Knowledge Management for Development2024-03-29T11:10:08ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherifhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1545918003?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://www.km4dev.org/forum/topic/listForContributor?groupUrl=km4dev-addis-ababa-ethiopia&user=1u05gvfs3t20a&feed=yes&xn_auth=noSeeking Knowledge Management Specialist - Global Health Supply Chain - Addis Ababatag:www.km4dev.org,2017-04-19:2672907:Topic:1062642017-04-19T15:11:49.373ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p><b>Knowledge Management Specialist – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia</b></p>
<p>Panagora Group, a woman-owned small business providing novel and integrated solutions in global health and international development, seeks a <b>Knowledge Management Specialist</b> for the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program – Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project. The purpose of the GHSC-PSM Ethiopia Program is to ensure uninterrupted supplies of health commodities in support of US Government-funded…</p>
<p><b>Knowledge Management Specialist – Addis Ababa, Ethiopia</b></p>
<p>Panagora Group, a woman-owned small business providing novel and integrated solutions in global health and international development, seeks a <b>Knowledge Management Specialist</b> for the USAID Global Health Supply Chain Program – Procurement and Supply Management (GHSC-PSM) project. The purpose of the GHSC-PSM Ethiopia Program is to ensure uninterrupted supplies of health commodities in support of US Government-funded public health initiatives in Ethiopia.</p>
<p>The Knowledge Management Specialist is responsible for the Knowledge Management component of the program, as well as spearheading the program’s information dissemination and training activities, to include preparing and facilitating presentations/workshops. This person will collect and disseminate lessons learned and share successes during GHSC-PSM implementation. This is a long-term position located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.</p>
<p><b>Responsibilities:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Collect and disseminate lessons learned and best practices to internal and external stakeholders, as appropriate.</li>
<li>Compile and analyze relevant activity data from partners to demonstrate GHSC-PSM progress for contractual reports and/or presentations.</li>
<li>Collate, edit, and write reports related to knowledge management activities.</li>
<li>Work with the M&E team and other program managers to interpret and report on data.</li>
<li>In collaboration with M&E team and program managers, facilitate and conduct project specific assessments that will inform decision making and promote learning.</li>
<li>Strategically plan and organize innovative methods to disseminate program information. </li>
<li>Participate in meetings, conference calls and other relationship management responsibilities with project officers and other relevant stakeholders.</li>
<li>Communicate with partner organizations in their contributions to GHSC-PSM.</li>
<li>Design and maintain a multiple user platform for effective knowledge management.</li>
<li>Develop and maintain communities of practice to facilitate the sharing of knowledge</li>
<li>Create/innovate social media information dissemination platforms to communicate program activities.</li>
<li>Prepare and facilitate presentations.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Qualifications:</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Minimum 7 years of experience with knowledge management including writing reports or technical articles and the creation of knowledge management strategies</li>
<li>Experience working with social media platforms preferred</li>
<li>Experience with writing reports and success stories for USAID or a major international donor preferred</li>
<li>Bachelor’s degree required; Master’s or other advanced degree preferred (in Knowledge Management, Public Health, or relevant)</li>
<li>Strong written and oral communication skills required</li>
<li>Working experience in M&E and knowledge management is advantageous</li>
<li>Written and spoken English fluency required</li>
<li>Demonstrated leadership, versatility, and integrity</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><b>To apply</b>, please submit a CV and cover letter to <a href="mailto:connect@panagoragroup.net">connect@panagoragroup.net</a> with the full position title in the subject line. No telephone inquiries, please. Finalists will be contacted.</p>
<p>Panagora Group is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in its selection and employment practices.</p> Notes from the 13th gathering (26 June 2015)tag:www.km4dev.org,2015-06-29:2672907:Topic:911662015-06-29T06:01:49.951ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p>Following a good gathering, this one featured very good and action-oriented conversations, despite a low turnout (6 people).</p>
<p>We didn't start with an agenda but generated it on the spot using '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhG-A-kRPAU" target="_blank">Lean Coffee</a>'.</p>
<p>Lean Coffee led to 3 different topics:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to make this network stronger?</li>
<li>How we should promote this network?</li>
<li>What is the value of one-stop-shops vs. various social…</li>
</ul>
<p>Following a good gathering, this one featured very good and action-oriented conversations, despite a low turnout (6 people).</p>
<p>We didn't start with an agenda but generated it on the spot using '<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhG-A-kRPAU" target="_blank">Lean Coffee</a>'.</p>
<p>Lean Coffee led to 3 different topics:</p>
<ul>
<li>How to make this network stronger?</li>
<li>How we should promote this network?</li>
<li>What is the value of one-stop-shops vs. various social media?</li>
</ul>
<h3><span class="font-size-4">How to make this network stronger?</span></h3>
<p>There used to be more presentations and interactions etc.</p>
<p>One way to find out why people may not be coming is to make an assessment – Survey Monkey etc. (more creative ideas to make this stronger) to give us come background to start… We should find out through the survey why they’re not coming and what value they would like to see from this? The survey could look into a) why they lost interest and b) what would make them come back?</p>
<p>Since we have many new members on NING, FB etc. it would be nice to see them as new members and give an introduction to explain to them why they can benefit etc.</p>
<p>The date and time and gathering might be an issue? People are drawn into a lot of commitments. Should we think about this on Saturday/Sunday? But lots of people have commitments over the weekend… Perhaps we could do it on Monday or some other day earlier in the week? On the other hand, Friday is a day off for UN agencies and others… that was the reason why we chose this time slot.</p>
<p>This network needs to be institutionalised – we need to talk to supervisors to get them to buy into this.</p>
<p>We can put that into the survey (preferred day/time).</p>
<p>Can we identify membership per organisation? As we grow can we think about certifying KM for the organisations that send people to participate on a regular basis</p>
<p>How much awareness is there about this network?</p>
<p>In the long term we can think of having an association. But talking about having a legal entity etc. has to follow having a strong group first</p>
<p>We could collect some testimonies of why people benefit from this.</p>
<p>Make active members ambassadors? Going to meetings, workshops. Emphasise the links etc.</p>
<p>It would be good to ask questions and share docs and conversations that are happening here and there (e.g. on the global KM4Dev discussion group).</p>
<p>Maybe we can also organise virtual meetings – Good to try it out… Every time or one quarter in the year?</p>
<p><strong>What we can do before the next KM4Dev event</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Draft survey – ZS to start asking questions on FB (to feed into SurveyMonkey)</li>
<li>Set up SurveyMonkey for this (TG to check if we can use the ILRI one)</li>
<li>Post interesting conversations from KM4Dev onto the Ethiopia one – ELB</li>
<li>Ask on FB what people are benefitting from this CoP – Ask Dawit to post that question…</li>
<li>Anyone of us to post questions on FB</li>
</ul>
<p> Elements of the survey:</p>
<ul>
<li>Preferred day/time?</li>
<li>Preferred frequency?</li>
<li>Why they left?</li>
<li>What’s the value they have?</li>
<li>Idea of having a virtual meeting?</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h3><span class="font-size-4">How should we promote this group?</span></h3>
<p>Identify who’s interested – people working in development. Where do we find these people interested in KM? On LinkedIn, among our partners... Perhaps check organisations that could be interested? (e.g. DfID, USAID, CARE, World Vision, Haramaya University). E.g. USAID have some projects working solely on KM. They tend to have KM advisors (at program level), Ministries, IOM, CDKN, ATA.</p>
<p>From the people that were previously in the network, we could informally ask them why they’re not coming (and answering the survey).</p>
<p><strong>Practical ways forward</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>SY has contacts for USAID.</li>
<li>ZS to contact UN comms group.</li>
<li>SY, ELB to contact individual contacts from CGIAR (ZL/DT for SY, AW and GM), EN to contact AU folks + ask Gashaw to help with AU.</li>
<li>Each of us to try to bring 1-2 people to come next time.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<h3><span class="font-size-4">Value of one-stop-shops vs. various social media?</span></h3>
<p>At <strong>ILRI</strong> we use a lot of different platforms/media/channels to do different things but some colleagues are questioning this model, which is interesting to consider: What are arguments in favour of having integrated systems vs. a myriad of (social media) platforms.</p>
<p>Yammer will be integrated with Office 365. Sharepoint is not integrated with a number of platforms. </p>
<p>The capacity of the tool has not been tested. We have tools for different purposes etc.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>What’s the need for a one-stop-shop platform?</p>
<p>We don’t have dis-integrated platforms so we can still subscribe to things using our emails. </p>
