Resources

Here are a number of guidelines and tools we have created for the knowledge transfer processes we use. Please feel free to distribute them within your organization, the only condition begin to maintain our attribution and copyright.

• Peer Assist Guidlines
• After Action Review (AAR) Guidelines
• Teleconference Guidelines
• Site Visits Guidelines
• Conference Planning Guidelines
• Speeding up the learning curve

Recent Articles by Nancy M. Dixon:

• Does Your Organization Have an Asking Problem? A step by step process to capture and re-use project knowledge, KM Review, Vol. 7, Issue 2, 2004     Click here to view entire article.
  The idea that a lessons learned database must be married to social processes is not new - almost every description of knowledge management acknowledges that need. Unfortunately there has been a scarcity of solutions about how to actually make that marriage happen. Drawing on five years of work with organizations implementing knowledge management, this article describes a way to link social processes with a lessons learned database to make the lessons relevant and get them into the hands of team members who can reuse them.
  
• The Neglected Receiver of Knowledge Sharing, Ivy Business Journal,  March/April 2002.                                                                                          Click here to view entire article.
  Most knowledge sharing practices in organizations have largely focused on the person or group who holds the knowledge to be shared. The other side of the knowledge equation, the receiver of knowledge, has been largely neglected. So, while many organizations find that they have collected a great deal of knowledge, they also find that they have used only a very small amount of it. This article focuses on the too often neglected receiver.
  
• The Changing Face of Knowledge, The Learning Organization, (UK), 1999 Vol. 6 No 5. 212-217                                                                                             Click here to view entire article.
  A change is occurring in how people think about who in the organization has credible and valuable knowledge that the organization can use to solve its difficult problems. This shift is a movement away from the idea that knowledge is found only in a select group of experts or ``best'' practitioners and toward the idea that useful knowledge is distributed throughout the whole of an organization.
  
• What is True?: Looking at the Validity of Shared Knowledge, Information Outlook, May 2001
  Click here to view entire article.
  When peers borrow implementation knowledge from each other they tend to judge the validity of the knowledge by three criteria, fit, experience, and relationship. These three work because of the nature of the knowledge that is shared, that is, the knowledge gained from practical, local experience. When organizations support and encourage communities of practice for knowledge sharing, it is these three criteria they are relying on.
  
• Exploring Common Knowledge: An Interview with Nancy Dixon - Interview, Information Outlook, Oct 2000 by Jeff De Cagna
  Click here to view entire article.
  We hear a great deal about the need to change the culture of the organization in order to make knowledge sharing possible. But I see just the opposite happening, i.e., sharing knowledge beginning to change an organization's culture. One of the ways in which I think organizational culture is changing is a heightened respect for local knowledge, which is created in the task of doing one's job. Local knowledge always competes with "sanctioned knowledge," i.e., knowledge that the organization has declared as valid. Sanctioned knowledge may come from outside the organization, or it may come from internal experts or task forces. Historically, managers have held very little regard for Local knowledge, and instead gave prominence to knowledge created by individuals not directly engaged in the task. However, disregarding the knowledge garnered through work creates disrespect between management and employees. Employees see managers as removed from real work, while managers see employees as resistant to sanctioned answers. Through knowledge management, however, organizations are now beginning to value the knowledge that individuals learn through their work experience. This cultural shift certainly is not something that knowledge management is bringing about all by itself, but it is exerting a b influence. Most knowledge sharing is done between peers, and the organizational "sanction" for this kind of exchange, is an implicit recognition that local knowledge is important.
  
• Best Practices for Shared Team Learning, Eric Bender interviews Nancy M. Dixon, IHI web site:                                                                                      Click here to view entire article.
  Eric Bender interviews Nancy about what it takes to make use of lessons learned in a healthcare setting. The interview covers topics of the difference between tacit and explicit knowledge, making knowledge reciprocal and how trust factors in to knowledge transfer.
  
• The responsibilities of members in an organization that is learning, The Learning Organization. Bradford:1998. Vol 5, Isse. 4; pg 161
  Click here to view entire article.
  As organizations move toward organizational learning the responsibilities of members change. Organizational members, themselves, should be giving consideration to what these new responsibilities should be, rather than leaving this task to management. Six possible responsibilities are suggested here to begin such a discussion. These responsibilities call on organizational members to accept greater responsibility for the generation and sharing of knowledge, but equally important is determining the organization's purpose and sharing in its governance.
  
• The hallways of learning, Strategy & Leadership; Mar/Apr 1996, p56
  Click here to view entire article.
  Some of the most valuable learning in organizations takes place in the hallways - common spaces where people can exchange ideas openly and candidly on an egalitarian basis and create a common meaning. Perphaps, then, organizations should design spaces that encourage this kind of experience: places where collective meaning can be made. In recent years, a number of system-wide processes have been developed that serve as metaphorical hallways. Organized around discussion rather than formal presentations, the processes give equal weight to allow all voices, intentionally encourage multiple perspectives, and use data generated by participants.
  
• New Routes to Evaluation, Training & Development; May 1996; pg.82
  Click here to view entire article.
  What's new in evaluation? If you talk to leading-edge companies, quite a bit. Take a look at top five companies to discover the latest trends, including new roles for customers and less use of evaluation to justify training. AFTER YEARS of saying, "we know we ought to evaluate but..." some companies really are changing the face of training evaluation. These new methods, however, may not be what you would expect.
  
