted to move on to what would be required within an organisational
structure to get them right; we tried to capture 5 concrete actions which would help our organisations improve.

(Lunch was delicious)

Creating a Knowledge Asset

Further to the concept of creating a living and useful knowledge artifact (see above), we then proceeded to create
one ourselves. We had agreed on our concrete actions (drawn from the emergent principles from our stories), and
allocated the stories and quotes to each action. We did this with a large sheet of paper, drawn into three columns:

• Concrete Actions


• Examples/stories


• Resources

Fitting the stories in was relatively easy - most of them matched two concrete actions. We were also surprised at how
quotes from our stories fitted and illustrated the concrete actions. The Resources section was more difficult to complete (possibly as we were from so many different sectors), but this included people, websites and papers. We
agreed that it would be likely that this would include a local knowledge network or CoP if we had been working
together.

Sharing Knowledge

After all our group's conversation, analysis and distillation over the afternoon, explaining our work to the other groups was surprisingly clear. We had a set of concrete principles which we could easily explain, some relevant examples, quotes and stories, and a set of resources, all neatly arranged on an A1 sheet. It was very rewarding to see that we had gone through the process as presented by Chris and Geoff and appeared the other side with a Knowledge asset which we could communicate to our peers.

Review of the day

The After Action Review of the day itself brought up one issue - that there had been two groups assigned to a couple
of the same KM practices. These groups could have been given some time to confer before presenting their results to the other groups. Asides to that, everyone felt that they had they had achieved what they had set out to achieve, and
there were very few variances to the plan (apart from Chris' slightly extended presentation and a few mobile phones
going off).

Overall, the delegates felt that the day had been carefully thought out by seasoned and practised professionals with
concrete examples. Geoff and Chris were excellent facilitators and story tellers - they made the delegates feel welcome and comfortable in an intense learning environment, and left them with practical experience of KM without too much theory.

There was also plenty of time for some very high quality networking (another repeated request from his other events'
feedback) which the delegates enjoyed a great deal.

David Gurteen and Bizmedia are working hard to create the most exciting environments they can with the most suitable
speakers, facilitators and delegates gathered together to share knowledge and learn about a range of subjects in
learning-conducive environments. The Learning to Fly workshop was a progressive development in this plan and I gather that there are more for 2005, which I highly recommend keeping an eye on.

Links and other resources

• We got a free (signed - woohoo!) copy of Chris and Geoff's book Learning to fly, which explains in plain English, one method of conducting 'Knowledge Management'. It is very enjoyable.
• Learning to fly website
• Learning to fly Yahoo Group
• Gurteen Knowledge Events
• Gurteen Knowledge Cafes
• Downloads from the day
• Adept Solutions (sponsors)


• And thank you to Rosey Nugent for sending me her mind map of the day too!