<p>We are arguing a lot with our researchers. The website is a one-stop-shop for us. E.g. people are wondering why we use e.g. CG Space as opposed to having all docs on the website as many others.</p>
<p>Our people say they don’t have time to go to all tools. As comms folks we need to find ways to communicate through different means.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It may be an opportunity with Office 365 because it’s integrated with Windows, there is MS Office and you can use docs online. Right now at UNICEF we put all documents online and they are accessible everywhere using SharePoint and we use one login. With e.g. Yammer you have one login just for that.</p>
<p>At <strong>UNICEF</strong> we’ll have one blogging platform on Wordpress and all blogs/sub-sites will be under that. We have an office in each country so we can expect lots of demand for that. It’s going to be a huge functionality.</p>
<p>Every platform has its added value – so some can be compromised etc.</p>
<p></p>
<p>In the <strong>IPSS</strong> case is that we try to bring user cases around email marketing e.g. certain type of uses from certain platforms and trying to track them through Google Analytics. There are services that you can subscribe to and we know that some people should get information from the different platforms into one newsletter that is delivered at a precise time – consistently for certain groups. This works for people who don’t like distraction (from e.g. using different social media).</p>
<p>We use ‘Campaign Monitor’ linked with Google Analytics. We can play videos inside the newsletter. There’s another product called ‘Eye Contact’.</p>
<p>One concern is that you might end up with a very limited group of people because they expect this email and may delete it automatically…</p>
<p>We have done 8 editions so far at ISSP and most people are external (it’s part of external comms). We’ve started to experiment and we lead off an editorial about what’s happening in the sector that is not relevant for our audience. We’re not yet confident to say we are successful with it.</p>
<p>Your personal take on news that is outside of your organization is good.</p>
<p>Shareability is key in this also and finally it increases the key communication metrics that allow you to obtain support from other units.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>This whole conversation is about summarising everything into one place for project/program people e.g. emails + website.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-4">Next gathering Friday 2 October 2-5pm at the ILRI info centre.</span><br/></strong></p> Looking for a KM intern in Addistag:www.km4dev.org,2015-04-15:2672907:Topic:885282015-04-15T09:56:29.636ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p>see details and how to apply at <a href="http://goo.gl/5yUu7i">http://goo.gl/5yUu7i</a></p>
<p></p>
<p>see details and how to apply at <a href="http://goo.gl/5yUu7i">http://goo.gl/5yUu7i</a></p>
<p></p> Notes from the 12th gathering (03 April 2015)tag:www.km4dev.org,2015-04-04:2672907:Topic:883522015-04-04T05:38:42.315ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p>After almost a year without gatherings we resumed our KM4Dev Ethiopia community gatherings on Friday 3 April. 12 people participated including three new members. </p>
<p>The first hour (2-3pm) was used for informal networking and was merged with the biweekly gathering of the ILRI communication & knowledge management team. Meanwhile the <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ewenlb/overall-km4-dev-aa-et-presentation" target="_blank">community presentation</a> was displayed in auto-repeat…</p>
<p>After almost a year without gatherings we resumed our KM4Dev Ethiopia community gatherings on Friday 3 April. 12 people participated including three new members. </p>
<p>The first hour (2-3pm) was used for informal networking and was merged with the biweekly gathering of the ILRI communication & knowledge management team. Meanwhile the <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ewenlb/overall-km4-dev-aa-et-presentation" target="_blank">community presentation</a> was displayed in auto-repeat mode.</p>
<p></p>
<p>From 3pm we started off by introducing the upcoming '<a href="http://ilri-events.wikispaces.com/2015_Process_ShareFair" target="_blank">AgKnowledge Innovation Process share fair</a>' which could be extremely interesting for this community. <strong><a href="https://aginnovation-sharefair.eventbrite.com/" target="_blank">Register for the Share Fair</a></strong>.</p>
<p>After that we had a small exercise to find out: a) what KM challenges we are facing in the global development sector in Ethiopia that this community can do something about and b) how can we organise ourselves in this community to make sure we address these challenges in a sustainable manner. </p>
<p></p>
<p>We ended up with this global picture (<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343160?profile=original" target="_self">12.%20km4dev.pdf</a>): <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343314?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343314?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="566" class="align-center" height="391"/></a></p>
<p>Before we decided to use the remaining time, we agreed that this network would never be sustainable if it relied on me (Ewen) so we agreed that I would work with two volunteers (Zerihun Sewunet and Dawit Dagnew) to train them on hosting these gatherings. Other participants (particularly Tigist Endashaw) also mentioned they were ready to help here and there.</p>
<p>By the next gathering, Dawit, Zerihun and I will come back to the whole group to mention how people can help us prepare it.</p>
<p>Then we looked at the above picture again and decided to zoom in on 'how to show the value of KM for public agencies'. The conversation started on this topic but focused overall more on the value of KM generally.</p>
<h2><span>KM in public agencies (and what is the value of KM)</span></h2>
<p><u>Marc Lepage (ML)</u>: All the topics are linked and boil down to the question: What is the value of KM?</p>
<p>We need to promote KM to get traction. </p>
<p>We could go around talking about how we talk about KM and find out we have very different understanding and definitions of KM. But for instance I could present my definition, you could 'trash' me to tell me what works or not. I can tell you what I think is the value etc. We all have a different angle about this. If we were all going to do this we could end up making our KM argument stronger.</p>
<p>Once you pass the hurdle of management etc. you can get on to the impact assessment etc.</p>
<p><u>Gashaw Kebede (GK)</u>: It’s about understanding the priorities given to professionals.</p>
<p>Why do we think that that is the situation (i.e. that public agencies don't understand the value of KM)? It could be related to the way we are presenting this/KM? But it could also be due to other things. E.g. libraries have taken years to be accepted.</p>
<p><u>Fikr</u>: Interesting to hear success stories…</p>
<p><u>Peter Ballantyne</u>: <strong>KM is everywhere but people don’t call it that</strong>. Our scientists manage knowledge all the time – they create/share/do things with knowledge. I never talk about KM, I talk about what they’re doing. We should be careful that we shouldn’t just focus on the label ‘KM’ or having a position.</p>
<p><u>GK</u>: <strong>KM may not be recognized</strong>.</p>
<p>(<em>from this point on I didn't note down the names of people speaking any longer</em>)</p>
<p>Public agencies may be doing KM but may not call it KM. It’s probably there but very poor.</p>
<p>Capturing is there but the <strong>sharing is the element we’re missing</strong> from these agencies. There is a fear of sharing knowledge…<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343431?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="401" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343431?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="401" class="align-right"/></a></p>
<p>The director of EIAR mentioned that in Ethiopia “<strong>We can’t find knowledge</strong>”. Whatever you call it, we can’t find the knowledge. These agencies are still publishing a lot though. What are they doing about it? There is no initiative taken to move this forward. There is no prioritization of it.</p>
<p>Some people see it as <strong>an HR problem, not as a KM problem</strong>.</p>
<p>What is the <strong>value to do KM</strong>? How do you assess the impact?</p>
<p>(<em>Btw sorry this only picture is about me, I don't have any at hand right now. This is a picture from Zerihun Sewunet [UNICEF] and if I get more I will add them here too</em>).</p>
<p>In GIZ it’s <strong>part of the policies, job descriptions etc</strong>. and people effectively do it as a result.</p>
<p>At UNDP it’s also in everyone’s ToR / job descriptions but it’s not followed. People always say they do ‘KM’. </p>
<p>We need <strong>multiple systems to capture their information</strong>.</p>
<p>It’s all about the WIIFM (what's in it for me) factor – what’s done in KM should lead to more effectiveness…</p>
<p>Unless something is requested by the donor <strong>nothing is documented</strong>. Only the donor sees it… The government works in the same way.</p>
<p>This may have to do with institutional politics etc.</p>
<p>Value for money is important. <strong>Once people see it (the success) they do it (KM).</strong></p>
<p>It seems <strong>we haven’t made a proper case for KM to management</strong> (and other potential champions) to convince them to make a difference. Among professionals, KM is everywhere - it's not a unified field - so there’s no understanding to make this more visible as a profession. It is not very well defined.</p>
<p>And the past experience e.g. from UN agencies shows that even though they have used the term perhaps they didn’t do it in a way that was good enough, perhaps also because these professionals were developing their job and practice and as a result they didn't do it well. Sometimes, the job description is also not specific enough.</p>
<p><strong>Knowledge sharing goes against human nature</strong>. There is a problem of prestige, position etc. It’s not easy. It works against having recognition in our positions etc.</p>
<p>I thought that KM was cropping up much more in jobs etc.</p>
<p><strong>No proper process documentation</strong>…</p>
<p>The <strong>projectization is another issue</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Everyone discovers KM at some point</strong>. E.g. in GIZ now we have a process to hand the knowledge over.</p>
