How-to Guides
How to Reduce the Pain of Collecting Metadata
The challenge in information environments is to get complete, accurate and consistent metadata applied to information and data resources. In this article co-authored with Maish Nichani we share strategies to collect metadata that lower the reliance on people in supplying metadata. We cannot completely remove people from the equation but we can prevent them from doing additional work, and focus the role of people on the value added metadata that machines and environment cannot automatically supply. View the article at PebbleRoad here. Download as a pdf here.
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 15/05/13 at 10:10 AM | Categories: Information & Records Management, KM Applied, Taxonomy | (0) Comments | Permalink
How To Develop a Taxonomy
Here is a poster design I’ve been working on for a while – it summarises the empirical, evidence based taxonomy development process we recommend.
This is the link to an A4 pdf version.
This is the link to an A3 pdf version.
We’re going to look at costs/prices for printing this on high quality poster paper and shipping it if there’s a demand. Let us know!
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 01/05/12 at 02:05 PM | Categories: KM Applied, Taxonomy | (0) Comments | Permalink
How to Get Started with an Expertise Transfer Programme
Here are some startup materials if you’re worrried about knowledge retention, rapid expertise turnover, soon-to-retire experienced staff, or anticipated expertise gaps. This is a 30 minute video showing key parts from an October 2007 workshop on how to put together a plan for an expert knowledge transfer programme.
The video can be downloaded to your PC by right clicking this link.
The materials for the workshop can be found here.
And here is a short guide to getting started with an expertise knowledge audit, to help you figure out where the critical (and vulnerable) areas of expertise and experience are.
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 23/11/07 at 09:57 AM | Categories: Expertise, KM Applied, Knowledge Transfer, Video | (0) Comments | Permalink
How to Plan a KM Communications Strategy
This concept map catalogues all the elements of a KM communications strategy that we’ve found useful, with some ideas for messages, media and audiences. Download the pdf version formatted for A3 size printing for easier reading!
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 24/09/07 at 02:18 PM | Categories: Change Management, KM Applied | | Permalink
What a Knowledge Sharing Policy Might Look Like
When you want to introduce new information or knowledge management practices and habits in an organisation, it’s usually a good idea to make sure that your organisation’s policies reflect the things you want to happen. This doesn’t mean that the policies do the work of implementation and change management for you (ie you can’t just issue a policy and then sit back and wait for magic to happen), but they support it by capturing (hopefully) in concise language what you’d like to happen, so that everybody is operating from the same point of view. With Marita Keenan last year, I co-authored a guide to knowledge and information management policy development.
We always recommend to our clients who are developing or revising their information and knowledge management related policies to go out and look for examples of good practice on the internet. There are lots of them out there, especially in public sector organisations hailing from Canada, Australia and the UK. The examples will give you good ideas, and if you look at a few you’ll get a sense of all the different factors to consider.
Some months back one of our clients came back to us to say they were developing an information sharing policy and hadn’t been able to find any such examples. On searching for exemplars myself, including via the actKM public forum, I realised that there is very little concrete and specific guidance on knowledge and information sharing behaviours – which is strange, I find. Most of the material out there is either issuing generic feel-good statements saying that sharing is good and a policy should be developed, or stipulating the conditions in which information should not be shared ie as a disguised information security policy.
So I sat down to write a draft version myself. The contents of this document cover all the main principles and guidelines for effective sharing (I think), but I’m hoping you, the readers will give feedback and point out any factors I’ve missed. I have written the document as if it is part of a suite of sub-policies sitting under a generic knowledge and information management policy and using a formal policy template (see the guide Marita and I wrote for an example of what I mean). Ie, this is not a complete Knowledge and Information Management Policy – it just relates to sharing of information and knowledge.
It’s also written very formally to express what needs to happen from an organisational point of view. I wouldn’t recommend this as the communication form of the document for ordinary members of staff! Those provisos aside, all feedback welcomed. A last reminder: the policy alone does not remove the need for active interventions to change a culture positively!
I would like to acknowledge the help of Mark Gould, Mark Schenk, Jack Vinson, Alan Dyer, Neil Olonoff, Stephen Bounds, Nigel Phillips, Matt Moore, Patti Anklam, Marita Keenan, Peter Hobby, Mark Rogers and Christopher Zielinksi who all made suggestions or contributed samples via the actKM Forum in June 2007, and Dave Pollard, whose June 2005 post on corporate blogging policy I found both practical and inspiring.
