Welcome:
Susan Turnbull, General Services Administration (GSA), opened the meeting by welcoming everyone to the continuing collaboration workshop series, which was formed about one year ago. The purpose of the January 15 workshop is to explore the societal innovation potential and realities of online community networks. Susan used slides to review the overall workshop series purpose and multiple sponsors. These slides are in the attached presentation file. Susan noted that all the participants present today should consider themselves as contributors to the meeting, not visitors.
Susan described two handouts distributed during the workshop:
· Action Plan for FY 2002 - Federal Architecture and Infrastructure Committee of the CIO Council, Universal Access Working Group –summarizes the goals, initiatives, benefits and partner organizations associated with the workshop series.
· A brief summary of the guide, Extending Digital Dividends: Public Goods and Services That Work for All that will be available through the Federal Architecture and Infrastructure Committee soon.
Susan noted that the workshop is longer today, allowing for more networking and a demonstration of Open Source applications after lunch.
Overview and Implications of Knowledge Sharing Through Communities of Practice (Thematic Groups) at the World Bank – Presented by Lesley Shneier, World Bank
Susan introduced Lesley Shneier, Senior Knowledge and Learning Officer from the World Bank. Lesley is from South Africa and has a background in social work, human resources and personnel management, and management consulting with a focus on organizational change management.
Lesley described the World Bank’s work. Lending has been the World Bank’s main thrust, providing approximately $15 – 30 billion dollars a year to reduce poverty. World Bank profits are about $1 billion a year. In 1996, the World Bank president, J.D. Wolfensohn stated “By 2000, we will be the ‘Knowledge Bank’…” and in 1999 the World Bank mission statement was “To fight poverty with passion and professionalism for lasting results…To help people help themselves and their environment by providing resources, sharing knowledge…”.
The “Knowledge Bank” is a continuous process of creating knowledge, sharing knowledge and applying knowledge. The World Bank has chosen to use the term ‘Knowledge Sharing’ instead of the traditional term ‘Knowledge Management’ because everyone easily understands the phrase- it’s plain English. Communities of Practice are known as Thematic Groups, where participants have a common interest in particular topic areas. The thematic groups share a common passion for a given subject regardless of the task and time.
Lesley described why Knowledge Sharing is so important to the World Bank:
· Business Survival requires the sharing of knowledge
· Lending alone cannot accomplish the mission of poverty reduction
· Knowledge sharing can bring in new actors with know how
The World Bank’s Knowledge Sharing journey started with thematic groups focused on particular topic areas. The advisory services connected people to these thematic groups, and the regions and countries instill local insight. Although knowledge sharing is fairly transparent, there are some internal groups that are resistant to the change- those in “control roles” such as procurement and HR. The next phase of implementation will include local communities outside of the Bank.
Lesley explained that the “heart and soul” of the World Bank knowledge sharing are the Thematic Groups. These groups connect the people that know information with the people who want to know about the information, all on a voluntary basis. The process of incorporating knowledge sharing is engrained in the business practices throughout the World Bank. Technology is only the enabler to the sharing of knowledge- it’s not the driver. The Key enabler is the Community. It is important to work in close coordination with the IT organization to leverage existing technology that participants are familiar with.
Knowledge sharing focuses on the people, where knowledge management tends to focus on the tools needed to share. Lesley explained that knowledge sharing is really about changing the organizational culture. Work is done horizontally across the organization in close partnership with the clients. The 116 thematic groups currently at the Bank have improved organizational morale, and established inclusive business models encouraging the seamless sharing of information.
The World Bank has seen measurable results from its knowledge sharing including:
· Quality improvement – only 12% of projects were ‘at risk’ at the end of FY 01, down from 30% five years earlier
· Efficiency – a reduced report production time from 5 staff weeks to 2 staff weeks
· Effectiveness – although surveys show improvements, more work is needed to adapt the knowledge to the clients needs
The next wave of knowledge sharing will include the building of local communities of practice, such as the UCCI- network of mayors of 10 capital cities of Ibero-America. This is an interactive website that promotes knowledge sharing, and web-based communication among the region’s municipal practitioners
Lesley described the challenges that the World Bank faces as
· Mainstreaming – keep the cultural change moving forward
· Budget cuts – 90% less money for thematic groups
· Competing demands on time
· Moving the focus from knowledge to learning
It is essential to model the behavior – be very inclusive – anyone can come to meetings, read the minutes, access the websites.