<p>There is one KM course in universities. </p>
<p>In UNDP KM is still everywhere but not done by and large. There is no definition of what we should be doing. In UNDP <strong>all KM specialists came from very different walks of life/have different profiles</strong>. The variety in those profiles made this interesting.</p>
<p>The way we position KM in different organisations is very different. One of the big elements of <strong>reluctance towards KM is exposure to the fact that not everyone’s an expert</strong>.</p>
<p>If we call things ‘KM’ people push back – but <strong>if we present something in a nice and easy way it’s much more effective</strong>.</p>
<p>There is a <strong>fundamental issue with learning the skill of process facilitation</strong>. But this could take years…</p>
<p>When we ask management for budget, <strong>what do we want to reach etc. we need to have some answers</strong>. How best can we make a sound case for KM? Starting with sthg tangible is one way of doing it. We can also show something achievable.</p>
<p>And there’s also a debate about having a KM specialist that is either a specialist of a given field or a tool/process specialist…</p>
<p>We should <strong>study the factors to resistance about KM</strong>.</p>
<p>We can focus together on KM as KM specialists or we can decide to advocate/transform global development through KM.</p>
<p>Who in Ethiopia is waiting for this? UN heads? REDD-FS? Prime Minister etc.? Where is the leverage point? Universities training the next generations…</p>
<p></p>
<p>As a result of this discussion, we decided to focus on the following questions for the next gathering:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>How do you make KM attractive (a.o.) to managers and others?</strong></li>
<li><strong>How do you measure it?</strong></li>
<li><strong>What success stories can we show?</strong></li>
<li><strong>How do people do it?</strong></li>
</ol>
<p>And each of us coming to the next gathering should prepare for this by wondering:</p>
<ul>
<li><b>Who do we want to convince about the value of KM? To do what?</b></li>
<li><b>What could be practical steps we can take to stimulate that change of mindset?</b></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><b>Next gathering</b></span></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.km4dev.org/events/km4dev-addis-1" target="_self">next gathering</a> will take place on <span><strong>Friday 26 June from 2 to 5pm on the ILRI campus</strong></span>.</p> volunteer opportunity: English to Amharic translation of an innovation toolkittag:www.km4dev.org,2015-04-03:2672907:Topic:879262015-04-03T11:51:53.296ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p><a href="https://onlinevolunteering.org/en/org/opportunity/opportunity_form.html?id=58853">https://onlinevolunteering.org/en/org/opportunity/opportunity_form.html?id=58853</a></p>
<p><a href="https://onlinevolunteering.org/en/org/opportunity/opportunity_form.html?id=58853">https://onlinevolunteering.org/en/org/opportunity/opportunity_form.html?id=58853</a></p> Notes from the tenth gathering (23/05/2014)tag:www.km4dev.org,2014-05-27:2672907:Topic:805192014-05-27T14:45:54.905ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p>For this jubilee – which we did not really, unfortunately, celebrate – 15 people turned up, including six new members. For the first time, the gathering was – very nicely – hosted by the <a href="http://www.snsfethiopia.org/">Safety Net Support Facility Project</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<p>In the first hour, waiting for participants to come, we organised a <a href="http://gaurisalokhe.blogspot.com/2010/11/un-knowledge-fair-opens-with-speed.html">speed dating/networking</a> exercise so everyone could…</p>
<p>For this jubilee – which we did not really, unfortunately, celebrate – 15 people turned up, including six new members. For the first time, the gathering was – very nicely – hosted by the <a href="http://www.snsfethiopia.org/">Safety Net Support Facility Project</a>.</p>
<p></p>
<p>In the first hour, waiting for participants to come, we organised a <a href="http://gaurisalokhe.blogspot.com/2010/11/un-knowledge-fair-opens-with-speed.html">speed dating/networking</a> exercise so everyone could meet (almost) everyone else.</p>
<p><a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoUg-rgCQAA-gVG.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoUg-rgCQAA-gVG.jpg?width=400" width="400" class="align-right"/></a>We continued with a mini <a href="http://www.kstoolkit.org/Open+Space">Open Space</a> session to generate ideas for topics that matter to us. Considering the small number of participants we clustered some topics and came to the following selection for this gathering, and ran them as two parallel sessions of 55 minutes:</p>
<ol>
<li>Session 1 (3-4pm)<ul>
<li>KM basics (a presentation by Sara Seyoum) combined with ‘what is/constitutes knowledge’ (Gashaw Kebede)</li>
<li>Peer assist ‘Converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge – the case of SNSF’s leaving staff members and job rotation’ (Etsegenet Awash)</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Session 2 (4-5pm)<ul>
<li>KM strategy (Gashaw Kebede)</li>
<li>Sharepoint for third-party KM (pros & cons) + Documentation & availing it for users in a user-friendly manner + technology that works in Ethiopia (to share knowledge…) (Elshadai N<br/> egash & Nadja Shashe)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<p><img width="500" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271341492?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="500" class="align-center"/></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><b>KM Basics / what is knowledge</b></span></p>
<p>The presentation by Sara Seyoum 'KM essentials for the knowledge age' is available online on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/km4devaddiset/" target="_blank">Facebook group page</a>.</p>
<p>Some discussion about <strong>a definition of KM</strong> touched upon the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Technology and tools to capture, share and use</li>
<li>Proper standardisation of documents</li>
<li>Sharable</li>
<li>Creating/identifying from high expertise to low expertise</li>
<li>Documentation, sharing institutional activities</li>
<li>Identifying, storing valuable information</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Nadja's definition: Kowledge understood in the academic sense as proven insight/finding about the world, that is in sharable form and therefore can be transmitted in between people.</li>
<li>General connection: Program to enable people to collectively and sytematically share and capture knowledge.</li>
<li>KM basics theory: Nonaka - tacit to explicit (SECI model)</li>
<li>Tacit/Externalisation - When people leave they take their knowledge with them if they are not shared through externalisation (creating a capture of that knowledge)</li>
<li>Use socialisation to turn the most valuable information into tacit knowledge (google's round circle)</li>
<li>Use office culture to change staff attitute towards taking in new knowledge</li>
<li>Build suitable infrastructure to capture & share knowledge</li>
<li>Find strategies that makes it easy for staff to share their knowledge amd receive it from others - What are strategies and how can we adpt them to our office?</li>
<li>Internally - What are the obstacles in sharing knowledge within our local office?</li>
<li>What are we doing for induction of new staff?</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><b>Peer assist ‘converting tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge – the SNSF case’</b></span></p>
<p><em>Some experts can do things well but they can’t explain very well.</em></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Original case brief</span>:</p>
<p>Towards the end of last year, a member of SNSF's KM team left his job. As a result, we observed some gaps, as we believe that there were some specific knowledge and skills that could have been captured while he was working for the office; other than this staff member training other staff on these specific skills, conducting exit interview and preparing handing over notes or terminal/final report, what could we have done to retain his tacit knowledge, especially the 'how to' part?</p>
<p>Proper handover has been done but he left the office. His expertise is not captured well e.g. skills, doing analysis, planning etc. was not done very well. He was doing some work that required specific skills and licensed software, but he was not excited to share it with anyone who was here. He was less inclined or motivated to share… What can motivate?</p>
<p></p>
<p><b>Round of clarifications…</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Q: Have you tried asking him to share his knowledge?</li>
<li>A: I have asked him to give me the software he was using while he was working here. His answer was acceptable at some level but I felt my approach was not good. Otherwise he would have shared. I asked direct questions: can you share this with me?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Is it about a particular licensed software or something else?</li>
<li>A: If he would share, he felt that some specific skills made him unique and he was not so inclined in sharing. He wanted to retain his unique position etc.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Isn’t there any other way to acquire his knowledge or attain his knowledge?</li>
<li>A: The project is a three-year project and we are building the capacity of a government programme. It’s KM for our stakeholders. Getting a training etc. or some skills for own staff is not a priority. It was a lesson in retrospect… Other people couldn’t produce the same quality and people are coming back to me to work on these charts etc.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Did you try to replace him with a person that has the same skills as him?</li>
<li>A: His responsibility was shared among the rest of the staff?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Do you have any experience sharing activity at the office between staff?</li>
<li>A: In the IT field we have an experience sharing gathering on MS Office, smartphones, proper use of PCs, use of IT based sharing tools etc. There is some Coaching activities in other fields.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: How many offices do you have?</li>
