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Losing Your Minds:

Capturing, Retaining and

Leveraging Organizational Knowledge

Bill Kaplan Founder, Working KnowledgeCSP

27 May 2014

Some Perspective

• ~2,700,000 workers = US federal government

• ~100,000+ = Hires each year to replace turnover

• 4.1 years = Median number of years that wage and salary workers, including federal service, were with their current employer

• 11 jobs = Career jobs for average worker starting today

• 60 million = American workers changing roles within their current organizations

Workforce Turnover and Loss

• People loss = knowledge loss

• Who: leadership and workforce

• Causes: retirement, promotion, career change, job change, downsizing, dismissal

• Impacts

o losses in productivity

o reduced cycle time

o reduced quality

o reduced consistency in practice

o reduced ability to successfully adapt to change

Risk to Mission Delivery !

What are your organizations doing to address these workforce

challenges?

• Resilience: the ability of an organization to

operate effectively in the face of change,

(e.g. employee turnover, work disruptions,

emergencies) beyond initial control of the

organization

• Agility: the ability to address the unknown

and to adapt effectively to change

Two Terms to Remember

Change Drives Knowledge Needs

• Determines kind of knowledge needed to mitigate the impact of change and the critical event on the normal operating performance of the organization

• Organizations that can effectively leverage their knowledge will shorten not only the severity of the impact, but also the duration of the impact.

Performance

Level

Time

Change Occurs Here

(Critical Event)

Change Events1. Changes in leadership

2. Relocation of Operations

3. New missions introduced

4. New processes introduced/

5. Reallocation of duties

6. Reduction in Force/Resources

7. Legal/regulatory changes

8. Workforce Turnover– Knowledge Loss

Duration

Severity

Normal Performance Level

KM Mitigates Impact

Improvements

Change Drives Knowledge Needs

© 2010 Working Knowledge CSP

Ability to Leverage Knowledge in The Midst of Ongoing Change

“Operating Faster than the Speed of Change”

Organizations that adapt to change well:

• routinely capture and retain critical and relevant knowledge

• can access “the know how and know why” of the decisions they have made about how they have addressed challenges and opportunities in the past

• have enabled an ability for their workforce and leadership to “connect, collect , and collaborate” in addressing these challenges and opportunities

• possess the ability to respond quickly to “right the ship” or take advantage of an opportunity to drive a better outcome

Obvious – Intuitive … but still a big challenge!

• Lack of formal, consistent knowledge capture and reuse frameworks that are an integral part of government operating or business processes - part of the way government works.

• Lack of broad senior leadership commitment to provide the necessary resources and take the necessary action to address knowledge capture and retention challenges

• It is difficult and labor intensive (costly) to capture what is in people’s heads.”

• Requires a unique skill set that is both “art and craft” -- technology is not the answer

Obvious – Intuitive … but still a big challenge!

• Knowledge and skills transfer is seen as “extra work” to be tackled “when we have time”

• Agency planning is FY focused

– KM requires an investment over time but is viewed on a year by year basis and budgeted the same way

– Political process demands instant success impacting agency budget decisions

– Not surprising that the patience for longer term investments in knowledge management doesn’t make the investment cut

• Requires enlightened leadership that can focus on value and longer term outcomes

• Compliance vs. performance environment

Understanding Some Basics for Success • There is long term value in capturing and

reusing knowledge and how and where it can be applied – it’s about performance!

• Recognize that it is a long term commitment to build and sustain a knowledge enabled organization

• Knowledge capture and reuse must be a routine part of the way you work

• Look for a place to start where it will have a significant impact on performance

• Focus on the people and the processes necessary to move knowledge across your workforce -- not the technology -- it’s about changing behavior!

• Understand the multi-generational nature of the workforce

Getting Started

• Create a common approach for knowledge capture

and reuse focused on collaborative behavior -

requires cultural change – it is not easy

• Place to start – at the leadership level or at

the workforce level – and look for the early

adapters in your organization to begin to

move your efforts forward

• Pilot project to demonstrate the value of these efforts

and the investment in time and resources

• Measure or value the outcome of your efforts to

demonstrate success and to convince anyone that

not doing this is a risky alternative

• What are some of the tools and techniques your organizations are using for capturing and reusing knowledge?

• How well are they working?

Suggestions

• Mentoring and internships

• “Communities of Practice” can create an ability for the workforce to share what they know across boundaries enabled by existing technology – or just get together

• Learning Before, Learning During, Learning After

• Knowledge Repositories (Knowledge Base) to store the “know

how and know why” of processes or methods

• Leadership and workforce expert knowledge transfer

• **Design and implement a context relevant KM Framework

Example: Expert Knowledge Retention

& Transfer Process Overview

Step Objective

1. Identify Experts &

Critical Knowledge To

Retain

• Identify experts and critical knowledge areas

OR

• Identify and prioritize knowledge areas for achieving

future strategies and mission-critical operations, then

identify corresponding experts

THEN

• Assess risks and other vulnerabilities

• Prioritize knowledge retention opportunities

2. Identify Successor(s)

or other Learner(s)

• Determine who will receive what knowledge

• Understand learner(s)’ current capabilities

3. Determine Knowledge

Retention & Transfer

Objectives

• Define learner(s) expected capabilities and level of

performance post-transfer (e.g., competent versus

SME).

4. Determine Knowledge

Transfer Method(s) • Select methods for each knowledge item.

5. Develop/Execute

Knowledge Transfer

Plan

• Identify specific knowledge items to transfer with

timeframe and measures of success or capability.

• Implement knowledge retention plan.

6. Monitor Expert And

Learner Results

• Manager tracks expert and learner progress against

knowledge transfer objectives and plans.

• Modify plans if needed.

• Provide resources & reinforcement.

Source: NCMA World Congress 2009; Jeff

Stemke

A Few Takeaways

• Move from FY to longer term view

• Leadership must think beyond politics to success of their mission

• Focus on establishing a culture (and supporting technology) geared to collaboration

• Capture and retain relevant and critical individual and organizational learning on a continual basis as part of normal business operations

• Doesn’t have to take a long time or cost a lot to begin doing something

What is the alternative of not doing anything?

Questions or Comments:

Bill Kaplan

571.934.7408

bill@workingknowledge-csp.com

www.workingknowledge-csp.com