Easy Pickings
I don’t normally say “terrific” but Mary Abraham has a terrific post on the dangers of the “low hanging fruit” approach when drawing up a KM plan. The idea of going after low hanging fruit is to get low-cost buy-in and support for your KM initiative. It’s one of my most hated but alas most tolerated KM bugbears. As Mary points out, low hanging fruit:
- have likely been gone after many times before
- are often over-ripe or lack nutrition
- are often scattered randomly not strategically
Mary sums up brilliantly: “Collecting low-hanging fruit is a knowledge management tactic NOT a legitimate strategy. Strategy sets your goals and gives you a reason for the projects you undertake and the methods you employ. Tactics are fine, if they are deployed to advance an agreed strategy. Otherwise, they are little better than busy work.”
So what should we go after? We use the REACH acronym to pre-qualify early pilot projects to see if they are both do-able and worth doing:
R is for READINESS – is the target workgroup ready for the pilot? How much pre-work, persuasion and preparation is required?
E is for EXTENDABILITY - will you be able to apply what you learn in the pilot to other workgroups with similar issues?
A is for ACHIEVABILITY – is the pilot sufficiently self-contained and free of too many dependencies to be able to achieve its objectives? Is it realistic in a 3-9 month timeframe?
C is for CULTURAL IMPACT - will the pilot positively influence the operational culture by demonstrating that the KM efforts are both possible and positive?
H is got HIGH STRATEGIC IMPACT - will the pilot add demonstrable business value and support strategic goals? Will its success harness the support of senior leaders?
5 Comments so far
- Mary Abraham
Patrick -
Thanks for your kind words. If I may push the metaphor a little further, I like your REACH approach because it allows knowledge managers to pick fruit that lies a little higher on the tree. This fruit may not be as obvious to dabblers, but should yield more lasting results.
Cory Banks raises a valid point about the potential value of low-hanging fruit. However, I suspect that picking low-hanging fruit is a safe activity for only experienced knowledge managers who have a clear understanding of the benefits and pitfalls. As Evil Knieval would say, don’t try this at home.
- Mary
By an odd coincidence I was thinking along the same lines a couple of weekends ago while picking blackberries. You may know the rumours about low hanging blackberries - I don’t really want to go there on Patrick’s nice blog - enough to say it really is worth putting on an old long sleeved shirt and reaching over the thorns and nettles for those juicy fruits at the back.
The temptations of a low-hanging fruit approach are clearly there if you are a consultant who doesn’t envisage a long term relationship with a company or if you are working on a project that has to produce “something” by some fixed deliverable date but it undoubtably leads to a lack of joined up thinking and prototypes that are going nowhere.
- Toby Brown
Since I currently hold in my hand some slightly rotting, low hanging KM fruit, this is excellent and timely advice.
Thanks for sharing it.
- KK Aw
I always refer to it as poisoned fruit!
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I too have fallen to the wrath of the Low Hanging Fruit (LHF)/Quick Wins mindset. I will say this is not a KM specific ailment though. I have seen it as a tactic used by many a manager to get some traction, some proof that what they are wanting to implement/change will show results/value quickly.
Maybe it has been driven from an ficus on Rerutn on Investment (ROI) focus.
Who knows?
I was discussing this the other day and thougth there may be two approaches. One is to rebut and stick to your guns with what is important and what is actually needed.
The other is to embrace it and look at it as a number fo small expereiments in spaces that can show value quickly in order to gain confidence and truct to go and do bigger and better things.
To continue the LHF theme I talk about the fact that whilst we are continually picking the low hanging fruit (symptoms), the fruit at the top of the tree is going rotten (problems/root causes).
Cory
Posted on August 29, 2008 at 11:00 AM | Comment permalink