1. Student centred knowledge management strategies Dr. Steve Cayzer University of Bath

2. Preliminaries This talk is not about enterprise KM This talk is not about KM theory (though I mention both in passing) This talk is about a teaching experiment; how do students engage with KM, and formulate a strategy for themselves Does it work?

3. Dr Steve Cayzer Background in IT consultancy (Logica) - and enterprise R&D (Hewlett-Packard) Research interests include web information management [1] Engaged with KM team while at HP (Stan Garfield, Andrew Gent) Now at University of Bath: leading a KM unit on MSc programme S. Cayzer (2004) Semantic blogging and decentralized knowledge management. Communications of the ACM, 47(12):47-52

4. MSc in Innovation & Technology Management New Programme (2008-) International reputation and growing fast Modules drawn from both Engineering and Management Topics cover creativity, product development, technology strategy, sustainability Alumni gain positions in manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, tech transfer, consultancy… Knowledge management is a recurring theme

5. About the students 35 students currently (programme growing quickly) Wide variety - UK, Europe, Asia, Africa, S.America (no N. America yet) Split evenly between engineers and biz/management backgrounds All have first degree, tend to be young (early 20’s)

6. About the KM project From submission to UK Higher Education Academy This project aims to catalyze a student-led embedded, active and relevant Knowledge Management (KM) programme. It is initiated by a workshop with input from internationally recognized thought leaders in KM. The students will formulate an ongoing strategy that they will implement and monitor throughout the year. There will be an opportunity to report back to the international KM community. The benefits will continue to accrue after the students have graduated due to KM curatorship and an active mentor programme.

7. Motivations KM has a proven impact on innovation and technology management (Drucker, JS Brown, Wenger etc). It is important that students gain an appreciation and an ability in this space and yet KM studies themselves have shown that learning is most effective when it is embedded in a relevant activity. So, this project: Develops reflective practice in the students as they monitor the effectiveness of their ongoing strategy across many months. Provides for an alumni scheme, where selected individuals are invited to come back to present and to act as “KM mentors”.

8. Outline of KM topic Importance of Knowledge Management Theory of knowledge – eg tacit and explicit Applied knowledge – communities of practice Case study - Knowledge management in Hewlett-Packard.

10. just because best-practice information is availableYou need a plan, but grand KM theories will not get results You can make money from KM if you focus. It is critical to recognize the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge Ignore organization and human dynamics at your peril Create vehicles for self-service Knowledge Services and Networks: Access to information is important, but access to people with knowledge is more important The highest investment yields the highest return – facilitated transfer of best practices through a project Observe process, but measure results Plans are nothing...planning is everything. Source: APQC

11. Teaching: The 3 components of KM Strategy People Network, culture, training, roles, incentives … Process Create, capture, reuse, measure, communication .. Technology UI, social component, workflow …. Metrics Content, participation, (re)use, value

12. Workshop Devise a KM strategy for sharing your knowledge on this course. This should encompass PEOPLE (team roles), PROCESS (meetings, brainstorms, and TECHNOLOGIES (blogs, wikis). You also need to think about METRICS How can you demonstrate success (or otherwise)? An outcome should be posted on moodle. An in depth analysis of this process relating it to KM theory and organisational practice, would make a good subject for an individual assignment or even a dissertation.

13. KM Strategy template

14. 4 Steps to define a KM Strategy Motivate Inventory Select Prepare & Plan Warning: Do not be over ambitious! Output: please post a brief (1 page max) summary of your group’s discussion and reflections on moodle. This can be a photograph of a flipchart page

15. Step 1: Motivate Objectives – what are your needs on this programme How will KM help? What are you aiming to achieve? What is wrong with what you are doing now? Innovate – Share – Capture – Reuse – Collaborate – Learn FOCUS – do not have to do everything

16. Step 2: Inventory People What are the aptitudes/skillsets/attitudes in your group? Do you prefer talking/discussing/reading/listening/doing. Who is the person that knows everything? Who is the person that knows everybody? Processes How often do you meet? How formal? What documentation? How do you share learnings How do you reflect on performance? Tools What do you use to share information (moodle, email, dropbox…) What about communication (msn, skype, sms)

