knowledge audit and diagnostics workbook

Knowledge Audit and KM Diagnostics - Workbook

Patrick Lambe and Edgar Tan

Straits Knowledge 2013

KnowledgeAuditsandKMDiagnostics

©StraitsKnowledge20132



Table of Contents

1. THE VARIETIES OF KNOWLEDGE 6

DIFFERENT KNOWLEDGE TYPES 6

Documents (red) 6

Skills (green) 6

Methods (purple) 6

Relationships (blue) 7

Experience (yellow) 7

Natural Talent (orange) 7

KNOWING THE KNOWLEDGE TYPE HELPS IDENTIFY APPROPRIATE INTERVENTIONS 7

Strategies for Documents (red) 7

Strategies for Skills (green) 8

Strategies for Methods (purple) 8

Strategies for Relationships (blue) 8

Strategies for Experience (yellow) 8

Strategies for Natural Talent (orange) 8

2. THE KNOWLEDGE AUDIT/ MAPPING WORKSHOP 10

KNOWLEDGE TO MEET CHALLENGES 10

OPERATIONS KNOWLEDGE 10



THE WORKSHOP 10

SENDING THE INVITATION 11

KNOWLEDGE AUDIT WORKSHOP OUTLINE 12

3. KNOWLEDGE MAP ANALYSIS 13

KNOWLEDGE GAPS 13

ACCESS ISSUES 13

RISK ISSUES 13

KNOWLEDGE OPPORTUNITIES 13

KNOWLEDGE SHARING 13

4. BUILDING DEPT KNOWLEDGE PROFILES 17

KNOWLEDGE PROFILE COVERAGE AREAS 17

MANAGERS’ VIEWS 17

5. CONDUCTING A FULL CULTURE AUDIT 22

SEEING IMPORTANT PATTERNS IN CULTURE 22

METHODOLOGY FOR ARCHETYPES EXTRACTION EXERCISE 23

WORKING WITH ARCHETYPES 25



6. CONDUCTING A DIAGNOSTICS AND KM PLANNING EXERCISE 26

USING THE KM PLANNING CANVAS 26

DEVELOPING KM PROGRAMME RECOMMENDATIONS 26



1. The Varieties of Knowledge

Different knowledge types Knowledge audits should capture more than just explicit information carried in documents and databases. Straits Knowledge uses the Wheel of Knowledge (WoK) model to express the range of different ways that knowledge can be used and communicated. Our model is highly influenced by David Snowden’s ASHEN framework and follows it closely, except that our model also includes the component representing access to knowledge through Relationships, which Snowden’s framework does not have. For more on the ASHEN framework, see Dave Snowden, ‘The ASHEN model: an enabler of action’ Knowledge Management vol.3 issue 7 2000. The main point behind the Wheel of Knowledge framework is that knowledge is not just embedded in information, documents and databases. In working life we use a wide variety of knowledge assets, both tacit (in heads) and explicit (in documents and databases). We represent six different types of knowledge asset that an organization typically leverages or needs to use in order to carry out its various business activities.

Documents (red) This is the only type of asset that represents all explicit knowledge ie. knowledge that has been codified in either text, pixels, bytes, etc. Hence, this type of knowledge includes printed material such as manuals and standard operating procedures (SOPs), information in shared folders, databases, systems and webpages, audio-visual materials and other artefacts.

Skills (green) Skills are embedded in people and represent the ability to perform something, including dexterity, and the knowledge is usually acquired through training and practice. Skills differentiate knowledge gained from reading a document from knowledge gained by doing. A commonly cited example is that of riding a bicycle. Reading a document on how to ride a bicycle including how and where to position the limbs and maintain balance does not equip one to be able to actually ride a bicycle. Skills cannot be communicated through documents alone. Skills-based knowledge is differentiated from experience-based knowledge in that skills can be trained, whereas experience requires deepening of knowledge through repeated practice over time.

Methods (purple) Methods represent the ways in which work gets done and includes procedures, processes and workflows. We list items as methods if there is a set, routine, habitual way of doing things that employees learn when they enter a work unit, but not all aspects of these methods are documented in SOPs. If a process is completely documented by SOPs, then it will be represented as a Document instead. Examples of methods are processing of



various applications and permits, conducting study trips to learn best practices from others, benchmarking, regular meetings with customers, and so on.