Knowledge sharing needs to be embedded in the core business, it is about people and behaviors, and is a bit like gardening. Don’t pull up the roots to see how plants are doing. Be sure to eradicate the weeds and pests.
Discussion:
Q: Able to engage people outside of the Bank staff in knowledge sharing?
A: Yes, all of the thematic groups contain external partners. There is joint membership in all the groups. Three-quarters of the Bank staff resides in DC, the remaining quarter of the staff are distributed remotely.
Q: How does the ‘weeding’ occur?
A: Weeding is not easy. Not much activity in some of the thematic groups- weeding is easier here. The thematic groups need to account for what they are doing with their budgets. Sharing of knowledge is also part of individuals’ performance review.
Q: Is there less resistance to knowledge sharing over time?
A: 70% of informal learning happens in thematic groups. The understanding of knowledge sharing has increased, but resistance is still present.
Q: What are the mechanisms for clients to contribute to knowledge sharing and learning?
A: There are several ways: 1) Within some thematic groups, clients are invited to participate and contribute. The discussions that occur are very interactive and participative with a wealth of ideas discussed. 2) By actively helping groups form communities with the capacity to share knowledge among themselves, such as the Mayors group. 3) Working at a government policy level- what do they need to be able to take advantage of the connectivity.
Q: How do you know who knows what or who knows who?
A: We tried to build a “yellow-pages” of expertise, but this was not very successful. The method of informal self-selection and individuals’ reputation worked best; this builds a level of trust among the community. Some insisted on “proof” of expertise before including anyone in such a listing. We encouraged individual participation in communities. Communities know who knows what.
Q: Did you perform a mapping of network efficiencies?
A: No, we attempted to perform some social network analysis, but no one was interested.
Q: What is the influence of tools from IT?
A: Need to work closely with IT. Thematic groups wouldn’t accept multiple tools for cataloguing information due to the learning demands. They insisted on a single way of cataloging information- one cataloging tool.
Q: Does the cross-pollination include Mayors from elsewhere?
A: Yes. There is a lot of interest from elsewhere e.g., Philippines connectors link to other groups.
Q: Where are the Bank’s lending decisions made?
A: Lending decisions are made in the regions. Most thematic group members are in the regions as well.
Q: Are there 3-way tensions among the geographic decision makers, program sectors and thematic groups?
A: The groups are not so discrete. The country focus has been dominant since 1987. Tensions are between the sectors and country.
Q: How did you include knowledge sharing in performance standards?
A: The director decided to include it in performance standards, but in took a full year to incorporate.
Q: How do you measure knowledge sharing?
A: It is difficult to measure. The harder it is to measure, the more successful you’ve been at mainstreaming the practice.
Q: How do you assess your success? You mentioned improvements in production time, for example.
A: Survey and focus groups of staff and clients are useful in this assessment.
Q: How are you dealing with information disclosure?
A: Disclosure and harmonization are big issues. World Bank is attempting to allow full disclosure on most information rather quickly. Certain data cannot be fully disclosed. Harmonization is the transparency (uniformity) of the process to work collaboratively with other donors.
Q: What about the mayors’ network communicating with mayors in the U.S.?
A: That’s a good idea.
Overview and Implications of Knowledge Sharing Through Communities: Global Networks that Nurture Long-distance Relationships and Local Ties Among the Federal Aviation Administration’s Communities– Presented by Bob Turner, FAA
Susan introduced Bob Turner, Director of the Team Technology Center at the FAA as a lead expert in knowledge management in the Federal Government. Bob has an undergraduate business degree from the University of Maryland, and a graduate degree in psychology from Boston University. He was also involved in the Army organizational effectiveness program.
Bob thanked the Department of Navy (DoN) for their sponsorship of the C-port (Building Communities of Practice) CD series. The Department of the Navy Enterprise Knowledge Management team has developed a series of 8 CD’s documenting their findings on the topic. In the upcoming weeks, the DoN will have an e-learning CD available for distribution.