<li>A: We have the Oromia regional office here and we also have a regional office in other regions, no other country office. It’s an independent project in Ethiopia. We have a shared folder / drive / ftp sharing etc. / a website / an intranet site. We have a lot of IT tools to share. Learning & Sharing events are not happening, only with IT.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Proper handover – what does it look like?</li>
<li>A: He gave us his working folders, reports at hand, and materials he developed in PDF format. 3 weeks’ notifications. But we didn’t do anything else.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Did you do any exit interview?</li>
<li>A: No we didn’t do it at that time (Nov. last year). We’ve introduced that now as part of document management.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Were you working separately or not?</li>
<li>A: Together, very much… but he just wasn’t so inclined to share his information.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Who is your manager?</li>
<li>A: We have a manager but we didn’t take this as an issue to the manager. We all reported to the same manager.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Do you have ‘knowledge sharing’ in your ToR?</li>
<li>A: It is mentioned between the lines (team orientation)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Was there any man-woman relationship dynamics to resisting the sharing?</li>
<li>A: He just had some resistance to share… Gender dynamics was not an issue but the manager did feel that this might have been some issue. I was supposed to help him etc. and give him the stuff that he wants.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Did/do you work in pairs with other people?</li>
<li>A: Mostly as a team</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: When he asked you for some help did you provide it?</li>
<li>A: Yes. E.g. helping him with IT routine. He wasn’t asking any other information but usually about phones (Android phones)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Is there any coaching happening?</li>
<li>A: Some staff are coaching others on any issue. The coach suggests coaching.</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><b>Round of suggestions…</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Two issues: first the job was not your job and his skill was not needed and only at the end you found out about the skill gap. You were willing to learn from the start but he was not willing to share with you… What can you do? Hire sb w/ those skills. Another way would be to acquaint yourself with the problem quickly; One person in my job used to have a lot of tutorials and he didn’t want me to share… In my new company, if you want to be trained on sthg, the HR dept’t organises knowledge transfer and anyone in the office can apply for this or that… That culture could be introduced in your office (HR support to organise such meetings and forward ideas).</li>
<li>One thing that would really work is to have a back up for each person and tool that you’re using (so you don’t make the back up when the person has left but any time)… You can have monthly/weekly ‘how-to’s’ on tools… You don’t have structured coaching and you have training sessions every month etc. so you can invite people from different sessions to do training on different areas.</li>
<li>He used his knowledge as leverage. He might even ask to increase his salary because he knows more. You should have asked him how to do it while he was here. There is a KM policy in my company that states that the person must share whatever knowledge you have. After KM was established every team member knows what others are doing. You might prepare presentations etc. and put these presentations on the library. We need to know everything. You should have a policy…</li>
<li>Handover process with exit interview, requirement in ToR and assessment against that, coaching/buddying, on the job sharing, contingency plans for (redundancy plan), description of mission-critical tasks (and skills/softwares etc.), find other people that work well with him. Find lots of tutorials online and ask questions on KM4Dev. The world wasn’t done over a day.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><u>What I will try out practically</u>:</p>
<ul>
<li>KS events – that can be implemented;</li>
<li>Inform the manager to revise the ToR: sharing is mandatory;</li>
<li>Implement the exit interview template in a way that these skills are captured;</li>
<li>Work on coaching;</li>
<li>motivate departments to conduct regular experience sharing events</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>More resources</strong>: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/Exit_Interviews" target="_blank">How to do exit interviews (KM4Dev discussion)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/Job_Handover" target="_blank">Job handover (KM4Dev discussion)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/Discussion_Report_15_Exit_interviews_-_or_how_to_capture_30_years_of_Roger%27s_experience_in_development_cooperation%3F" title="Discussion Report 15 Exit interviews - or how to capture 30 years of Roger's experience in development cooperation?">Discussion Report 15 Exit interviews - or how to capture 30 years of Roger's experience in development cooperation?</a></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><b>KM strategy</b></span></p>
<p>Gashaw Kebede proposed this discussion topic, starting with the following premises/questions (and some initial responses) proposed by the initiator and other participants:</p>
<ul>
<li>Q: What is a KM strategy?</li>
<li>A: A set of activities, applicable plans, principles, resources.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Why do not more organisations have a KM strategy?</li>
<li>A: KM is a confusing concept, it’s not always clearly related to the overall strategy.</li>
<li>Too often there is not enough attention paid to the WIIFM (What’s in it for me?): No rewards, no clear return on investment, so there’s no motivation (for something as difficult as behaviour change).</li>
<li>A KM strategy can be used in a too mechanistic a way, as a tick-boxing exercise, which leave people disappointed with a KM strategy that is not really owned further down the line.</li>
<li>It is time consuming to generate</li>
<li>It is sometimes already happening but not called a ‘KM strategy’</li>
<li>It can be too inflexible – organisations might go for principles instead?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: If they do have one, why don’t they use it?</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Q: Is it really a good thing?</li>
<li>A: Not always! The process (if it’s kept light and leads to good learning conversations) is good, but the result not always.</li>
</ul>
<p><img width="400" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343001?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-right"/></p>
<p>The conversation tackled a number of key challenges: the necessity of generating quick returns (or losing momentum), the importance of relating the KM strategy to people work and personal/team strategy so they can see the benefit of it, the time it takes to build a KM strategy, the slow cultural change and the low level of awareness for KM.</p>
<p>In the process, the group went over some examples such as the recent <a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/capacity-building/knowledge/undp_s-knowledge-management-strategy/">KM strategy of UNDP</a>. The group also zoomed in on the Information Network Security Agency (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Information-Network-Security-Agency-INSA/192389774141500">INSA</a>)’s use of after action review, their revision of the KM strategy around the whole organisation - focusing on early wins etc. INSA’s software development team started reading more about KM about four years ago when they were looking for project information and could only spot information about 25% of the projects. They started and developed KM organically along the way, from a document management starting point.</p>
<p>The final observations and insights from this discussion were the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Using proposal development online can be a useful way to trigger sharing;</li>
<li>KM awareness programs might be in order – and sometimes there is no need for KM awareness, or for KM, for that matter.</li>
<li>You need top management commitment AND bottom-up consultation and buy-in;</li>
<li>Keep the strategy flexible</li>
<li>Show quick returns</li>
<li>Start with what people are doing (challenges you are facing) “Start from the people”</li>
<li>Use champions</li>
<li>From from top down to bottom up, use pilot projects and communities of practice (using KM technology)</li>
<li>Lead by example!</li>
</ul>
<p>The conversation is also summarised in the picture hereby:</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343282?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="400" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343282?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="400" class="align-full"/></a></p>
<p><strong>More resources</strong>: </p>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/Developing_a_KM_Strategy" title="Developing a KM Strategy">Developing a KM Strategy</a> (KM4Dev discussion)</li>
<li><a href="http://wiki.km4dev.org/KM_Strategy" title="KM Strategy">KM Strategy</a> (KM4Dev discussion)</li>
<li><a href="http://km4meu.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/harvesting-insights-agile-km-between-stealth-and-big-bang/">Harvesting insights (3): Agile KM, between stealth and big bang</a> (blog post Ewen on choosing between different pathways to KM strategies)</li>
<li><a href="http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/librarypage/capacity-building/knowledge/undp_s-knowledge-management-strategy/">KM strategy of UNDP</a><a href="http://km4meu.wordpress.com/2012/07/18/harvesting-insights-agile-km-between-stealth-and-big-bang/"><br/></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18716340902876009#.UdJdAD6MEVk" class="title">Taylor & Francis Online :: The tip of the iceberg: tentative first steps in cross-organisational comparison of knowledge management in development organisations - Knowledge Management for Development Journal - Volume 5, Issue 1</a></li>
<li><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ao6QHe7Eeu6UcGhGVlhZdkkzU0RZcXE0WGY4MUZCVEE&hl=en#gid=0" class="title">Draft inventory of organisational case studies of KM</a></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><img width="350" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271344639?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="350" class="align-left"/></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><b>Sharepoint, making documentation available in a user-friendly manner, technology that works in Ethiopia</b></span></p>