Relationships (blue) Human beings do not have sufficient brain power to store all the knowledge we need for our lives. So we distribute our knowledge socially, meaning that we do not need to know everything, so long as we have social relationships with people who are experts in the things we are not knowledgeable about. This knowledge may not be documented and may be tacit in nature. The knowledge resides within other people and it is only possible to access this knowledge through the relationships we have with those people, which give us the ability to ask them questions when we need to. Those relationships constitute a type of knowledge asset that also needs to be managed. Typically, the relationships might include those with vendors and suppliers, governing bodies, partners and collaborators, or internal divisions and departments where tight coordination is required.

Experience (yellow) Experience is the ability to identify trends and patterns and to act accordingly. It is acquired over time or with frequency of observation. It is valuable and is not easily replicated, and contributes to positive outcomes in business activities. Experience is different from skills for while skills may be trained, experience may not. Examples of experience are risk planning, responses to emergency or crisis situations, negotiations and so on.

Natural Talent (orange) Natural Talent is innate and occurs naturally in people. Some people do certain things better than others because of their natural ability, quite apart from their training or experience, eg mathematics, interpersonal skills, art and design. Talent cannot be constructed or replicated. It is difficult to manage but needs to be nurtured nonetheless. The range of work situations where natural talent is important is relatively limited. Hence, if talent can be identified, it is combined with experience in the knowledge map.

Knowing the Knowledge Type Helps Identify Appropriate Interventions We find the Wheel of Knowledge powerful because when you have used it to map your existing or desired knowledge assets, each type of knowledge suggests different kinds of knowledge management strategies. Typically in our knowledge mapping workshops we used colour-coded sticky notes to represent the different knowledge assets. Concentrations of different colours start to suggest the dependencies of the work area, and therefore what combination of KM strategies might be appropriate. These strategies are briefly outlined below.

Strategies for Documents (red) The classic way to improve the management of document and data artifacts on any scale is through KM systems: whether through data warehouses, data

analytics and reporting dashboards to support decisions, content management or document management solutions. There are also processes which can be put in place to support management of this knowledge



type: eg using standardized templates to introduce consistency in how documents are presented, developing taxonomies to enhance the findability of information, and so on.

Strategies for Skills (green) Skills are most straightforwardly managed through training. Typical activities are training needs analyses, competency mapping, training plans, elearning solutions. However, not all skills work is necessarily delivered in training rooms or online. It can also be supported through on the job training, job shadowing, apprenticeships, coaching and mentoring.

Strategies for Methods (purple) Methods represent unwritten routines and heuristics. Because of this, one of the easiest ways to manage this kind of knowledge is by documenting it, whether it be in standard operating procedures, operating guidelines, FAQs, quick tips or step by step tutorials. However, methods that are quite sophisticated or complex (eg where Skill or Experience are also involved) might be better managed by giving people access to more experienced colleagues through a help desk, expertise directory, or supervisor. Communities of practice are also very useful ways of communicating methods.

Strategies for Relationships (blue) Relationship-based knowledge is not strictly a knowledge asset in itself. The relationship is a channel which gives us access to knowledge in other people. Having or not having the relationship can make the difference between having access to their knowledge or not. So there are two ways to enhance relationship-based knowledge access. First is knowing who knows what, and people directories listing areas of expertise or experience can provide guidance here. Second, is the ability to ask

a person for help, and this is not easily done on a “cold-call” basis. It is much easier if the different parties are already known to each other, and ideally have trust relationships already formed. This is why socialization opportunities, building up the informal social capital among groups who cross different knowledge domains, is so powerful. Communities of practice are also a very good way of creating both awareness of who knows what, as well as providing a socialization platform that enables people to approach others for help.

Strategies for Experience (yellow) As we move into the lower part of the Wheel of Knowledge we are moving into the domain of tacit knowledge, which is inherently more difficult to manage directly. Experience can only be gained over time, but its acquisition can be deliberately planned, eg through job placement, assignment to specific work areas, career and succession planning programmes. There are also special interviewing techniques (labeled cognitive task analysis) for identifying what very experienced people know as compared with novices, and these can be used to elicit and represent expert and experience-based knowledge in things like simulations, case studies, and decision games, to teach novices what a seasoned eye looks out for and pays attention to. Mentoring, coaching and job shadowing approaches are also ways of exposing novices to what more experienced colleagues know. Communities of practice can sometimes help to some degree, but usually experience transfer requires more intense interaction than is often available in this environment. So the acquisition of experience can be accelerated in a planned way.