Read the policy (in Word format, please feel free to use with acknowledgement)
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 08/09/07 at 02:00 PM | Categories: Change Management, Culture, Information & Records Management, KM Applied, Knowledge Sharing | | Permalink
How To Use KPIs in Knowledge Management
I’ve always been wary of KPIs in knowledge management, because they appeal to a tangible measurement mindset that is easily distracted from the intangible and hard-to-pin down outcomes of KM efforts. I can’t tell you how may implementations I’ve seen where the measurements are diligently gathered and presented as tokens of success (number of documents, number of contributions, number of sharing sessions) when behind the metrics facade, the KM culture and rich sharing habits are as dead as a doornail.
But KPIs, used intelligently alongside “softer” evaluation techniques, do enable you to monitor progress and health in relation to your expectations as you move along your KM journey. And changes or spikes in activity or output trends can signal a need to investigate deeper. So if you take the KPIs with a big pinch of salt and remember you always have to interpret them, they can be a perfectly legitimate tool. So I sat down and wrote this guide to using KPIs.
The paper is in three sections: the first sets out some guidelines for how to use KPIs smartly. The second section gives ideas for sample sets of KPIs covering KM activities and tools as diverse as communities of practice, KM roles, and use of wikis and blogs. The third section is a template for drawing up your own sets of KPIs. The document is in Word format so you can cut and paste whatever takes your fancy (please acknowledge your source). A last word of caution: if you take the whole set of KPIs in this document, you’re taking too many! Leave some time and effort to actually do the work you’re trying to monitor.
Posted by Patrick Lambe on 08/09/07 at 01:35 PM | Categories: Change Management, Information & Records Management, KM Applied | | Permalink
Information and Records Management Policy Development Guidelines
It’s often difficult to approach KM in any large scale way in an organisation without bumping into the policy infrastructure. The organisation will need to make decisions and give clear guidance about how knowledge and information sharing is to be balanced with information security, for example. The requirements for a knowledge sharing system, including taxonomy and metadata requirements, will need to be balanced with the need to manage records according to legislative and regulatory requirements. Knowledge, information and records form a continuum that needs to be managed holistically, and an integrated policy framework helps to support this. In this paper by Patrick Lambe and Marita Keenan we spell out a framework and process for information and records management policy development, in support of knowledge management goals.
Posted by Patrick on 27/06/06 at 10:39 AM | Categories: Information & Records Management, KM Applied | | Permalink
KM Sustainability Framework
This paper catalogues the elements that need to be in place for sustainable KM practices within organisations. We now use it regularly when building KM Frameworks with our clients, because it forms a checklist of things to put in place, and gives ideas about KM-friendly changes to policies, governance or training support. Acknowledgements: we gratefully acknowledge the input of several ACT_KM Forum members in the construction of this framework.
Download the high resolution mind map
Posted by Patrick on 18/04/06 at 06:56 PM | Categories: Change Management, Culture, KM Applied, KM Competencies | (0) Comments | Permalink
Knowledge Champion Guidelines
Knowledge champions (otherwise known as KM Champions, Knowledge Activists, Knowledge Stewards, Knowledge Coordinators, KM Reps) perform an important role in distributing your KM messages and activities consistently across an organisation. In the earlier KM literature KM Champions were envisaged as senior level activists promoting KM at a strategic level. Very little guidance exists on the role of Knowledge Champions at the operational or line level. This paper is written to address that need. We gratefully acknowledge the support of the ACT-KM community in drawing up these guidelines, and the many lessons taught us by our clients. This document is in Word format for free adaptation to your local needs. Please acknowledge its source.
Posted by Patrick on 18/04/06 at 06:09 PM | Categories: Change Management, KM Competencies | (0) Comments | Permalink
Personal KM: a DIY Guide to Knowledge Management - Part 2
Most people treat PKM as if it’s a full suite of skills that everybody now needs to have: skills like identifying sources of knowledge, searching, navigating, analyzing, organizing, linking, mapping, converting back and forth between tacit (head) knowledge and explicit (written down) knowledge, relationship building skills, communication, presentation, knowledge packaging, and so on. But in fact, like most things, different people have different personality types, and
different personality profiles in relation to their personal knowledge affinities and capabilities.
Posted by edgar on 23/04/03 at 06:11 PM | Categories: KM Competencies | | Permalink