<p>(Notes pending on the group)</p>
<p></p>
<p>See this picture:</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271346080?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271346080?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5"><b>Next gathering</b></span></p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.km4dev.org/events/km4dev-addis-ababa-ethiopia-take-11">next gathering</a> will take place on <span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Friday 25 July from 2 to 5pm on the ILRI campus</strong></span>.</p>
<p>Probable topics:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>KM tools share fair</strong> (Gashaw Kebede to lead organisation and check our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/km4devaddiset/" target="_blank">Facebook page</a>)</li>
<li><strong>UNICEF's 'communication for development' approach</strong> (person to be identified)</li>
<li><strong>Social implications of knowledge-sharing / contextualisation...</strong> (Nadja Shashe)</li>
</ul>
<p>And possibly also... (parked from earlier sessions)</p>
<ul>
<li>Organisational learning and KM (Tigist Endashaw) KM of social media (Elshadai Negash)</li>
<li>A (possible) peer assist case about taking up the communication/KM lead of the Nile Basin Development Challenge program (Aberra Adie)</li>
<li>How to work on comms/KM without internet, as is the case (Frehiwot Yilma)</li>
<li>Follow up / feedback from peer assist on moving away from tacit to explicit knowledge at SNSF, around job rotation and departing staffs... (Etsegenet Awash)</li>
<li>Follow up / feedback from the peer assist on the KM audit survey (Adrian Young)</li>
</ul> Notes from the ninth gathering (10/01/2014)tag:www.km4dev.org,2014-01-11:2672907:Topic:755092014-01-11T06:31:04.551ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p>18 participants - of which 8 new members) came over to the ninth gathering of KM4Dev Addis/Ethiopia on 10 January 2014.</p>
<p>The gathering covered two topics:</p>
<ul>
<li>A presentation about KM in event management (by Elshadai Negash)</li>
<li>A peer-assist case by Adrian Young about a KM audit questionnaire (Adrian Young)</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p>However, beforehand the participants brainstormed, in groups, what could be interesting topics for discussion...</p>
<p>These are the topics that…</p>
<p>18 participants - of which 8 new members) came over to the ninth gathering of KM4Dev Addis/Ethiopia on 10 January 2014.</p>
<p>The gathering covered two topics:</p>
<ul>
<li>A presentation about KM in event management (by Elshadai Negash)</li>
<li>A peer-assist case by Adrian Young about a KM audit questionnaire (Adrian Young)</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p>However, beforehand the participants brainstormed, in groups, what could be interesting topics for discussion...</p>
<p>These are the topics that were mentioned in that brainstorm session:</p>
<ul>
<li>Tacit knowledge</li>
<li><strong>Organisational learning</strong></li>
<li><strong>Real impact of KM on organisations (with examples)</strong></li>
<li><strong>How to convince organisations to invest in KM</strong></li>
<li>What are different 'facets' of KM?</li>
<li>KM basics</li>
<li><strong>KM tools</strong></li>
<li>How document management relates to KM</li>
<li><strong>Best practices on KM</strong></li>
<li>Best experiences in Ethiopia on KM</li>
<li>Best strategies to bring KM</li>
<li>Experience sharing with similar projects on challenges of KM implementation</li>
<li>Introducing KM to local institutions?</li>
<li>How to influence scientists to share their findings</li>
<li>KM and value chains / ICT</li>
<li><strong>How to bring the positive culture in KM?</strong></li>
<li>KM for project management</li>
</ul>
<p>At the end of the gathering, the participants prioritised the key topics (mentioned in bold above) for the next meetings.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271341741?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271341741?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5">Presentation about 'KM in event management' (Elshadai Negash)</span></p>
<p>See the presentation by Elshadai Negash (upcoming)</p>
<ul>
<li>Q: How successful is the organisation at KM?</li>
<li>A: OGKM has been there for 13 years. KM in certain organisations is very new. Successes on many fronts: formalising procedures, creating technical manuals (originally difficult and then it was too much information). Where to find specific information that is required? From a PDF document this moved on to a wiki-type site which is more search-friendly…</li>
<li>Q: What were critics of the program?</li>
<li>A: Not enough sharing, costs of the program. Slight reduction of costs from Beijing to London…</li>
<li>Q: What is the difference between tacit and explicit?</li>
<li>A: Explicit is what is codified as information in documents etc. Tacit is difficult to put the finger on. In this case it’s all the knowledge sharing programs…</li>
<li>Q: What are mechanisms for sharing the learning? Which ones are used to share officially or unofficially?</li>
<li>A: Formal mechanisms include project reports, OGKM extranet (Sharepoint) which contains the knowledge map (providing road map of functional requirements over a period of time); among tacit ones, the observer programme to visit the venue etc.; secondment…</li>
<li>Q: What were outstanding challenges in this process?</li>
<li>A: The cross-cultural challenge (e.g. London learning from Beijing and the latter not being open to sharing much, likewise from London to Sotchi). Much negotiation needed. The host city contract is signed between the IOC and organisers and KM is essential in this. The problem is all about sharing knowledge willingly. The big challenge, aside from the formal obligation (10-15% of ToR of staff cover KM) is the ability to empower people to share knowledge… Big cost factor is in the venue.</li>
<li>Q: Does the commercial nature of KM influence the efficiency?</li>
</ul>
<p>A: It’s in the commercial interest of everyone. So yes. It takes a lot of disciplined work to quality check all the project reports and improve over time. Once that is there the commercial interests are important.</p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5">Peer-assist about a KM audit questionnaire (Adrian Young)</span></p>
<p>Objectives of this peer assist: is a KM audit a good approach? Getting some feedback for that questionnaire? Adrian had shared a <a href="http://www.km4dev.org/group/km4dev-addis-ababa-ethiopia/forum/topics/peer-assist-session-10-january-2014-document-for-discussion" target="_blank">draft KM audit questionnaire online</a> prior to the gathering.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343169?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="300" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343169?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="300" class="align-right"/></a></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Clarification questions</span>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Q: Who are you expecting will complete this questionnaire?</li>
<li>A: It's targeted at researchers in the organisation, and some support staff as they are involved in the KM space</li>
<li>Q: What's the reason behind having KM in the organisation?</li>
<li>A: I was asked to develop a database to manage their research. A database is a solution but we need to make sure we understand the context first... </li>
<li>Q: The website is not operational? What is the ICT you need to support your objectives?</li>
<li>A: It's sometimes offline but I'm not sure why. It covers only a minimal amount of research outputs. The ICT needs are unclear. The ICT unit covers mostly making sure that people have a PC etc.</li>
<li>Q: What is the status of KM in the organisation?</li>
<li>A: In the FRC there is no specific KM happening. The organisation focuses primarily onto hardcopy and has not really jumped into softcopy. At head office there's a team working on comms/KM but they don't work closely with this unit. We need some autonomy in the FRC too. </li>
<li>Q: There is no KM strategy and this is a study to go to that stage, is that correct? Do you intend to assess the attitude of researchers/staff about KM and its importance?</li>
<li>A: Yes - the question is whether they need a strategy or not. The questionnaire is also addressing this.</li>
<li>Q: No shared folder etc. all these things are related to the infrastructure... Do you focus on the current infrastructure? </li>
<li>A: That's a question that is unclear - is that sthg I should focus on for now (e.g. basic systems in place).</li>
<li>Q: You have some understanding of the constraints - did you map the most needed knowledge?</li>
<li>A: Not yet - I've looked at the (good) technical knowledge of the research staff. The main issue is with sharing it.</li>
<li>Q: What was your expectation before you started your job and did you learn anything from the whole thing re: KM so far?</li>
<li>A: I've tried to not have too many expectations because historically the volunteer program staff found a different situation to what they expected. I thought I would be working more closely with the researchers but I'm working more on data and knowledge management... </li>
<li>Q: How long did it take for you to prepare the questionnaire etc.?</li>
<li>A: I've been working on various things. It's taken 6 months to learn about the organisational context but the questionnaire itself only took a few days to prepare a draft.</li>
<li>Q: How do you evaluate the pain of the senior management for not having KM? </li>
<li>A: (subjective opinion) there is an appreciation of the need to improve management systems among researchers to see sthg that will support their work but they probably don't realise what their role is and how they will do sthg in this KM approach. There's an educational component in this.</li>
<li>Q: What do you think the best KM program structure (people, technology, process) could be and how do you implement this in the organisation? How do you balance these elements?</li>
<li>A: This is part of the feedback I'm hoping to get...</li>
<li>Q: They asked you to develop a database system - is that your background? What is your background?</li>