Strategies for Natural Talent (orange) Natural talent is the hardest kind of knowledge to manage with any



sophistication. Once you are aware that a particular work area is especially dependent on natural talent, then you need to reply very heavily on your HR processes in attracting, motivating and retaining the talent you need.



2. The Knowledge Audit/ Mapping Workshop

There are two kinds of knowledge that enterprises need to protect and be aware of: the knowledge that is needed to keep the core business activities of an organization going (operations knowledge); and the knowledge that an organization needs to respond the challenges it periodically faces (knowledge for challenges). This second type is often forgotten, but it is the kind of knowledge that supports the resilience and responsiveness in time of crisis.

Knowledge to Meet Challenges This kind of knowledge can be harvested by collecting examples from experienced members of staff, of times in the past when the business faced a significant challenge, of current challenges, and of anticipated challenges – and then with the same staff, identifying the types of knowledge that were/would be required to meet those challenges effectively. This can be followed by an assessment of whether the knowledge required is present or sufficient, and if not, how it can be acquired or grown. It will be concluded with recommendations about the most important areas to take action on.

Operations Knowledge This kind of knowledge can be mapped systematically by gathering representatives from your different workgroups together into a half-day or full day workshop. Typically, 2-3 people from a workgroup

should attend, and between them they should be familiar with the activities undertaken in their workgroup, and the knowledge and information assets that are needed for those activities.

The Workshop In the workshop we gather as much information as we can about an organisation’s key business activities, and the knowledge and information inputs and outputs associated with those activities. It should produce a consensus among managers on the organisation’s key knowledge assets, the knowledge and information flows that need to be protected, and possible improvement areas. Managers work collaboratively in the workshop to build up a “knowledge picture” of their division/ department’s activities. The steps are:

• Mapping the main activities • Mapping the knowledge inputs and

outputs • Identifying knowledge gaps • Visiting other departments’

knowledge maps and identifying items they would find value from if they had access (we call this a subscription process)

This workshop is also useful as a communication activity to align managers with a common, agreed sense of their organisation’s key knowledge resources and their recommended deployment and use. The workshop will normally be followed up by a discussion where the managers identify KM “pain points” (see diagram below) and key issues in technology, process and



KM Pain Points – auditing these will pick up common issues that need to be resolved people and make their recommendations about improvement areas. This builds up a profile of the different knowledge issues and needs across the departments, including the most common ones, and the ones that are unique to specific departments.

Sending the invitation We suggest the following text be used or adapted when you are inviting participants for the knowledge audit workshop: “As part of our knowledge management planning process, we are holding a [one day/ half day] knowledge audit workshop for you and some of your key colleagues on ______________ at ____________ . In this workshop we will try to gather as much information as we can about the most important knowledge and information inputs and outputs that help your departments in their work.

<If relevant>We will use this in our KM strategy workshop to inform the best way that our knowledge management projects can support your department’s most important work, and your most important needs. To be successful, we will need the participation of 2-4 people familiar with the range of operations in your department, the key business activities, and the knowledge and information resources in regular use. We will also be asking you for your input on how we can better support your needs in the future. This is not a training workshop – it is a planning workshop to produce vital input to the our KM planning efforts, so please do block the [whole day / half day] for us. Thank you for your support!”



Knowledge Audit Workshop Outline

1. Objectives of workshop and plan for the day

2. Knowledge for Challenges Exercise with recommendations

3. Mapping your core business activities (by division/department)

4. Mapping knowledge and information inputs to core business activities (by division/department)

5. Mapping knowledge and information outputs from core business activities (by division/department)

6. Mapping gaps and opportunities 7. Subscription exercise 8. Building a knowledge profile of your

department, identifying pain points (and possibly cultural issues)

9. Considering people, process, technology issues

10. Consolidated recommendations



3. Knowledge Map Analysis

Your knowledge maps are an important resource for “reading” the KM needs of an organization, and identifying both simple and complex interventions that can directly help the operational work of the organisation.

