Weekly Knowledge Management Blog by Stan Garfield

KM Question, Blog, Link, and Book of the Week

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KM Question of the Week

Q: Is it better to have a larger or a smaller KM team?

A: While it is always tempting to have more team members, there are advantages to having a small central KM team. Here are three reasons:

1. Less time is spent on coordinating and meeting, and more on actual planning and implementation.
2. It forces the team to focus on doing only the most important things for the organization.
3. The team is less likely to be a target for downsizing and cost cutting.

When forming a KM team, consider the following priorities:

1. Have team members who complement each other well. They should get along with each other, but should have different backgrounds, areas of expertise, and approaches. Such diversity will allow ideas to be well-tested and more fully developed before implementation.
2. Assign a leader for each key area of focus. You might use people, process, and technology; communities, repositories, and social media; reuse, collaboration, and learning; architecture, infrastructure, and content; design, development, and communications; or any other categories which logically divide the work to be done.
3. Choose team members who are widely respected, have experience doing the work of the organization, and have useful skills such as project management, information architecture, and communications. Make sure that they are innovative, user-oriented, and eager to deliver results.

In addition to the central KM team, form an extended virtual team to include members from key organizations, including:

1. Constituents: Geographic regions, business units, and functions
2. Partners: Information Technology, Human Resources, and Research & Development
3. Collaborators: Other KM teams, community of practice leaders, and content providers

KM Blog of the Week

Dissident by Steve Dale - Leveraging and evangelizing the benefits of Social Media applications and Web2.0 technology for more effective networking, collaboration and knowledge sharing in and between public and private sector organizations

How to read 622 RSS feeds each day

Uberblogger Robert Scoble is truly one-of-a-kind. For those who don’t know, he became famous as a technical evangelist at Microsoft and quickly became their most outspoken and influential blogger. He currently reads 622 RSS feeds a day. How does he do it? Tim Ferris dropped by the Podtech offices and hung out with Robert to find out. How does he avoid overload and process so much information? Find out in this in 11-minute interview, where you can find out:

• Which RSS reader does he use and why?
• How does he configure it to save time?
• What are simple keyboard shortcuts anyone can use?
• How does he find and pick feeds?
• How can you catch his eye with your posts?
• How does he use RSS feeds for building relationships?
• How does he use sites like Techmeme/DIGG vs. niche blogs?

KM Link of the Week

APQC Best Practice Study - The Role of Evolving Technologies: Accelerating Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer

Accenture, Hewlett-Packard, Shell International, Siemens AG, and The U.S. Department of State have been chosen as best-practice partners for the current APQC study, The Role of Evolving Technologies: Accelerating Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer.

This study will involve in-depth analysis of how these organizations are taking KM into the future by using Enterprise 2.0–type technology, such as wikis, blogs, mash-ups, and a variety of other collaborative technologies. Here are some of the things that the study sponsors said they hope to learn from the best-practice organizations:

• how to support collaboration among globally dispersed, multi-divisional teams;
• how to adopt and implement new and evolving tools and technologies;
• how to identify the “right” collaborative tools to use;
• how best to manage a portfolio of tools; and
• how to address generational differences in the use of collaborative tools.

If your organization is facing challenges similar to those indicated above, or is excited about the potential of these new technologies, contact APQC. Site visits begin in August.

KM Book of the Week

Next Generation Knowledge Management, Volume 3 by Jerry Ash

The report includes creative ideas, theories, known practices and solutions applied with the expectations of:

• Solving problems,
• Improving performance,
• Staying competitive,
• Keeping abreast of new opportunities,
• Knowing what is known and not known,
• Thinking differently,
• Innovating,
• Assuring profitability and sustainability in a rapidly changing world.

Contributors include:

• Stan Garfield, worldwide consulting and integration knowledge management leader, Hewlett-Packard;
• Raj Datta, general manager, knowledge management, MindTree Consulting;
• Arthur Shelley, knowledge manager, Cadbury Global Schweppes Science and Technology;
• Tom Barfield, capability development/global knowledge management leader, Accenture;
• Gary Cullen, ikonnect facilitator, Lend Lease Corporation;
• Melissie Rumizen, KM maven, Buckman Labs and SAIC;
• Scott W. Shaffar, director, knowledge management, Northrop Grumman;
• Doug Madgic, knowledge management programme leader, Cisco Systems;
• Michael Behounek, director of knowledge management, Halliburton.

-END-

[The contents of this KM blog are my personal comments and do not reflect the official views of Hewlett-Packard Company.]