<li>A: I'm not really a database expert. I've worked in various types of organisations and have learnt about how they work. I worked in a gov't department etc. and I'm learning on the job.</li>
<li>Q: Have you identified the things that you'd like to develop based on the audit? It all depends on what you aim to achieve? What's the output of this process?</li>
<li>A: I want to have a knowledge map / information management map about what people are currently doing with their research outputs, who's sharing what etc. The org'l strategy relates to KM... I want to see if we want to build sthg new or play with existing stuff.</li>
<li>Q: How many people are working in that organisation now?</li>
<li>A: 30 researchers + 5-10 other staff that will/may be involved in the KM audit for reporting, ICT, library etc.</li>
<li>Q: Are you going to develop a database anyway?</li>
<li>A: Am I? I'm not sure I have the capacity to do it. I'm already working on another database for another project. If that's the most important thing yes. Ideally I would get sthg set up.</li>
<li>Q: Do you have the KM maturity model software for organisations in order to evaluate the knowledge of your organisation? </li>
<li>A: No... </li>
<li>Q: After collecting information from the questionnaires, will you produce a document that will be used as a reference for use in the departments?</li>
<li>A: I will do a draft report and will present any results as a workshop to discuss the findings etc. and then write the final report... </li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343269?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271343269?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-center"/></a></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Suggestions for improvement</span>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Visit knowledge audit reports/instruments to get 2 things: a) a picture of what could be generated from a knowledge audit and b) see the structure and elements that are part of it, the components etc. the framework.</li>
<li> Take care of the basics: if there is a plan to create a series of network guides, get the website up and running, make sure you have the data components... After that you can talk about KM. It sounds a bit too early. Your effort is very good.</li>
<li>Get an inventory of what's there and what's not there including infrastructure (strengths and weaknesses) and the human resource capacities and you could organise an informal meeting to take care of this - when you make it participatory you make it more obvious for them. </li>
<li>Make them understand KM a bit more... Involve them from the beginning on... </li>
<li>Focus on the infrastructures that are there and what you can do with e.g. shared drives etc. and the capacity.</li>
<li>Conduct an assessment of KM in general, how it's captured, shared, applied and where are the gaps. From strategic to operational level. </li>
<li>Try to get the management's full attention and engagement because they are the source of the budget, strategy etc. Then they will back you.</li>
<li>Differentiate the questionnaire in 2: for management and for experts. They answer different questions/issues... </li>
<li>How to apply KM in the institute with less infrastructure? Try to convince them about the short term benefits.</li>
<li>In taking care of the basics, make sure that the drives are there, that the infostructure is running etc. The other part though is the culture through e.g. in-house forums, brown bag lunches and some informal things to break tensions between sections e.g. a football team etc. to go beyond their function... </li>
<li>Present findings to the management as 'people want / need this' and make use of existing infrastructures e.g. with ICRAF. </li>
<li>People use mobile phones these days to browse information - it could be an option.</li>
<li>Considering your ultimate objectives, </li>
<li>Explore existing knowledge assets</li>
<li>The big matter is 'culture'. Study the culture. </li>
<li>In implementing, select pilot projects. </li>
<li>First have your strategic document as a baseline, know your stakeholders... Put your question with respect to the 6 KM processes (creation, sharing, storage, security etc.).</li>
<li>At INSA we have KM hardware, software... focus on the culture.</li>
<li>Organise training on the tools...</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">What Adrian will do about this feedback</span>:</p>
<p>Great feedback. Good to hear I'm on track generally</p>
<ul>
<li>Inventory idea is good - I have to draw sthg out of the audit questionnaire to address existing infrastructure, capacity etc.</li>
<li>I'm not sure about the level of confidence to apply the ideas and convince staff about using some of these ideas.</li>
<li>Some of the basics can be put aside the ICT staff and we can formalise some of the ICT practices e.g. more regular workshops to be recognised as a core part of their responsibility. </li>
<li>Getting management on board. Having a new director soon will be a good opportunity.</li>
<li>Differentiating the questionnaire would be good. I might have to set up a separate survey.</li>
<li>The cultural aspects are sthg I hope to learn more from through the questionnaire and I think I'll do the questionnaire as an interview... Get better quality... </li>
<li>Cooperation with other organisations: yes I considered that and D-Space is sthg I could potentially utilise based on the ILRI and wider community.</li>
<li>Pilot projects are a very good idea... </li>
<li>Strategy doc is a question mark - how much time do you get a strategy developed etc. as opposed to launching pilot projects.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Volunteers to review the KM audit</strong>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Seble Lemma;</li>
<li>Sara Seyoum;</li>
<li>Gashaw Kebede;</li>
<li>Yared Lemma;</li>
<li>Liesbeth Bastemeijer (on the writing);</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><strong>Feedback from Yodith about her peer assist case on the PNSP strategy: </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>I focused on the business case for this;</li>
<li>The joint government-donor decision-making process has agreed to have a task team to review the existing comms strategy that was never implemented. They're going to set it up with a view to systematising it;</li>
<li>A working group is paying attention to M&E, investment in ICT, training, tracking progress beyond the level of outputs - they're acting on this and on the transformation of data, M&E etc. to inform decisions.</li>
<li>On the other hand we didn't receive any feedback from major stakeholders. </li>
</ul>
<p>Our organisation is a member of a working group and we tried to influence this working group. Based on the ideas we gathered more information - we did a presentation also to the program owners.</p>
<p></p>
<p><span class="font-size-5">Next gathering</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">The next gathering will take place on <strong>Friday 9 May from 2 to 5pm on the ILRI campus</strong>.</span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2">Possible topics (partly based on the prioritisation mentioned above) might include:</span></p>
<ul>
<li>Organisational learning and KM (Tigist Endashaw)</li>
<li>KM of social media (Elshadai Negash)</li>
<li>KM basics (Sara Seyoum)</li>
<li>UNICEF's 'communication for development' approach (UNICEF)</li>
<li>A (possible) peer assist case about taking up the communication/KM lead of the Nile Basin Development Challenge program (Aberra Adie)</li>
<li>'KM at IIED' (presentation by Seble Lemma)</li>
<li>Follow up / feedback from the peer assist on the KM audit survey (Adrian Young)</li>
<li>How to work on comms/KM without internet, as is the case (Frehiwot Yilma)</li>
<li><p>How to move away from tacit knowledge (PNSP peer assist by Etsegenet)</p>
</li>
</ul> Peer Assist Session (10 January 2014) - Document for discussiontag:www.km4dev.org,2014-01-09:2672907:Topic:758442014-01-09T11:47:17.722ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p><strong>Peer Assist Session (10 January 2014) - Document for discussion</strong></p>
<p>Hello everyone.</p>
<p>I have prepared a draft <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271340920?profile=original" target="_self">KM Audit Questionnaire</a> that I will be seeking feedback on during the peer assist session on 10 January 2014.</p>
<p>The KM Audit Questionnaire it to form part of a data collection exercise that will hopefully help determine an appropriate course of…</p>
<p><strong>Peer Assist Session (10 January 2014) - Document for discussion</strong></p>
<p>Hello everyone.</p>
<p>I have prepared a draft <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271340920?profile=original" target="_self">KM Audit Questionnaire</a> that I will be seeking feedback on during the peer assist session on 10 January 2014.</p>
<p>The KM Audit Questionnaire it to form part of a data collection exercise that will hopefully help determine an appropriate course of action for improving the management and dissemination of research outputs at the Forestry Research Center of the Ethiopia Insitute of Agricultural Research.</p>
<p>If you can <strong>review the document</strong> before the workshop that would be ideal, but I won't expect you to have read it in detail given the late notice.</p>
<p>I look forward to meeting you all at the workshop!</p>
<p>Adrian</p> Notes from the eighth get-together (18 October 2013)tag:www.km4dev.org,2013-10-24:2672907:Topic:743542013-10-24T12:54:23.932ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p><strong><span class="font-size-4"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></br>Presentation about KM at ILRI</span></strong></p>
<p><span>(By Ewen Le Borgne)</span></p>
<p><span>The presentation is available online <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ILRI/km-and-communication-at-ilri-igniting-researching-out-loud-for-more-effective-development-outcomes" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p>
<h3><span>Comments on the presentation</span></h3>
<ul>
<li><span>Research for development e.g. NBDC –…</span></li>
</ul>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-4"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"/>Presentation about KM at ILRI</span></strong></p>
<p><span>(By Ewen Le Borgne)</span></p>
<p><span>The presentation is available online <a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ILRI/km-and-communication-at-ilri-igniting-researching-out-loud-for-more-effective-development-outcomes" target="_blank">here</a>.</span></p>
<h3><span>Comments on the presentation</span></h3>
