Luke Naismith's presentation at KM Middle East 2011, Abu Dhabi, www.kmmiddleeast.com

1. Making Sense of
Knowledge Management
KM Middle East 2011
15 March
?
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2. What is the primary strategic intent for
conducting KM in your organisation?
 Better planning / decision-making / strategy-setting
 Transformation / Culture Change
 Improved capacity development / organisational learning
 Improved flexibility / adapt as things emerge
 Deeper understanding of meaning / exploring different
ways of knowing
(YOU CAN ONLY PICK ONE)
KM as an Ecosystem
Australian KM Standard
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3. KM as Enabling Action
Australian KM Standard
KM as an
Integrated
Support
System
Vines, Hall, Naismith
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4. KM is not easy
• Bain and Company’s global
surveys of the use of
Management Tools has
consistently found that KM
is ranked by companies in
the bottom five for
satisfaction with results
KM is all about change
I know I should I want to
Knowledge Desire
I can
Skills
Optimism
Reinforcement It’s worthwhile
Well done Stimulation
Facilitation
I’m joining in
It’s easy
“People change what they do less because they are given an analysis that Robinson 1998
shifts their thinking than because they are shown a truth that influences their
feelings”
Kotter and Cohen – The Heart of Change
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5. But KM has changed
Narrative
KM has
emerged Taxonomy
from
•HR Sensemaking
SECI
•Library
•IM Social
•IT CoPs computing
•OD
•CM Information Knowledge
•QM sharing
•others … creation
and systems
Knowledge as
TIME Knowledge
Objects also as Waves
“The only good is
knowledge and the
only evil is ignorance”
Socrates
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6. Known and Unknown
• [T]here are known
knowns; there are things
we know we know.
• We also know there are
known unknowns; that is
to say we know there are
some things we do not
know.
• But there are also
unknown unknowns – the
ones we don't know we
don't know.
Certainty and Uncertainty
What you know What you don’t know
Uncontested/Accepted Challenges to given reality
Forecasts/Data Learn from others – be conscious
What you know you know What you don’t know you know
Science – hypothesis testing Unconscious understanding
High degree certainty - Intuitive foresight and wisdom
information
What you know you don’t know What you don’t know you don’t
Scenarios to contour uncertainty know
Knowledge Enter other ways of knowing
Cross paradigms, epistemology
Sohail Inayatullah
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7. Managing what you know
Content Communities
management of Practice
Knowledge Knowledge
sharing mapping
Managing what you don’t know
Exploring critical
Making sense in Strategic
Sense uncertainties and
situations of ambiguity
and ignorance making Foresight generate future scenarios
Turning a lack of Identifying what works in
knowledge into Anti- Trial and particular situations and
decisions fragility Error failing quickly
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8. Cynefin Model
COMPLEX KNOWABLE (COMPLICATED)
Cause and Effect do not repeat Cause and Effect separated
Pattern management Reductionist Approaches
Probe-Sense-Respond Sense-Analyse-Respond
Emergent Practice Good Practice
CHAOS KNOWN (SIMPLE)
No Cause - Effect relationship Cause and Effect repeat
Crisis management Process engineering
Act-Sense-Respond Sense-Categorise-Respond
Novel Practice Best Practice
Tools for the Complex Domain
• Narrative Inquiry and Archetype Development
• Safe-fail Experiments
• Pattern Management
– Disruption and Stabilisation of Patterns
• Situational Awareness
• Collaboration
• Inter-organisational networks
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9. Just Doing Something Can Make a Difference
What are you going to do
as a result of this conference?
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10. Building a KM Community
• Are there people in the UAE and Middle East
interested in establishing a local community
for those interested in continuing these
conversations?
• KM is a never-ending journey and we can
learn from each other and help solve each
other’s problems
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