The main things a knowledge map can tell you about are:

Knowledge Gaps List the most important knowledge gaps identified in the maps (outer columns). Are there logical groups or clusters of gaps? This makes them more important because one intervention may be able to hit many needs (colour coded knowledge maps make it easy to identify a relevant type of KM strategy just by looking at the dominant colours representing the different knowledge types).

Access Issues Look at the “owner” and “location” information and determine whether there are any ways to improve accessibility to people who could benefit from the knowledge assets. Eg related documents held scattered across different places or located on individual PCs and not available to others that might find them useful, or relationships just held by one or two key personnel

Risk Issues Are there any areas of the maps where there is a high reliance on experience, natural talent or relationships? These are knowledge dependencies that are typically

difficult to renew or transfer. Based on the feedback of the managers from the department are there any risks associated with this dependency, and are there any obvious strategies to reduce the risk?

Knowledge Opportunities Look at the balance of colours representing knowledge asset types in the dept map. Is there a weightage of particular colours? Based on the feedback of the managers in that department, are there any obvious improvements you can make to the way that the most common types of knowledge assets in that department are being managed?

Knowledge Sharing Look at the “subscriptions” made by other departments, when they indicated that a particular knowledge asset might be useful to their work. List the top ten most heavily subscribed knowledge assets, and give higher priority to knowledge assets being subscribed to from a variety of different departments, because you know there is a clear case for an organization-wide initiative on a common platform. The colour coding of the maps will allow you to count the most common types of knowledge assets organization-wide, and hence see which types of knowledge assets are more popular. This can also give you an indication of the type of KM strategy that will foster sharing in ways that you know will be useful to many parties. You can also look for more localized collaboration and sharing opportunities, not just organization wide. Look at the maps and subscriptions and see if you can identify obvious “sharing clusters” where two or



more departments seem to have a mutual interest in each others’ knowledge assets (ie where there are a lot of cross-subscriptions). What is the nature of the sharing required (depends on type of knowledge asset)? Can these sharing

arrangements be dealt with on an ad hoc / bilateral relationship basis? For 3 or more departments in the sharing clusters is there a case for a centrally coordinated sharing/ cooperation arrangement?



Summary Sheet for Knowledge Audit Insights from Managers

Insight

Possible Action?

Status (idea, plan,

project)

Important knowledge gaps

Important sharing or collaboration opportunities

Most critical knowledge assets to protect



Most important knowledge risks

Other insights to note (eg knowledge access issues)



4. Building Dept Knowledge Profiles

Your knowledge maps give you insight into how knowledge feeds your key activities. However it’s also important to understand the working environment of each department, beyond what the maps can tell you. We use a “Knowledge Profile” questionnaire to give these insights, preferably accompanied by a site visit to see the physical working environment and how information is accessed and used.

Knowledge Profile Coverage Areas A knowledge profile should cover the following main areas:

• Understanding the main cycle of activities in a department

• The different types of work conducted in the department, from which we can make inferences about the kinds of information work that support them

• Whether the work is more team-based (where the need for sharing is obvious) or individually structured

(where you might have a greater change management burden)

• Preferences for sharing and accessing information

• Frequently shared knowledge assets, and sharing relationships with other departments

• The main KM pain points

• Cultural factors affecting knowledge use and working effectiveness

The following pages give an example of a generic KM profile questionnaire.

Managers’ Views Work through the department knowledge profiles, identifying the most common “KM pain points”. Go through your knowledge audit workshop discussions with the operational managers about the people, process, technology issues they identified as important to them. Is there anything there that you have missed from the maps? What did they think were the most important kinds of knowledge that needed better management?



Dept with name, role & contact info of principal respondent/contact person:

Date:

HOW YOUR DEPT USES KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION

These questions are to get a sense of what the department does and what information and knowledge resources it typically uses.

This will give the KM team a better understanding of department needs as well as patterns of common need across the organization.

1. NATURE OF WORK

1.1 General activities of unit

• Is there an annual cycle of activity for the unit? What are the main events in this cycle? • What needs to be prepared for these events? Where does the information come from? • Which departments do you trade information most frequently with? On what issues?

