Helge Kreutz, 15-Aug-03 @ 09:53AM

"Best Practice" is a useful term for a KM category

Amongst KM practioners in our company we use the term "Best Practices" to describe a generic way of knowledge management. We did not find this term useful in communications about individual processes/tools since too many different approaches have been covered under this header.

When we talk about our specific "Best Practice sharing" approach we refer to it as "Practices worth replicating". We believe that this name expresses best what we want to achieve: a clear differentiation from our open discussion networks on one side and the guidelines/directives on the other side. Open discussions trigger innovation/invention, guidelines/directives ensure standardisation where required, and Best Practices should ensure rapid implementation of successful innovative solutions.

"Practices worth replicating" for us are those that must be considered for adaption by others, with a reasoned opt-out being possible, and that are monitored for implementation. Monitoring of implementation is used to validate the status of a practice (can it really be as widely adapted as the author assumed?) and to give teams more clarity where they stand in relation to their peers, in offering and accepting advice.

We do appreciate that our approach is not a practice that can be adopted everywhere, and hence not a guideline. On the other hand, we do believe that our approach is a "best practice" for us because it enables clear communication.

Lila Adib, 05-Aug-03 @ 19:02PM

where are the values

Just a little and quick comment, for the working document work item II figures, and the diagramme called 'Layer: Critical Success Factors / Design Dimensions':

Summary: The individual capabilities include: "Ambition, Skills, Behaviour, Tools, Time, Individual Knowledge" and the organisational include: "Mission, Vision, Strategy, Culture, Process & Organisation, Measurement, Technology & Infrastructure, Knowledge Assets"

My spontaneous thought and reaction has been: "where are VALUES ?" personal values are also very important to drive and stimulate the individual knowledge. Same for the organisation, it should have values with which individual can identify its own

Best regards

Nikolai Krjachkov, 04-Aug-03 @ 08:49AM

A step beyond system approach for KM – part 2

If to include content as proper description of actions in our understanding and consideration of structure itself we could get concrete vision about how structure really lives. For example, we could get to know that in some cases real leader is not a person from top level of hierarchy but is author (internal, external and even from past era) which ideas are the programs for people’s doings/actions within the structures/organizations – and we could really see these programs and correct them (if something wrong) by training. I agree with Chris Macrae that training is relevant to the future - knowledge-based and networking era (see his “ Beyond Consulting - and its ghastly processes” at “ Researching BEYOND” thread). So to be leader you don’t need to be CEO or even owner of property of organization (book value). Real leader is author who can provide for other people the same understanding that he/she has (but the risk of spreading lie/false knowledge exists (textual viruses)). The structure for this is proper description of actions (content) and its movement via network. If this movement of content stops – someone can not understand and implement the action accordingly author’s description – this is a signal that problem exists, perhaps as another understanding of the action (another culture). This problem could be a threat for life of the organization and in some cases for involved people, because they can lose collaborative means to survive. You do not need any targets and therefore systems building with not transparent “black box” inside for making the structure visible and managing knowledge. The structure may have even one level and be dispersed worldwide.

I would suggest to unite elaborating what KM is with simultaneous practical solving of client's problems embedded in their own content, not providing too abstract case studies - any consultant or trainer could demonstrate openly the efficiency of his/her methods for content (structure) understanding and its normalization.

Why not think about some KM content cluster for this let's say in my city - Saint Petersburg, Russia? Participation of the clients and trainers from various cultures gives the opportunity to elaborate approach/methodology/methods - applicable worldwide.

The author of Saint Petersburg KM cluster idea is Chris Macrae – I only add my basis. Of course details should be considered.

If you have any questions, thoughts, suggestions please let me know: n_k@au.ru Nikolai Krjachkov.

Nikolai Krjachkov, 04-Aug-03 @ 08:47AM

A step beyond system approach for KM – part 1

“The targets are a major cause of waste, consuming people's time in artificial activity and - worse - deflecting their attention from what they ought to be doing” – the thought from “not an easy read but” at “ Leadership’s Greatest 21st C Innovation – Open Sourcing Trust-flow & the Valuation Dynamics of Living Systems” thread, provided by Chris Macrae, that may allow us to understand some future approaches for KM as integral/whole methodology/methods for managing different knowledge. But in reality we have not any integration.

