Applying KM in government organizations

Abstract:

Government organizations and public sector organizations are increasingly facing pressure from citizens and private companies at the level of service delivery, technological advancement and managing old employee base. Some of these above factors like employee management and advancement in technological advancement have been leveraged by private companies to gain strategic advantage. On the other hand, the government organizations may appear lean and profitable through retiring employees, but the organizations face significant loss knowledge and skills.

The possible solution is to deploy Knowledge Management systems to capture and transfer intrinsic and operational knowledge within the organization and develop knowledge center to avoid the organization from becoming outdated and obsolete. This approach accepts that knowledge management as a separate division of an organization, focusing on enabling knowledge sharing and creating common knowledge amongst the inter government organizations and citizens by establishing a communication infrastructure for knowledge work.

Organizing Workshop: The facilitators guide

If you are repeating what you did two years ago, is something wrong?
1. Do something new
2. Fail forwards
3. Bounce Back
4. Celebrate Learning.

The facilitator should:
1. Establish rapport
2. Show respect
3. Abandon preconceptions
4. Hand over the stick
5. Watch, listen, learn
6. Learn from mistakes
7. Be self-critical and self aware
8. Be flexible
9. Support and share
10. Be honest

The facilitator should not:
1. Rush
2. Lecture
3. Criticize
4. Interrupt
5. Dominate
6. Sabotage

Preparing for workshop: A Checklist
1. Why?
2. How does it fit?
3. Who and how many?
4. What expectations?
5. How participatory?
6. What is your part?
7. Who else?
8. Where?
9. When?
10. Finance?
11. Programme
12. Languages
13. Logistics
14. Material and Equipment
15. Participants preparation
16. Local liaison
17. Outputs
18. Follow-up

Inaugurating the workshop
1. Welcome
Options include:
· Put up welcome notices
2. Administration and logistics
3. Expectations, hopes and fears
Options include:
· As they arrive, ask them to take post-it or cards, write down their expectations, and stick them on a wall or board
4. Background and purpose
5. Outline of the programme and/or process
6.. Information – on documents, stay, hotel arrangement, local site etc.
7. Introduction: Meet and greet
Options include:
· Mapping: A splendid ice-breaker, Draw and label, or imaging , a large map on the ground. Participant’s stand where they were born, and then move progressively to where they had education, and then where their careers have taken them, ending where they are now.
· Short self-introductions
· Mutual introductions.


Energizers/ Games
1. You move, all move
2. Form Groups
Options include:
· Not known to one another
· From different organizations
· From other disciplines
3. Games
Options include:
· Number Games: Five or seven clap hands instead of saying the numbers or multiple of numbers, turn around on seven etc.
· Mirrors: Pair off. Oneperson is the actor, the other the mirror.
· Anilbhai says…to jump up, to touch toes, to kneel down, to turn around, to stop. Participants only follow the instruction when you say Anilbhai says.. Those who make mistakes drop out.
· All move who.. are wearing blue, tie coin, language, traveled, etc..

Evaluation
Options include:
· Mood Meter: Post up a chart in a public place, perhaps near the door. Its column are workshops days, and its lines either three indication levels of morale or satisfaction.
· Verbal
· Questionnaire
· Evaluation Wheel
· Step forward or back

Group Photographs
Options include:
· The group photograph is mounted on paper with a margin for writing on. The photos are passed round. Everyone sign one photo. If there is time and space personal messages can be included.

Analysis and Learning

1. Johari’s window: A versatile framework to enhance awareness of the differences between professionals and local people’s knowledge. Show a 2-by-2 matrix.
They know They don’t know
We know
We don’t know

2. If I were you…: An exercise for imagining and appreciating the realities of others.
3. Contested chairs: Conflict resolution exercise.
4. Discussions and Analysis
5. Case study comparisons
6. Compile and Collate
7. Video Learning

Do not Lecture
· Use Wall charts
· When you have to talk, keep it to 10 minutes
· collect questions to discuss later
· Invite participants to answer their own question first.
· find and use experience and knowledge of the group
· Facilitate lateral learning
· Give yourself breathers


Workshop Materials
Flip chart paper
Colored marker pens
Wall charts
Masking tape
Post its
Glue/Gum
Scissors
Pen,Pencils
LCD, Laptops
Camera
Screen
Software's
Presentations
Papers
Coloured stickers
Pins

Source: participatory workshops by robert Chambers.