1.2 Typical nature of work in this unit (tick relevant boxes):

Project Mgmt

Process Mgt / Quality

Policy/ Strategy

BD/ Sales

Cust Rel Admin Technical/ Design

Contractor Mgmt

Ops/ Plant

Public Relatns

Case Mgt

Quality Mgmt

Prog Mgmt

Rsearch Investor /Partner Relatns

Compliance / Audit

Facilities Mgmt



1.3 Type of work in this unit

Does your unit’s work require a more team-based or individual approach to working? If both, what are the relevant proportions between the two? Individual % Team %

2. KNOWLEDGE AND INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

2.1 Information use and information sharing

Do workgroups share files/documents? How? Where? (ie physical/digital)

H M L 0

1. Physical files at desk (nesting)

2. Files kept on personal hard disk (nesting)

3. Documents on shared drives/folders (local sharing)

4. Shared collections of physical documents (local sharing)

5. Shared spreadsheets/databases eg Excel/Access (team sharing)

6. Intranet for document access (org sharing)

7. Data / info from system applications (org sharing)

8. Registry (physical documents)

9. Registry (digital documents)

2.2 Knowledge Management

What is the most important information and/or knowledge for easy and widespread access in your division?

What knowledge or information that your unit possesses is in greatest demand by other departments/divisions? Or could be valuable to other departments? Which departments?



H M L 0

How well do you think information and knowledge are shared and managed within your dept team?

How well do you think information and knowledge are shared and managed across the organisation?

Where would staff naturally go first for information and knowledge to support their everyday work? Rank the following options, where 1 is the most likely and 6 is the least likely

Intranet

Shared files/shared folders

Working files at workstation

Ask colleague

Consult library / resource centre

Registry

2.3 KM Pain Points

The diagram below shows the core organizational functions that should be supported by knowledge and information processes and flows. Coordination means that the various parts of the organization can function effectively as a whole. Remembering means that an organization can maintain its capabilities, its knowledge of its past activities and current obligations, even though individual people may come and go. Learning means that the organization reflects on its own experience and improves its practices or adapts to meet new demands from its environment, including the acquisition of new capabilities.

You will review a set of KM Diagnostic cards which show “KM pain points” – ie signals that these core functions may not be working optimally.



Please select no more than ten cards which you think are current problems within your organization that are important and should be addressed. Make sure this is a consensus view among your department colleagues. If you have more than ten, choose the ones that you think are most important. Enter just the card code numbers below.

Do you have any additional comments or recommendations to make about how knowledge and information processes and flows can be improved (a) within your department (b) across your organisation?

2.4 Cultural Behaviours Influencing how Knowledge is Shared and Used

You will review with your colleagues a set of “Organization Culture Cards” which show common patterns of behaviour found in many organizations. Please select no more than ten cards which you think represent common behaviours within your organization and have an influence on information and knowledge sharing and use. Make sure this is a consensus view among your department colleagues.

Circle the boxes for the cards you have selected below.

A♠ A♥ A♣ A♦

2♠ 2♥ 2♣ 2♦

3♠ 3♥ 3♣ 3♦

4♠ 4♥ 4♣ 4♦

5♠ 5♥ 5♣ 5♦

6♠ 6♥ 6♣ 6♦

7♠ 7♥ 7♣ 7♦

8♠ 8♥ 8♣ 8♦

9♠ 9♥ 9♣ 9♦

10♠ 10♥ 10♣ 10♦

J♠ J♥ J♣ J♦

Q♠ Q♥ Q♣ Q♦

K♠ K♥ K♣ K♦



5. Conducting a Full Culture Audit

Seeing Important Patterns in Culture Organisational cultures are notoriously difficult to pin down. Most of the techniques used traditionally to map culture are cumbersome, of transient value, and prone to bias. They rely heavily on questionaires and interviews. The nature of the enquiry is prone to distortion because we frame the questions according to how we see our needs and it is sometimes difficult to judge whether respondents are giving unbiased answers free of influence from how they believe the results will be applied – they may give overly supportive or negative answers depending on how they believe the survey can be gamed. The skill in such exercises is in balancing out the bias from such influences. While these approaches are useful, they also create blind spots in our research into organisational culture – we frame the query, and therefore we at least partly condition the answers. And we don’t get a good sense of the employee’s worldview or the context within which they make their daily decisions, form their shared values, and act out their behaviours. To address this blind spot, innovative research methods around storytelling an the use of narrative are beginning to emerge, pioneered by Cognitive Edge (www.cognitive-edge.com). Straits Knowledge is a Cognitive Edge partner. Anecdotes and stories that are grounded in the daily experience of our target audience

