What would such diverse topics as space shuttle flights, gas
well flow regulators, cancer studies, and Hollywood movies have in
common? They were topics of discussion at the Knowledge and Project
Management Symposium in Tulsa (Aug. 4-5, 2010).
The breadth of topics as well as the experience of the speakers
added to the WOW-factor for attendees.
Knowledge Management and Change Management are both areas that
need to be addressed directly by industries, governments, and
academic institutions in order to maintain competitive advantage,
identify risk, improve safety, and protect information assets. From
the 13 speakers at the seminar, it is difficult to isolate and
distill down only two to illustrate the variety and depth of this
topic.
Indeed, the topic of Knowledge Management (KM) is large. Most
would also say it is even more than a little vague. As each speaker
tried to offer their variation on the definition of KM, we
understood why it was so difficult for the world to grasp.
Beware the 'normalcy of deviance'
As Project Managers, we have a general concept of
"documentation" of project-related experience into a body of
knowledge that can be transmitted to another (training/talent
management, mentoring, quality processes, risk management, and
other subsets come into play). The speakers had a variety of other
backgrounds, expanding the KM definition. The bottom line is that
there needs to be a way to get our minds around information,
organize, communicate and preserve it.
Knowledge is increasing at a tremendous rate. Much information
is at our finger-tips, but how do we find it when we need it? How
do we know how reliable it is? How do we turn raw data into usable
information? How do I educate others on the value of KM programs?
These, and many other questions, were explored in the two-day
symposium.
I found the risk-management components of Knowledge Management
interesting, as well as of obvious value to the continuous
improvement processes they represent. A little less obvious, but
equally important is the value maintained by preserving knowledge
of experienced workers for the newer hires (mentoring).
This is where space shuttle flights and gas flow regulators come
in. The NASA space programs are facing serious changes in the next
generation of both workers and space vehicles (servicing the space
station and going to more distant planets) come into the
organization. As an example of the NASA Change Management
processes, discussion of the various failures in the Columbia
disaster came from several different speakers.
Charlie Precourt, a four-time Space Shuttle astronaut, pilot,
and commander spoke in depth on this point. The NASA lessons
learned included opportunities to capture clarity around
communication at various levels (mission/strategic, management
roles, and job).
His warning to us from their "lessons learned" seemed
particularly appropriate: Beware of the "normalcy of deviance"
(when abnormal things start to look normal so people are no longer
alerted to problems). When this happens, things get overlooked or
passed by, when they should be acted upon.
Data-mining Hollywood movies
I also enjoyed hearing about data-mining -- for example, cancer
studies and Hollywood movies. Dr. Dursun Delen from OSU brought
concrete examples of how to support business processes with data
mining (from stored knowledge content).
The decision models they worked from included historical
information from many different areas of health data and developing
methods for analyzing and projecting success of Hollywood movies
before they are made. Data and Knowledge mining (his definition:
"the non-trivial process of identifying valid, novel, potentially
useful, and ultimately understandable patterns in data stored in a
structured way") has uses we have not even dreamed of yet!
To be useful, the data needs to be clean. As IT professionals we
understand this as "Garbage In/Garbage Out", but it is critical to
identifying patterns and understanding data to produce reliable
results. Dr. Delen's example of data patterns is another way of
building knowledge from data and decision tools.
I recommend this as an annual event. Even though the content was
mind-boggling, it is a future field. The "normal" groups that
consider KM on their radar are Training, Risk Management, Library
Sciences, and research groups. Perhaps it is called "change
management" in your circles now. However, that is too narrow a
grouping as we will all be involved in some form of KM in the
future!