Bob recommended that participants interested in the topic of knowledge management (KM) visit www.stevedenning.com since he is a noted expert on KM and his forte is storytelling for message delivery. Bob referenced a 1990 Harvard Business Review article by Elliott Jack titled, Industrial Society. The article discusses the organizational hierarchical structure and how the traditional hierarchy can be replaced over time by leveraging the knowledge of individual workers. Harnessing the capacity and knowledge of the individual worker and investing in overall education forms the basis for communities of practice. These communities of practice are critical to the core business model of a knowledge management organization.
Bob mentioned that David Walker, Comptroller General of the US, has stated that human capital (HC) is on the ‘high-risk’ list for US Government. There is a high capability for human capital management in government, but when it is measured, it often gets low scores. The challenge as government moves forward is to determine how to raise the bar on human capital management. The investment formula starts with the transfer of human capital knowledge to an organization, and then to create social capital. The social capital can then be used to transfer the knowledge to customer capital when an organization goes to market. These structures of informal networks through communities of practice accelerate the transfer of knowledge or ‘know-how’ throughout an organization.
Bob recommended several resources for information including:
· Steve Denning - KM website resource
· Book by Etienne Wenger that will be published soon (parts of the book are already available on the Communities of Practice CD)
· Book Spell of the Senses, by David Abraham
· Book In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work, by Laurence Prusak and Don Cohen
Discussion:
Q: Regarding the stability of hierarchies- is there another comparable formal structure?
A: No, there aren’t any alternatives.
Q: Has the hierarchy been augmented with the web?
A: Yes, the value of the hierarchy does not imply that we need all the layers. E-mail allows for the jumping the layers. Michael Schrage the publisher of the book, No More Teams! Mastering the Dynamics of Creative Collaboration states that e-mail is not an effective collaboration tool. Peter Drucker states that the economic imperative is to make knowledge workers more productive. Tom Peters and others say that the future of work is characterized by not being able to measure what we do.
Q: How does a community of practice differ from a virtual team?
A: See handout ‘What Size Communities?’ page 2 refers to the team comparison matrix and page 3 compares COPs to other organizations and activities. These matrices are also available on the C-port CD. Although all available CDs have been distributed, more are being mastered and will be available next month for distribution at the March workshop. Also recommend looking at Groove for COP development models.
Q: Whose job is it to sift through the good information?
A: The knowledge centers are responsible for this. Watch for DoN’s work on taxonomy development.
Q: What is the right size for a community of practice?
A: With the appropriate infrastructure capability, the size of communities of practice really doesn’t matter. The Shell Corporation had very large communities and they functioned as well as smaller groups.
Q: What form of hierarchy is appropriate for moving forward?
A: There is not one absolute hierarchical model that is all encompassing for organizations today. The Dean of Harvard Law School in the book Corporations Law discusses a different hierarchy model as seen in the diagram below. This model works well because it is efficient and communications flow well throughout the organization. With the Internet decreasing the cost of communication, organizations should flatten out. There is a generation of leaders that feel threatened by the informal networks forming in organizations.
Bob suggested that participants visit a site was developed by young field commanders in the Army who felt that the Army would need to change over the coming years to grow with the times. The training provided on this site is stellar and rivals conventional training methods.
Susan thanked the presenters. She invited the participants to reflect on how the ideas of the morning related to their work as they introduced themselves to the group.
Tom Tate noted that January 15, 2002 (the day of our workshop) marks the 100th anniversary of 4-H youth serving as tech transfer leaders in American communities. Digital literacy is an essential skill needed by all citizens if our society if it is to flourish. All tech savvy leaders are encouraged to adopt a small group of youth in their own communities to start or join a youth centered 4-H Technology Leader Team. A few hours each month will raise the digital literacy in your community making it a healthier place to live. To learn more about youth tech opportunities: or call 202-720-2727.
Following about thirty minutes of reflections and introductions as prelude to the networking lunch, Susan reminded everyone of the next workshop on February 19th workshop, which will include presentations by:
1.) Neil Scott, Stanford University, demonstrating a natural interaction interface and
2) Brand Neimann, EPA, demonstrating a natural language interface to an XML website. EPA further explored an approach identified during our research on the Extending Digital Dividends guide. In addition, Bob Andrews and Karl Hebenstreit have offered to share their experience with Quick Place as we pilot its use by this group. Bob Turner, FAA, has offered to host our group using the collaborative space being piloted by the Department of Health and Human Services.