(in this case, your organisation staff) are useful because they carry with them many of the perceptions, attitudes and experiences of their owners. They are less likely to be biased by the form of the enquiry, and they communicate a lot of useful contextual information, that sometimes surprises, and often helps to clarify the “hard” information collected by other means. This approach is particularly useful for gaining novel and unanticipated understandings of employee issues, where more traditional research methods have failed because they were not framed to capture them. The archetypes extraction approach is a method influenced by ethnographic and anthropological approaches to describing culture. In it, a group of fictional personas is abstracted from a mass of stories and anecdotes. The methodology used will ensure that these personas are generalised, archetypal personalities that reflect the core shared values, perceptions and behaviours of the group being studied. Taken together, they form a useful representation of common patterns of behaviour and attitudes (eg towards knowledge sharing) in your organization. This helps you to identify the more important issues and potential change management opportunities and challenges. Because they are rooted in the stories of your colleagues’ experience of working in your organization, they also have a high recognition factor and can be powerful tools for use in change communications.



Methodology for Archetypes Extraction Exercise The exercise is organised in the following manner: We set up a series of focus groups as “anecdote circles” – the aim of these sessions is to get employees to start telling anecdotes about their experience in the area of interest – in this case, knowledge sharing behaviours and attitudes in your organisation. The focus topic needs to be framed in a general enough way to be able to generate a wide range of stories, both positive and negative. The question prompts are important: open questions like “tell us about ….” “can you give us an example of…” “what was your experience when…” are better than closed ones – except where we have a very unforthcoming group, and we would then use a yes/no question to generate an acknowledgement of an experience, which we would then follow with an open invitation to “tell us more about that”. Questions should also be balanced: if we are asking about bad experiences, we also ask about good experiences, to avoid building a negative (or positive) bias into the session. We want to generate stories from a broad range of experiences, and ideally we also want a broad sample of the target group, covering divisional levels, age ranges, and departmental spread. We do multiple sessions where possible, and aggregate the results. As facilitators, we try to be as “absent” as we can be from the group’s discussion, ie. avoid eye contact, speak only when we need to prompt or focus the group. This is the principal difference from a traditional focus group, where the facilitator shapes the discussion according to a predefined agenda. Our aim in the anecdote circle is to encourage the phenomenon of “ditting” to

start. “Ditting” is when competitive story-trading starts up among participants. One person will tell a rich story that resonates with other members, and they compete to produce their own related story. When this starts, the energy of the group will keep the momentum for us, and we can concentrate on keeping notes. “Dits” give important clues about common issues of importance in an organization. Each anecdote should be briefly captured on a single sheet of paper in legible form. When the anecdote circle is over, we give the notes of their stories to the participants, and ask them to post the anecdotes on the wall. For each anecdote, they identify the characters in the stories, each character label to be written on a separate post-it note next to the anecdote it belongs to. Participants do not just look at those stories they told but at all stories contributed during the circle. When this is done, we ask the participants to go through all the characters, and write adjectives (attributes) describing the characters in the stories, again, one adjective per post-it note. When this is done, we ask participants to take away all the post-it notes with the attributes to a new board or wall space. They then group these attributes into clusters “that make sense” to them. We give them as little guidance as possible on this, and discourage them from discussing principles of categorisation – we really want to be working with their background knowledge and intuition, not with rational, analytical thinking or following dominant personalities, because we are focused on accessing their tacit worldview rather than a negotiated analysis based on a few dominant individual opinions. Once we have discrete clusters, we ask the group, finally, to create fictional characters that personify the adjectives. We give them a sheet of flip chart paper, ask them to name the person, describe him or her in as much detail as possible (age, job,



background) – and if possible draw the character as well. In some exercises, artists are commissioned to work with groups to draw the characters for them; in this case, we engaged our artist after the focus groups were completed. The group has now produced, out of their stories, a set of personas – these are the archetypal characters that underlie all their stories of their experience with your organisation. If we are running multiple groups to ensure a good representative sample of participants, we will take the archetypal personas from each of the focus groups and look for the common patterns. Multiple archetypes from different groups may be consolidated into a single archetype based on affinity. In this way, a total of 40 archetypes from our six focus groups, eventually coalesced into 13 final archetypes, representing the spread of the organisation’s experience with knowledge sharing. We worked with our artist to create the visualisations of these characters, using the descriptions provided in the focus group sessions.