<ul>
<li><span>Research for development e.g. NBDC – Innovation platforms trying to bring different stakeholders together to have a common ground to exchange their knowledge in different participatory strategies e.g. Wat-A-Game where participants draw resource maps to get a consensus on some challenges and opportunities in NRM. We develop written outputs such as guidelines, briefs etc. but also creative formats such as participatory videos, photo-films, digital stories…</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Where is the KM function / Comms function and why?</span></li>
<li><span>A: It’s mixed. It's </span></li>
<li><span>Q: What is the connection between internal comms and outreach? Do you invest any effort to retain knowledge produced e.g. lessons learned etc.</span></li>
<li><span>A: Mahider is our main tool to harvest information and make it available for all publicly. Internal communication boosts all functions (or tries to do so) including outreach. We don't have formalised or well-established procedures to retain knowledge such as exit interviews but after most events we organise and at other junctions we do try to capture lessons learned, but we don't put them into a 'lessons learned database'.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Tools are very diverse? How do you guys make sure that staff and stakeholders are using these? How do you manage?</span></li>
<li><span>A: This is a real concern for some staff who are complaining about the multiplicity of platforms. However from our practice we recognise that there is not one platform that does all the things that we want to offer as comms/KM team. The closest to this is SharePoint and that is still not working optimally (according to our friends in ICT/KM). So we prefer using more tools - though in practice only a minority are effectively meant for staff to be used. We have corporate ILRI accounts for many of these tools/platforms etc. and these accounts are managed by one person. As part of platform management we have guidelines on a wiki for how to use these.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: No KM strategy? How can you tell how you’re going in the future?</span></li>
<li><span>A: We don’t have a strategy but we have guides for these tools. And the principles we have are updated along the way as we see fit. The KM strategy (if we had one) should follow our overall strategy and the latter is being redeveloped.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Do you use email in addition to Yammer? How do you force people to use Yammer and what is the benefit for not doing so. Do people have to be logged on on both all the time.</span></li>
<li><span>A: We use both and it depends on the people we communicate with and the kind of information we share. If we want people to ACT upon information we share, we tend to use emails as we recognise that most of our colleagues are email focused. However in e.g. the ILRI comms team we may use Yammer direct messages for 'action-oriented' information. Sometimes we duplicate information on email and Yammer. A lot of people are using Yammer by email anyway so they interact on Yammer via email. When our email network is down we also see Yammer activity decrease.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Collaboration? What are staff using for task tracking / project management?</span></li>
<li><span>A: As far as we know there isn't A project management tool that our staff are using. One Corporate System (a CGIAR-wide system dealing with HR, financial etc. information) is as close as it gets but it's not yet rolled out.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Data management - how do you deal with it?</span></li>
<li><span>A: It's one of the weakest areas of ILRI's information management, together with CRM. But there have been efforts to develop this, from the researchers' side. </span></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-4">Presentation of the Productive Safety Net Program's KM strategy</span></strong></p>
<p><span>(By Yodit Teklemichael) - See the presentation: <a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/1271341686?profile=original" target="_self">8.%20Knowledge%20Management%20in%20PSNP_KM4Dev.pptx</a></span></p>
<p><span>IM and KM is generally weak. One region presents data in a different way.</span></p>
<p><span>Yodith drafted a KM strategy that is yet to be finalised and endorsed by the Government and supported by Development partners. </span></p>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Program reports are limited to outputs level.</font></p>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">4 main KM processes: discovery, capture, sharing, application.</font></p>
<p><strong><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">How to enhance KM?</font></strong></p>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Joint review in support missions (up to 80 people, for a week in most regions and ends with federal level mission) and mid-term reviews. </font></p>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Re: discovery, we need to: strengthen documentation of best practices and lessons learned; reinforce learning among regions; fill knowledge gaps in certain areas; find ways of transforming massive information into Knowledge. </font></p>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Re: capture: hard and soft copy docs, we want to establish documentation centres, mini-libraries etc. </font><span>Only one in four persons shares their documents. </span></p>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Re: sharing: electronic and hard copy, telephone, fax, meeting, seminars and workshops, kebele posting. How to have an intranet, a shared drive etc. </font></p>
<p><span>KM challenges: limited knowledge-based reporting, focused largely on data and information; no dedicated website and database; reliance on individuals rather than systems and tools; little practice of sharing after training, seminars, workshops or when employees leave.</span></p>
<p><span>Recommendations: awareness-creation forums for leaders at federal/region and zonal levels - finalise and implement the draft PSNP KM strategy - establish a physical and virtual document repository - assign a KM coordinator at federal level and include KM responsibilities in staff JDs - establish a system of sharing after participation in CB events and handing over etc.</span></p>
<p><strong><span>What is KM all about?</span></strong></p>
<ul>
<li><span>How to persuade decision-makers to extend the scope of MIS work to KM? Moving from programs to systems.</span></li>
<li><span>How to create interest in the strategy and its implementation?</span></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span>Clarification questions?</span></strong></p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li><span>Question: There's no website for the PSNP - Why is there no website? </span></li>
<li><span>Answer: It's not clear why not. A comms strategy was commissioned and it recommended this but one of the key stakeholders said they had no appetite for it. They asked themselves when was the last time they checked on their own website There is no access to internet and they don't see the priority. It appears to be a joint donor-government perspective.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: You are keen to convince decision-makers on KM information systems which is not widely understood in the country. People understand it better if you contextualise.</span></li>
<li><span>A. Good point</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Why 'KM'? Why not start with e.g. document management? You are keen on a KM strategy - what is the need that you see for this? What advantages do you see for PNSP?</span></li>
<li><span>A: There's high staff turnover and the program documents are sent to woreda level etc. but people take these docs when they leave so there's a problem of institutional memory + in most cases, people don't understand bulky documents and don't always know how to use implementation manuals. We see value in having a small centralised document management system at woreda level, linked with regional (and possibly federal level). We see value in systematising this in a phased approach etc. We don't favour a website now, but an Intranet at federal level. The KM strategy will give some boost for the KM.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Who are the decision-makers you're talking about? And how are they involved in the program?</span></li>
<li><span>A: We're trying to convince government (Ministries) but also development partners as it's a joint program (10 e.g. WFP, IrishAid, NL, SIDA, CIDA). They are involved in day-to-day decisions etc.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: How many people work in PNSP? </span></li>
<li><span>A: Implemented primarily by the MoA in 319 districts, with MoFED managing the finances. 25 000 staff all over the country... </span></li>
<li><span>Q: Who are the likely clients of any knowledge you generate? </span></li>
<li><span>A: The program's designed with predictable transfers enabling clients to plan around to prevent asset depletion at household level. There is not always accurate or timely information about when food/cash comes and how it trickles to beneficiaries. If woreda staff have EVDOs at woreda level, some information exchange can be facilitated. Weekly data collection but telephone costs are very high. Customers could be local decision makers, donors etc. depending on whether it's well shared.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Are there any specific donor requirements that push for KM?</span></li>
<li><span>A: CIDA didn't tell us to work on KM but it started from noticing some of the gaps such as staff lacking documents to do their jobs. There's sharing, discovery, learning etc. but we're not just suggesting new high tech systems.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Comms strategy: can you elaborate a bit on the contents and is it focused on beneficiaries or potential information managers? How do you support that comms strategy? </span></li>
<li><span>A: Comms strategy has different elements e.g. need to have a website. Other countries are learning from PNSP (it's a high profile program) so a website would help. A newsletter 3x / year etc. is another element to increase awareness. Low literacy leaflets, brochures etc. press conference... these may not be a priority. The comms strategy was never implemented. The program is designed to benefit 8 Mio people who need to know what the program is all about... what it's doing here or elsewhere... the comms strategy could have facilitated all these</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Overview of data / information / knowledge / wisdom - have you mapped what your desired outcomes are at those levels?</span></li>
