Designing a Knowledge and Learning Strategy

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Based on the assessment findings, an organization, unit or program can design a strategy, building on strengths and addressing barriers to knowledge sharing and learning. A KS&L strategy articulates the organization’s, unit’s or program’s vision for what it will achieve and how to achieve it; it strengthens the position of the knowledge and learning initiative within the organization; and it provides guidance as well as a benchmarks during implementation. Its value lies as much in the process as the final product. It is important that people impacted by new knowledge and learning initiatives are engaged in conducting the needs assessment as well as setting a strategy. A KS&L strategy should focus on people (training, tapping their knowledge, creating incentives for knowledge sharing), processes (finding ways of expressing and capturing tacit knowledge, information management systems), and tools (technology-enabled as well as simple tools).

Designs in Review

Freedom from Hunger

The reasons for developing a KS&L strategy varied among the BELO participants. In the case of FFH the starting point was a decision by top management that knowledge management and learning were a high priority for the organization. FFH had already decided to make KS&L a core part of its new business model. As a result, the needed strategy was more formalized and was deeply grounded within the organization’s overall strategy. Knowledge generation and learning needed to be bottom-line focused with a concrete benefit to the organization, not learning for the sake of learning. Committed to a long-term process and in order to truly make strides towards becoming a learning organization, FFH decided to build learning into every aspect of the organization—from the arrangement of physical space, to the development of processes which carry information and knowledge throughout the organization, to the evolution of a work culture that values and promotes learning.

CARE

In CARE organization-wide KS&L initiatives were underway, and the BELO project funding was used specifically to design a relatively autonomous strategy for improved knowledge sharing across the Village Savings &Loan program within the Economic Development Unit. Through the assessment, CARE was able to discover areas that were already relatively strong and other areas that were still weak. The areas of weakness proved to have the greatest opportunity for change, and resulted in a strategy to prioritize a set of KS&L initiatives for the next year. For instance, while the needs assessment identified some good examples of knowledge sharing within or between certain countries, these were occurring mostly on an ad hoc basis. As a result, some VS&L practitioners were disadvantaged, because they were not aware and able to communicate and learn from their colleagues in Southern Africa. CARE’s KS&L strategy focused on the following four initiatives: 1) to establish community of practice among VS&L practitioners in Southern Africa enabling them to interact on a regular basis; 2) core processes to share knowledge; 3) a knowledge sharing application to enable sharing of and access to knowledge; and 4) the identification of a knowledge manager to lead the implementation.

Practical Action

Practical Action’s approach to KS&L within its Markets and Livelihoods Program (MLP) allowed fora more flexible strategy, given the limited number of people involved and their common program focus. The MLP team decided against designing a formal KS&L strategy, but started to create the right conditions for individual and collective learning. The AMAP-BELO project allowed for an engaged dialogue with team leaders about their own wants and needs to improve learning, about practices that worked and didn’t work for them, and about the processes and systems needed for the future. Gradually, and with some evidence of successful learning, the MLP team approached other senior staff to get their buy-in for innovative learning ideas. MLP decided to develop and test its own Learning M&E framework, which can be understood as a cyclic needs assessment of KS&L, around four learning loops identified by the program team: 1) within the program, 2) among market actors, 3) between market actors and the organization, and 4) between the organization and other organizations involved with pro-poor market development.

PA is testing a hybrid between this Four Learning Loops Model and Peter Senge’s Learning Model,^[1] which suggests a set of critical aspects for effective organizational learning; namely, guiding ideas; infrastructure; theory-methods-tools; attitudes-beliefs; awareness-sensibilities; and skills-capabilities (see Figure 2). This hybrid is represented in a matrix that the MLP is developing to establish a map of concrete learning needs that each country and/or regional team can focus on during a given period of time. This type of Learning M&E is intended to help in tracking improvements in learning processes, highlight weak and strong areas of organizational learning, and identify areas of potential international experience sharing.

WOCCU

Towards the end of the project the Knowledge Management Coordinator at WOCCU suggested a KS&L strategy emphasizing the role of senior management in identifying the value of KM within the mission and vision of the organization and implementing a deliberate effort and strategy to share information.

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 #5 Long-term investment and commitment required.

A successful strategy to build a more effective learning organization or program requires a long-term investment, commitment, planning, leadership, stakeholders, resources and time. As mentioned earlier, such an effort is well worth it if an organization intends to design appropriate intervention strategies and adapt to a continuously changing environment.

Lesson #6 Structure and framework should be activated early and then used in both design and implementation.

According to CARE the key ingredient in building an effective learning organization was to lay the structure and foundation for future steps. Once the building blocks are laid, replicating or scaling up successful KS&L processes and activities will be easier. For example, the establishment of active dialogue on the virtual discussions was a great way to flesh out some pertinent issues within VS&L programming. Now practitioners know that this forum can overcome physical distances and language differences among them and is a great place to carry out reflective learning. In recent months after the BELO project ended, new issues pertinent to VS&L programming continue to be raised to the virtual discussion.

Lesson #7 Identify and use ‘champions’, those who are committed and motivated to learn and share.

A very effective strategy to build a more effective learning organization or program is to identify and work with KS&L champions - people who buy into the vision for change and who actively engage in learning initiatives throughout the organization or program. Such early KS&L champions can already be identified during the needs assessment phase and recruited to serve as champions to build momentum for the project.

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Notes

1. ↑ Pasteur, K. (2004) Learning for Development: A literature review. Lessons for Change in Policy and Organizations No 6. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies.

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