Learning Organizations

Organizations need to learn more than ever as they confront intensifying competition, advances in technology, and shifts in customer preferences. Each company must become a learning organization.

The concept is not a new one. It flourished in the 1990s, stimulated by Peter M. Senge’s The Fifth Discipline and countless other publications, workshops, and websites.

The result was a compelling vision of an organization made up of employees skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge. These people could help their firms cultivate tolerance, foster open discussion, and think holistically and systemically. Such learning organizations would be able to adapt to the unpredictable more quickly than their competitors could.

Building blocks of the Learning Organization

1. Supportive Learning Environment: An environment that supports Learning has following distinct characteristics:
i) Psychological Safety
ii) Appreciation of Differences
iii) Openness to new Idea
iv) Time for reflection

2. Concrete Learning Processes and Practices
i) Experimentation
ii) Information collection
iii) Analysis
iv) Education and training
v) Information transfer

3. Leadership that reinforces Learning

Content adapted from the March 2008 Harvard Business Review article, Is Yours a Learning Organization?, by David A. Garvin, Amy C. Edmondson, and Francesca Gino.

Collaboration Tools

Collaboration is a process defined by the recursive interaction of knowledge and mutual learning between two or more people who are working together, in an intellectual endeavor, toward a common goal which is typically creative in nature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration

The main idea behind collaboration is of working together; sharing of planning, making decisions, solving problems, setting goals, assuming responsibility, working together cooperatively, communicating, and coordinating openly (Baggs & Schmitt, 1988). http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/499266_2

Collaborative process involves Team Creation, Idea Generation, Decision-Making, Work or Production and Evaluation or Recap.

The team may involve Small number of people – less than 10. The members must have complementary skills with common purposes for working. The team should share one working approach and be Mutual accountable.
• Group Formation
– Yahoo groups
– Google Groups
• CMSs, LMSs, etc.
• Social Networks
– Friendster, LinkedIn, Orkut, MySpace, Facebook, etc.
• Network Formation
– Ning, Elgg

The idea generation can be carried out through:
• Role plays
• Brainstorming Tools - http://oedb.org/library/features/top-25-web20-apps-to-help-you-learn
• Research and Tracking – del.icio.us and RSS readers http://www.del.icio.us
• Concept mapping / mind mapping http://bubbl.us/ http://www.flowchart.com http://www.gliffy.com
• Storyboarding – web comics http://www.sacredcowdung.com/archives/2006/03/all_things_web.html http://www.mainada.net/comics/
http://www.quicktoons.com


The decision making could be:
• Autocratic
• Hand-clasping and cliques
• Consensus
• Deliberative Processes
• Polling
• Voting (voting mechanisms) etc.

The work or production is
• Functions: execution, tracking, time lining and optimizing…
• Separate roles and responsibilities – individual work
• Iterative (eg. Word Update)
http://docs.google.com


Evaluation is
• Tabulation of expectations and results
• Surveying, polling
• Scoring and measurement against objective standards
• Story-telling, lessons learned
• Collection of best practices.

'A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure'

(Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum , Philadelphia , March 22,2008)
Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?
Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India 's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India 's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.
By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal . It was a big failure.
That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish D hawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India ]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.
The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today." I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.
" Never limit your challenges; challenge your limits....! " " Every change is not a progress, but every Progress is a change..... Do it Now ! " " Expect more from yourself than from others. Because expectation from others hurts a lot, while expectation from you inspires a lot.... ! "