• Meeting Training Goals Without Reaction Forms, Personnel Journal; Aug 1987; p. 108
  Click here to view entire article.
  The need to evaluate training has grown out of the desire to improve existing programs and to justify the cost of training to other members of the organization. The participant reaction form is the vehicle most frequently used to perform this evaluation; however, this may not be the most effective method. When such forms are an organization's only evaluation method, 3 problems often result: 1. the expectation that training be entertaining, 2. faulty instructional design decisions, and 3. the perception of learning as passive rather than active. To achieve the first purpose of training evaluation -- to gain information that directs improvements in the course -- evaluation techniques to use include pre- and post-measures of learning and group and individual interviews. To justify the cost of training -- evaluation's 2nd purpose -- it is necessary to show: 1. proof that participants learned the skills taught in the course, 2. the extent to which the skills taught are actually being used on the job, and 3. evidence that the increased use of these skills has resulted in increased productivity or cost savings.
  
• Replicating Best Practice, Strategic Direction; Jul/Aug 2000; pg. 15
  Click here to view entire article.
  The example of Ford shows just how well knowledge management can work, when it does, and how profitable it can be. Introduced in the 37 plants making up the company's vehicle operations division which assembles and paints the vehicles, Ford's intranet-based best practice replication system has led to the sharing of some 5 to 8 descriptions of best practice per week. In one year, the company's best practice replication system saved the company $34 million. The value of the system, of course, lies in replication and one example of best practice has already been adopted in 35 of the company's vehicle operations plants. Another company that has had notable success in knowledge management is Lockheed Martin which designed a scheme, LM21 Best Practice, to share knowledge between its 40 operating companies.
  

Recommended Reading

These are articles by colleagues that have particularly influenced our own thinking and that we often recommend to clients.

Articles about Knowledge Transfer and Organizational Learning:

• Don Ronchi, Passion and Poetry in Raytheon Learning, Training and Development, Sept 2004                                                               Click here to view entire article.
  Don Ronchi, Raytheon's CLO, is a leading thinker about how organizations use knowledge. At Raytheon he has created six institutes. The institutes are responsible for the following categories of deliverables, and each institute leader is measured according too how effectively she or he supplies these deliverables to the businesses:
  • Knowledge - locating, capturing, creating, and packaging the knowledge (explicit and tacit) that drives value creation
  • Human capital - creating processes to effectively and efficiently transfer knowledge to Raytheon employees, customers, and suppliers
  • Social capital - creating opportunities for bridging gaps in the social network that links employees across Raytheon, where that bridging creates value through knowledge sharing.
    

• Gary M. Olson & Judith S. Olson, Distance Matters, Human Computer Interaction                                                                                 Click here to view entire article.
  Abstract - Giant strides in information technology at the turn of the century may have unleashed unreachable goals. With the invention of groupware, people expect to communicate easily with each other and accomplish difficult work even though they are remotely located or rarely overlap in time. Major corporations launch global teams, expecting that technology will make "virtual collocation" possible. Federal research money encourages global science through the establishment of "collaboratories." We review over 10 years of field and laboratory investigations of collocated and noncollocated synchronous group collaborations. In particular, we compare collocated work with remote work as it is possible today and comment on the promise of remote work tomorrow. We focus on the sociotechnical conditions required for effective distance work and bring together the results with four key concepts: common ground, coupling of work, collaboration readiness, and collaboration technology readiness. Groups with high common ground and loosely coupled work, with readiness both for collaboration and collaboration technology, have a chance at succeeding with remote work. Deviations from each of these create strain on the relationships among teammates and require changes in the work or processes of collaboration to succeed. Often they do not succeed because distance still matters.
  
  
• Larry Hirschhorn, To Create Energy and Momentum for Organizational Change - Launch a Campaign                                        Click here to view entire article.
  This article provides a new and very practical approach to making organizational change work. It uses the metaphor of the campaign to bring together three critical campaigns, Marketing Campaign, with a focus on listening and then creating a strategic theme that is responsive to those who will need to change; Political Campaign, that includes deliberate coalition building and finally Military Campaign which includes implementing pilots and creating an infrastructure. Hirschhorn demonstrates the necessity for all three with many organizational examples of success and failure. 
  
  
• Clyde Freeman Herried, Mom Always Liked You Best: Examining the Hypothesis of Parental Favoritism Prologue: The Interrupted Case Method                                                                                                           Click here to view entire article.
  The interrupted case method is a way that a team can share with others what they have learned in an interactive rather than didactic manner.

Articles about Knowledge Transfer within Healthcare:

• Don Berwick, Escape Fire: Lessons for the future of healthcare, IHI 1999                                                                                          Click here to view entire article.
  No one understands healthcare like Don Berwick. Using the metaphor of the Mann Gulch fire, he lays out the problems of healthcare and what we need to do to deal with them. The Escape Fire is a moving and eloquent picture of healthcare in crisis. In a few short years, Escape Fire has become a classic in healthcare. 
  
  
• Atul Gawande, The Bell Curve: What happens when patients find out how good their doctors really are? New Yorker,                  Issue of 2004-12-06                                                                     Click here to view entire article.
  When this article came out I received no less than five copies of it from different colleagues who knew I would want to read it. They were right! In addition to Gawande's main thesis, which is that there are huge differences in the level of care patients receive, it builds one of the best cases for tacit knowledge that I have seen. It make abundantly clear why few have been able to copy what Warren Warwick has done in the treatment of cystic-fibrosis - it is not what he does, but who he is.