<li><span>A: Not fully yet. But skills are lacking to look beyond outputs. </span></li>
<li><span>Q: No internet in woredas - how do you communicate at those levels?</span></li>
<li><span>A: The gov't communicates through letters, telephone and fax... </span></li>
<li><span>Q: Who could benefit from an intranet if it was set up?</span></li>
<li><span>A: People at federal and regional levels, below that people don't have the skills to use this intranet so it would be difficult. Data collection... Weekly reports and technical staff may be able to google and learn from the Internet or communicate with someone from another region.</span></li>
<li><span>Q: Have you considered databases (given poor connectivity)? At UNICEF we use a DB that is web-based and offline and can be customised using a CD-Rom. </span></li>
<li><span>A: The program doesn't have a database - there's an information centre Excel-based database but every region has modified it. It was considered important and some basic tools. Unified database not seen as a priority. PSNP has a tool that looks at facilitating payments and attendance. They developed a software called PASS (running at every woreda).. The system could expand to include what is being done... </span></li>
<li><span>Q: Why does your management get scared about this? </span></li>
<li><span>A: (rhetorical question) </span></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><span><b>Recommendations?</b></span></p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li><span>A lot of focus on the problems and that it should improve - it'd be good to focus on solutions e.g. how can you improve SMS systems and how that will benefit the project beneficiaries.</span></li>
<li><span>Find your ally, who's on your side and buys your idea and localise KM to who will benefit best.</span></li>
<li><span>If government people are not familiar with KM, unpack it in simpler ways.</span></li>
<li><span>Focus on the information and data / communication rather than KM.</span></li>
<li><span>Very in-depth study on KM but I wish the KM strategy would have a different fate - work on implementing the Comms and the KM strategies.</span></li>
<li><span>Have you considered putting up a business case? Evidence speaks for itself. Present your evidence in an informal way - communicate it convincingly as in a KM business case substantiating (with references) your claims e.g. how many documents have been lost.</span></li>
<li><span>There's a need to clarify needs and at this phase they don't seem to even believe in external comms but key issues are doc management and staff turnover: facilitate the access to documents among woredas in a non Internet-intensive way / staff turnover needs to be managed to hand over documents. Focus on that instead of recommending a KM strategy...</span></li>
<li><span>Business case for KM and take your beautiful vision and operationalise it in clear deliverables and focus on low hanging fruits, in alignment with the overall strategy. Focus on face-to-face.</span></li>
<li><span>Investment case: What would help you would be to start building your case with your vision and find someone who can buy in, allies who can take that forward. Think about your ultimate vision.</span></li>
<li><span>You're at the end of the current phase so reflect on what could have been done in a different way. Use this opportunity to revamp your comms/KM strategy... Look at sthg that reflects the situation at woreda level and look at actual information/data etc. And take that up by making the voice of woredas/kebeles.</span></li>
<li><span>Look into the database - manage the knowledge.Present KM as a multi-stage iterative process and this one is about understanding and focusing on low-hanging fruits e.g. understanding existing practices, perceived priorities at different levels etc.</span></li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<p><strong><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Take-home messages for Yodit (what she will try out):</font></strong></p>
<ul>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Focus on positives: </font><span>Showing what KM can do</span></li>
<li><span>Finding allies</span></li>
<li><span>Starting small rather than big bang</span></li>
<li><span>Make an investment case / business case for this</span></li>
</ul>
<p><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Ewen will circulate an email to gather more recommendations for this peer assist.</font></p>
<p></p>
<p><strong><span class="font-size-4">Reflections and next steps</span></strong></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><span>Next time we start at 2pm for the networking and at 2.30 with the 'content' program as we usually run these gatherings quite late.</span></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><span>An idea was thrown to try a Saturday afternoon get-together but a majority of the participants didn't seem to warm about it. Still we will try this out after January to see if it works. Hermella will take the lead on this.</span></span></p>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><span>The next gathering will take place on <strong>10 January 2014</strong> otherwise and will contain the following: </span></span></p>
<ul>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">A presentation about 'communication for development' (Mekiya/UNICEF)</font></li>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Presentation from some KM experiences from the private sector (Elshadai)</font></li>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">A (possible) peer assist case about taking up the communication/KM lead of the Nile Basin Development Challenge program (Aberra Adie) </font></li>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Follow up / feedback from the peer assist try-out (Yodit)</font></li>
</ul>
<p><span class="font-size-2"><span>Future gatherings may look into:</span></span></p>
<ul>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">How to work on comms/KM without internet, as is the case (Frehiwot)</font></li>
<li><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">How to move away from tacit knowledge (PNSP peer assist by Segenet)</font></li>
</ul> Checklist to prepare, facilitate and document a KM4Dev Ethiopia gatheringtag:www.km4dev.org,2013-10-18:2672907:Topic:741552013-10-18T07:26:50.292ZNabiha Sherifhttp://www.km4dev.org/profile/NabihaSherif
<p><b>PREPARATION (before the day)</b></p>
<ul>
<li>(Preferably right after the previous event): Create an event on <a href="http://www.km4dev.org/events">KM4Dev Ning</a> with all details for the next gathering;</li>
<li>Promote that event on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/km4devaddiset/">KM4Dev Ethiopia/Addis Facebook group</a> and on whatever relevant networks and social media;</li>
<li>Send it to all contacts shortly after the previous gathering, one week before the gathering…</li>
</ul>
<p><b>PREPARATION (before the day)</b></p>
<ul>
<li>(Preferably right after the previous event): Create an event on <a href="http://www.km4dev.org/events">KM4Dev Ning</a> with all details for the next gathering;</li>
<li>Promote that event on the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/km4devaddiset/">KM4Dev Ethiopia/Addis Facebook group</a> and on whatever relevant networks and social media;</li>
<li>Send it to all contacts shortly after the previous gathering, one week before the gathering and possibly with a final reminder on the day;</li>
<li>Chase resource persons to prepare specific ‘sessions’ in the gathering at least 2-3 weeks before the event takes place;</li>
<li>Provide guidance for their session inputs (e.g. comments on presentations, explanations about the process of a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObmQyW3EiiE">peer assist</a>);</li>
<li>If the gathering’s taking place at ILRI, inform ILRI security about the names of the (external) people expected to come to the ILRI campus;</li>
<li>Book a room and mention it on the Google Calendar ‘Events at ILRI’;</li>
<li>Organise booking of coffee/tea and biscuits;</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><b>ORGANISATION AND FACILITATION (on the day)</b></p>
<p><b><i>Organisation</i></b>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Decide on the order of the sessions and whether the sessions need to be facilitated;</li>
<li>Update and print out the sign indicating to participants where the gathering takes place;</li>
<li>Print out and bring the brochure explaining what KM4Dev Ethiopia/Addis is all about;</li>
<li>If applicable, bring about river of life sheets for participants to introduce themselves;</li>
<li>Print out an attendance sheet and get it filled out by all participants;</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><b><i>Facilitation</i></b>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Welcome everyone and introduce the agenda, the order of sessions etc;</li>
<li>Make sure someone is there to document every session;</li>
<li>During the meeting, get someone to take pictures;</li>
<li>Give a brief recap at the end;</li>
<li>Identify possible resource persons (and session topics) for the next gathering;</li>
<li>Identify a good date for the next gathering;</li>
<li>If time allows, proceed with a short assessment of what worked or didn’t in this gathering;</li>
</ul>
<p> </p>
<p><b>DOCUMENTATION AND DISSEMINATION (after the day)</b></p>
<ul>
<li>Add a resource to the KM4Dev Addis group with the title ‘Notes from the Xth get-together (dates) where you write all notes - Tag it properly and add pictures to liven it up, possibly putting pictures on a FlickR collection before. Link to Slideshare presentations and whatever other relevant resources;</li>
<li>Create an event on <a href="http://www.km4dev.org/events">KM4Dev Ning</a> with all details for the next gathering (see PREPARATION above);</li>
<li>Share the link to the minutes and the link to the new gathering on the Facebook group and other networks/social media applicable;</li>
<li>Update the master list of contacts (XL spreadsheet and mailing list on Word) and list of participants who came to the gathering;</li>
<li>Update the PPT presentation about the network with (1-slide) summary from this gathering and programme for the next gathering;</li>
</ul>