KM now is a set of expert’s opinions, but I don't think that there is an opportunity to find some “average” opinion as true one - it's wrong way because nature hasn't "average" entities. I think KM must add understanding about how structure (something that has been built or organized; the way the individual parts of something are made, built, or organized into a whole; the pattern of interrelationships within an organization, society, etc; an organized method of working, thinking, or behaving) really lives, but I don’t know how to apply current KM definitions for this.

The reason is that any descriptions of artificial structures like hierarchy, ontology, etc. say nothing about content as an element of structure – perhaps I’m wrong but I see only objects and connections between them. That is why structures are not transparent and this fact results in risks of their “sudden” collapsing, of abuse of trust.

See part 2

Peter Heisig, 01-Aug-03 @ 21:15PM

Best Practices Never Are - What's your basis

Hello John,
many thanks for your remarks. But your statements are quite general to enter in a deeper discussion.
Could you give us some verfiable facts on your claim "legendary, monumental failures. That's the fact."
I do not want to enter in "semantic bickering" as I'm not a native english speaker as you might be. I just wanted to give some input form a well establish other field of mangement techniques in order to improve our understanding.
For me your proposal about "next practices" sounds for me quite confusing.
Nevertheless thanks for your opinion.
Regards
Peter

Peter West, 01-Aug-03 @ 20:20PM

Feedback - Work Item 5 - Culture

Neill Allan and Manon van Leeuwen:

Clearly, a great deal of effort has been committed to the crafting of this work item.

I appreciate being given the opportunity to provide feedback on this document. In the interest of conserving space, what follows are two general comments:

1. I am not sure that each section of the document presents the relevant “good practices”? How do I, as the reader, take action?

2. There is a significant number of topics that are covered in the document. My concerns are: they are covered at a very high level; the relationships and dependencies between them are not always clearly stated; their implications for culture (and KM) are not always clearly stated.

A detailed set of review comments has been forwarded to Toby Farmer (and they are available to others by request).

Best regards,
Peter West
Continuous Innovation
peter.west@islandtelecom.com

John Maloney, 01-Aug-03 @ 17:09PM

Best Practices Never Are

Peter -

I respect the notion of Best Practices in the context of BM.

However, the vast majority of people do -not- use best practices in the context of BM or any other methodology.

Efforts to create repositories of best practices have been legendary, monumental failures. That's the fact.

Best Practices are highly controversial. The last thing we need is mor controversy or semantic bickering in KM.

What's emerging is the concept of "Next Practices." This deflates the emotional baggage and allows people to set appropriate context.

Next Practices arise from learnings about the future, not the past.

Without the benefits of a robust methodology like BM, "Best Practices" simply do more harm than good.

Respectfully,

-jtm

Chris Macrae, 01-Aug-03 @ 17:06PM

yes best is a very dangerous word unless you question it

I think Peter is saying he always puts context before - "best". Good, if so.

I am even more concerned about putting an understanding of whose system we are using to measure best. This is relevant because Alee, Sveiby, Edvinsson, Amidon to namedrop but 4 encourage us to see KM (in a networking age) as looking at organisations from a living system perspective that makes the most of humans and dares challenges numbers where they put humans at risk or block the multipliers of learning that never concerned tangible accounting systems. Put another way, we now know that many of the best practices that might until 2 years ago have had an Andersen facilitating their member's judgements were by many human standards worst.
There are also all sorts of timescales that measurers seem to avoid clarifying 'as assumed' unless it suits them.

There even more ways to question best. I am Druckerian in schooling. I insist that the individual kbowledge worker is every bit as creative and productive force as organisations. I would like to see both multiply each other's best. But how can that be in a world where the organised monopoly of accounting arbitrarily defines all people as costs? (not investments) just because that's the way that a separable past performance scorecard of numbers does its arithmetic, which when stepped back and appraised by mathamatical/systems experts is in the words of one such as Dee Hock "the worst mathematics" we could design if we want to be transparent to communal/social capital of human beings"

If you're interested in the opposite ways that new measurement lens of dynamic intangibles/IC valuation appraise best, there's a lot more after 3 years of EU research at Prism, and linked via http://www.knowledgeboard.com/community/zones/sig/kmei.html

Peter Heisig, 01-Aug-03 @ 12:57PM

Please do not misunderstand Best Practice

Dear Helen,
many thanks for your comment on "Good Practice" vs "Best Practice", but I absolutely disagree on this statement.
If you check the publications on methodologies on Benchmarking (BM) than it is clear that BM does not "implies a process which everyone is forced to adopt the same system even if it might not necessariy be the best way".

