Capturing and Sharing Learning

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A combination of suitable learning technology, tools and a learning culture with motivated employees eager to learn is necessary but insufficient to promote real learning in an organization. Making sure that information, new experiences and knowledge are collected and transformed into useful and accessible learning is what a learning organization is all about. Within a programmatic KS&L context (e.g. CARE and Practical Action) tacit knowledge tends to dominate through informal networks, such as shared hands-on experience, technical jargon and skills amongst program staff. In an organizational KS&L context the emphasis will be more on explicit knowledge, stemming from the need for more organization-wide learning and reporting to senior staff and board members.

The KS&L facilitators participating in the BELO project often found themselves lending a hand to jumpstart and sustain the process of capturing and sharing new learning, but also came up with new ways to jumpstart this process and gradually reduce their roles as active brokers of knowledge and learning, as is illustrated by the following lessons learned.

Lessons Learned

Please do not make edits to the lessons given as these belong to the organizations that participated in this study. All comments and observations on the lessons, however, are highly encouraged, as are any additions.

Lesson #20 All opportunities for improving sharing should be considered; many of these may be non-traditional to KM but can be structured and used to great benefit.

In its assessment of knowledge sharing, FFH reviewed not only access to virtual knowledge spaces such as the portal and shared network drives, but also physical space (office layout, use of common spaces, etc.) and schedules (travel, telecommuting, etc.) to get an idea of how staff learned and what could be done to create spaces and/or technologies that would enable staff to better share ideas, learn from documents and each other, and have mental space for problem solving.

Practical Action found that transforming and creating routines and spaces are effective ways to transform perceptions, attitudes and practices of staff. A simple mechanism is the ‘recurrence’ feature in Outlook (or any other calendar management software). Set up a routine there, invite others to be part of it and let Outlook remind you about it. Other routines are more difficult to create and require buy-in from senior staff. However, content is critical. Routines have to have a purpose, a meaning and clear results in terms of added value to the job of most people involved, otherwise they lose legitimacy.

Lastly, the written format does not need to be the only way to capture and share knowledge. Video, audio and interactive animation can often be better media to capture especially tacit knowledge and share experiences. Practical Action is testing video testimonies and participatory video to allow small-scale farmers (PA’s target group) to communicate their story to other players in the market, as well as to PA staff. Podcasts and photopods (i.e. a combination of pictures and audio in a video format) are being used to improve knowledge sharing across country/region teams.

Lesson #21 Intranets and web portals have virtually unlimited storage capacity, but unless they are designed to make useful knowledge content easily accessible when someone needs it, they tend to overwhelm potential users and prevent valuable learning from taking place.

FFH for instance developed for its web portal user-targeted keywords that are used to both search and filter documents, streamlined its internal document production to encourage increased codification and sharing of expert knowledge, and created eight collaboration spaces for team collaboration around major initiatives. In order to systematize knowledge sharing behavior CARE established core knowledge sharing processes for contributing content and expertise to the on-line knowledge application. Both tacit and explicit knowledge is being captured through standard processes and forms for accepting knowledge contributions, requesting knowledge or expertise, archiving and retiring knowledge. The knowledge manager reviews knowledge contributions for data integrity, clarity and relevant content. Through the BELO grant WOCCU was able to implement a review of intranet/web portal use and provide user feedback of what features are useful on the current site and what improvements/additions/deletions should be made in order to make it a more useful and “alive” knowledge sharing space. As a result, IT staff dedicated resources to implementing a more integrated and more demand driven intranet portal to be released in late 2008.

The Knowledge Management Coordinator at WOCCU established a list of knowledge resources from a select group of six projects to be shared internally and with the wider industry. A review of selected projects identified topics that could be addressed across multiple projects. The topics were designed to be developed into modules to document WOCCU’s experiences in the related topic and to be disseminated within WOCCU as well as to the greater development finance and microenterprise industry. A review of current intranet use helped identify how project experiences filter to and from the home office and aided the understanding of how to improve the structure to enable greater usage and efficiencies with this shared space. The results of a knowledge audit conducted with senior managers provided a recommendation of how to improve staff learning through a required reading list and also a revised exit interview process for departing staff. The coordinator also identified ways to improve WOCCU’s knowledge management process through a series of staff discussions on sharing information. Lastly, the coordinator recommended a three year knowledge management strategy to ensure that WOCCU continues to move towards becoming a more effective learning organization for senior management to consider.

Lesson #22 No organizational or technological framework can replace the importance of face-to-face learning opportunities amongst staff nor can a learning environment thrive without personal engagement between learning agents.

FFH promotes learning and knowledge sharing during periodic ‘at Davies’ weeks during which staffs cannot travel. All Practical Action programs organize annual meetings for all the country and region team leaders meet. During these meetings ample time is devoted to sharing knowledge and learning. All BELO participants emphasized the importance of face-to-face knowledge sharing and learning events for effective learning to take place. Organizational leaning after all is a group process, and having people in the same place for some time with their attention solely focused on knowledge sharing can result in intense and useful learning.

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