17. Step 3: Select WHAT will you do choose 2 or 3 that you will implement WHY these THINK; is this the right tool for … Doesn’t matter if your initial choice is wrong

18. Step 4: Prepare and Plan WHO will lead HOW will you implement How will you measure/report/assess

19. Other possibilities discuss Belbin roles and discuss which you might be. What is the mix in your group? What sort of a learner are you? Take the VARK testhttp://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=questionnaire

22. Some focused on technology

24. Group 2 learnings Familiarity of technology/process We selected the Yahoo Answer [because] we often used very similar software named BaiduZhidao (Chinese). Yahoo is [an] innovation leader and BaiduZhidao is [a] follower. Regular use. For example, I posted four questions [BaiduZhidao] related to the fields of education and automotive industries in the past three months. I also answered at least five questions about the over sea education, especially about studying a master degree at the UK I do not post any questions into Yahoo, but I do use Yahoo a lot for searching similar questions. For assignments and suggestions about British Universities … at least fifteen times within a month. The reason for using both Yahoo Answer and BaiduZhidao is because of the less commercial influence, since the majority who answer questions in these network communications really want to give their help or share their personal experience without considering any money

25. Some focused on process

27. Group 4 Learnings We did not really get to implement almost the whole process. We have different available times Each of us were more concerned to do our individual assignments However, I have used this method before … and it has proven to be very effective. good knowledge sharing helps to nurture other skills (in terms of presentation). It is very important to implement it at a very early stage. have a group which have the same set of goals and commitment. if this were to be implemented before the exams, I think it would provide better revision and results (perhaps)

28. Some groups fragmented

29. Group 1

30. Group 6 Learnings Very technology focused Skype, email, facebook File transfer as measure of success “Didn’t work as expected” But for individuals, used tools to share a lot (skype daily) Even 3 months later

31. Some outcomes were unintentional

33. Group 1 Google Group

34. Group 1 Learnings Google group worked well during active (week long) project But as file share (could have used dropbox) Discussions redundant because physically co located “We are always hanging around together” During field trip to London, group stayed on for social event Similar experience on a previous project Augments and encourages physical world interaction

35. Overall conclusions Very small scale experiment, interpret findings with caution And focus is on KM teaching rather than empirical study Some initial findings Process is as interesting as the result Some unexpected (and welcome) outcomes Tendency to focus on technology, and to be over optimistic

36. Hypotheses This exercise increases appreciation, awareness and ability in the area of KM strategy Students engage more with the course through this exercise Follow on ‘metric evaluation’ exercise will provide further insights KM mentor program could bring additional benefit

37. Comments, feedback, questions, discussion …

38. Additional Material

39. KM in HP - PEOPLE People External: KM strategy, KM consultants Internal: KM Stars, knowledge advisor Networks: HP professions Reward and Recognition

40. KM in HP - PROCESS Process Project meetings, discussions, ‘check ins’, Some lessons learnt Organisational ‘coffee talks’ Use of technology eg Halo. Customer engagement – capture knowledge KM metrics - Capture, reuse, participation social network mapping Helps management to see value of CoPs

41. KM in HP - TECHNOLOGY Desktop tools CAD, proposal builder.. Web 1.0: Forums, Knowledge Briefs, team spaces, people finder, project profile repository Web 2.0: Facebook - > me@hp Blogs -> hp blogs Wikipedia -> HPedia Twitter -> buzz Digg -> ideavine Plus water cooler, semantic blogging…

42. Enterprise Social Networks Bernardo Huberman and LadaAdamic2003 Information Dynamics in the Networked World in Eli Ben-Naim, Hans Frauenfelder, ZoltanToroczkai, (Eds.), 'Complex Networks', Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer, 2003.

43. Anticipated Outcomes 1). Students achieve a deep appreciation of KM through embedded learning. The application of KM will enhance their learning performance, and due to the integrated and transferable nature of the proposal, these benefits will spill over into their other subjects. 2). A portfolio of KM artefacts that will be useful to existing and future students, and which will also act as an improved communication channel so we can better shape our offerings to student needs. 3). A critical evaluation that examines the impact of this programme on curriculum development and pedagogy 4). An improved link to industry through invited speakers and programme outcomes, and to alumni through the KM mentor proposed scheme.