Workshop Contributors:
Mark Addleson – George Mason University, Director MNPS of Organizational Learning, Mark.Addleson@sppmail.gmu.edu, 703-993-3804
Owen Ambur – US Fish and Wildlife Service, CIO Council XML working group, ambur@erols.com, 703-358-2138
Dion Anderson Consultant Specialist, EDS dion.Anderson@eds.com, 703-742-1605
Kim Andersson, USAF/SC, Kim.andersson@pentagon.af.mil , 703-588-61832138
Bob Andrew – ICF Consulting, bobandrew@icfconsulting.com 703-934-3446
Joyce Bissonette – CyberSeniors/CyberTeens, jbissone@vt.edu , 703-228-6425
John Black – Groove Networks, jblack@groove.net , 757-589-5642
Jaime Bonilla, The CDM Group, jbonilla@cdmgroup.com , 301-654-6740
Elaine Brett – EMB Associates, info@embassociatestrategy.com , 301-805-5752
George Brett – Internet2, ghb@internet2.edu , 202-256-1304
Lee Butler – Delphi Network Inc., delphinet@worldnet.att.net , 410-997-0782
Susan Chase – World Bank, schase@worldbank.org , 703-601-3592
Lowell Christy, City of Mind, Lowell@cityofmind.com , 301-519-2807
Eileen Collins – National Science Foundation (NSF), ecollins@nsf.gov , 703-292-7768
June Crosby - Senior Consultant, EDS, june.Crosby@eds.com 703-742-1605
Jim Disbrow – US Department of Energy, jim.disbrow@eia.doe.gov , 202-586-1868
Judy Douglas - Principal, EDS, judy.Douglas@eds.com , 706-742-2948
John Drake – Schafer Corp., jdrake@snap.org , 703-526-1789
Mark Frautschi – Independent Consultant, frautschi@bigmindmedia.com, 301-562-8506
Nader Ghobadi – Technical Director, FAA TTC, nader.ghobadi@faa.gov
Nick Guzman – George Washington U., Schl. of Medicine, guzmann@gwu.edu 202-995-5710
Karl Hebenstreit – Systems and Accessibility specialist, GSA, karl.hebenstreit@gsa.gov 202-2426
Kerry Joels – Dept. of Health and Human Services, kerry.joels@hhs.gov , 202-205-9332
Bob Knisely – Independent Consultant, knizzo@aol.com , 709-932-6244
Larry Koskinen – Independent Consultant lkoskinen@aol.com , 703-538-6902
Debbie Lenimeyer – Department of the Navy, CIO, lenimeyer.debra@hq.navy.mil , 703-538-6902
Jacquelyn Lilly – Department of State Consultant, lillyjr@state.gov ,202-203-7096
Vesnier Lugo – Office of Minority Health, vlugo@opsdhs.dhhs.gov 301-4433341
Denis McGlynn – Groove Networks, dmcglynn@groove.net 301-3257694
Guadalupe Pacheco – HHS, Office of Minority Health, gpacheco@osoph.dhhs.gov , 301-443-3379
Lori Perine – Interpretech, lperine@interpretech.com 202-266-0044x101
John Scott – Center for Public Service Communications, jcscott@cpsc.com 703-536-5642
Lesley Shneier – World Bank, Sr. Knowledge and Learning Officer, lshneier@worldbank
202-203-7096
William E Smith – Organizing for Devleopment –An International Initiative, aic@odii.com, 202-364-7209
Frank Sowa – Department of the Navy, sowa.frank@hq.navy.mil , 703-601-0047
Tony Stanco – George Washington University, Cyberspace Policy Institute, stanco@seas.gwu.edu 202-994-5513
Tom Tate – United States Department of Agriculture, ttate@reeusda.gov 202-720-2727
Susan Turnbull – GSA, Senior Program Advisor, susan.turnbull@gsa.gov , 202-501-6214
Bob Turner – FAA, Director of Team Technology Center, bob.turner@faa.gov 202-376-7129
Thom Wysong – Development Infostructure, twysong@devis.com 703-525-6485