These characters are now illuminating and reusable personas that can be used as proxies for the audience being studied. They can be used in a variety of ways. For example, Microsoft uses these personas as proxies for real users to build user requirements for new software very quickly. The Singapore Ministry of Law has done a similar exercise with internal staff, and uses the personas in shaping its internal communications on change strategies as well as in e-learning modules. Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore used their archetypes to structure the way they communicated the KM vision and strategy to their staff. The British Council in Hong Kong used personas to get insights into how their customers saw their products and services. If you are working with customers, you can map your personas into a customer experience life-cycle, from their first awareness of your organisation, to leaving it, by asking yourself, what are the typical events that take place for each persona? It is also possible to identify common issues of concern expressed in the stories alongside the archetypes development, expressed in the following diagram.

Working with Archetypes Both the issues/themes and the archetypes can then be analysed by the KM team or the management team to identify cultural issues and opportunities around KM plans, and make recommendations and plans accordingly. There are three basic types of persona/archetype in a cultural analysis:

• positive archetypes who represent very effective behaviours and KM friendly attitudes and values – these can be encouraged and leveraged in a KM initiative as strong supporters and champions; the caution is that if you have just a few positive archetypes the risk is that you might overload the positive archetypes and burn them out

• negative archetypes who pose

very difficult attitudinal and competency challenges and are very difficult to deal with directly; if they can be avoided then go round them, if not, they may require strong performance management approaches

• dysfunctional archetypes who do

not in themselves represent negative attitudes but who are ineffective

because of poor support from processes and systems – while they represent barriers to improved knowledge sharing, they can be helped to be more effective through improved systems, processes or training

Examine the issues raised in your culture analysis (the archetypes/personas and the themes in the stories) and look for:

• Barriers to effective learning, sharing and collaboration expressed by negative characters

• Improvement possibilities expressed by dysfunctional characters

• Strengths that can be leveraged in the positive characters (without burning them out)

• The themes/issues that appear most often in the stories collected

The cultural audit is also a critical input into any KM strategy exercise with your senior management team, together with the findings from a knowledge audit. The findings from both activities will keep your KM strategy grounded in the realities of your organization at the operational needs level (knowledge audit) and at the change management level (knowledge culture audit).



6. Conducting a Diagnostics and KM Planning Exercise

Using the KM Planning Canvas The KM Planning Canvas is designed to help key stakeholders (such as departmental managers) identify KM needs, prioritise them, and identify potential KM interventions to help. It can also be used on an organization wide basis to process the accumulated results from a knowledge audit and knowledge profiling exercise.

Developing KM Programme Recommendations If you are not doing a knowledge audit as part of a bigger KM strategy exercise, you can use this data to generate ideas and recommendations for practical ways of addressing the issues that you have identified. The “KM Planning Canvas” framework we use (below) is a useful way of gathering and prioritizing insights, issues and ideas from your analysis above. It is designed to be used with key stakeholders working together in a participatory manner. As they post and cluster the insights from the knowledge audit, culture audit and KM pain points exercise, we begin to see where the major issues are, how they are connected, and what possible interventions might be. You can cluster related activities and start to name the more promising clusters as potential KM programmes. If you are using the accumulated results from a knowledge audit (rather than just looking at a

particular department), these will be programmes of activities that may benefit a number of Departments and that should perhaps be supported centrally as a “menu” of KM programmes that Departments can choose from. To use the Canvas for organization-wide insights:

• Identify the major insights from the whole knowledge audit and knowledge maps analysis and enter them as post-it entries in the top left areas of the Canvas

• Place the most frequently selected culture cards across the whole organization (or the archetypes developed if you did a full culture audit) into the top central zone of the Canvas

• Place the most frequently selected Pain Points Cards across the whole organization into the top right zone of the Canvas

• Ask the key stakeholders present to identify the key central issue (from any of the three top zones) and place it into the central Priority area

• Then ask them to bring down any other post-its or cards that are associated with this priority area, so that you build up a detailed characterization of your priority cluster of issues

• Once you have agreement on what this priority cluster is, you can then use the KM Method Cards to brainstorm possible Approaches, Methods and Tools as interventions.

knowledge audit and diagnostics workbook

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