Benchmarking has different phases and after the identification of a "company best practice" or "industry best practice" or "world class practice" the benchmarking team has to understand and adapt (!!!) the best practice to its own processes and requirements. A company should never copy (= adopt) a best practice only if it really fits to their organisation environment.

Furthermore after the adoption and implementation into its own organisation the BM team should revise and evaluate and, if possible, perform a second BM excercise in order to achieve further improvements.

So, if BM is applied according to the methodological standards and procedures it is a very powerful method to improve its own organizational performance, to remove the NIH syndrome because the best practice have been observed in practice by the BM team and to start a process of continuous improvement in order to achieve further process and product improvements.

I'm working since 1996 in BM and have conducted serveral BM studies. We are closely working with other BM centres around the globe within the GBN and we always see that BM is a very powerful tool, because it helps to think out of the box, to overcome the "we are so different, this will not work in our side".
I think that BM is a very powerful method to improve and create new knowledge about successful practices.

I hope these short comments should help to achieve a better understanding about benchmarking and the meaning of the term Best Practice.

Peter Heisig
Chairman Global Benchmarking Network (GBN)
c/o Informationszentrum Benchmarking at
Fraunhofer IPK
Berlin
Germany
www.benchmarking.fraunhofer.de

Member of the CEN Project Team on "European Guide to Good Practice in KM"

John Maloney, 31-Jul-03 @ 20:31PM

Why Best Practices Never Are

Hi -

Here's an article from 1998.

http://www.kmcluster.com/ni/why_best_practices_never_are.html

-jtm

Chris Macrae, 30-Jul-03 @ 08:32AM

what's the sponsor's purpose

Whilst Big 4 accounting companies book people in as costs, I don't associate them with anything to do with where KM wants to go.

Perhaps PWC could explain why they chose to sponsor the BSI standard of KM?

Nikolai Krjachkov, 30-Jul-03 @ 06:51AM

Questions to understand and to implement/use KM definition in practice

The KM definition from European Knowledge Management Glossary, CEN’s European Guide to Good Practice in Knowledge Management – Chapter 1 – Terminology (Draft Version 3.6) is:

“KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT (KM): Management of activities and processes for leveraging knowledge to enhance competitiveness through better use and creation of individual and collective knowledge resources”.

What should person do (what actions) to implement “ Management of activities and processes for …” – what is “management” in “knowledge management” term, if “knowledge” has been defined before?

“Activity” has a meaning “action”(the state of being active; lively movement; any specific action or pursuit), “process” also has a meaning “action”(a series of actions or changes …), so why “activities” and “processes” are different concepts?

“... leveraging knowledge …” (?) According to CEN’s Draft Version 3.6 “KNOWLEDGE: The combination of data and information, to which is added expert opinion, skills and experience, to result in a valuable asset which can be used to aid decision making. Knowledge may be explicit and/or tacit, individual and/or collective”. “Leverage” means 1) the mechanical advantage gained by using a lever; 2) the ability to influence people or events. So how to use LEVER and/or to INFLUENCE “ The combination of data and information, to which is added expert opinion, skills and experience…” if definition of “knowledge” has nothing about where exist “The combination of data and information …”, “added expert opinion, skills and experience …” – in people’s heads, in documents, in database, etc.?

“KNOWLEDGE: The combination …” – any combination will do?

What is “knowledge measure” itself (as defined term)? I’m asking because any person needs a knowledge measure to implement KM measurement to “enhance” … , for “better use”, “creation … knowledge resources (what is the difference between “knowledge” and “knowledge resources”?)? How “… to result in a valuable asset which can be used to aid decision making” if there is no definition of “knowledge measure"? In other words before measuring (for example) the length in yards or meters you need definition/understanding about what “yard” or “meter” are for your decision whether this measured length is valuable or not.

“30 terms for 30 countries” have been defined (see p.6), but why quantity of terms has been linked with quantity of countries? What was the reason to define 30 terms – not more or less?

So it seems without answering mentioned questions KM term from CEN’s Draft Version 3.6 remains beyond understanding and therefore has the risk to be beyond proper practice.

Helen Baxter, 29-Jul-03 @ 12:32PM

Good Practice v Best Practice

I'm very glad that the title of the project uses the term 'Good Pratice' in KM rather than 'Best Practice' in KM. Good practice leaves us space for innovation and improvement. Best practice implies a process which everyone is forced to adopt the same system even if it might not necessariy be the best way.