Good bye acute meetingitis! Plan your day-to-day meetings as a true KMer…

On this blog I talk a lot about (large) events, how they’re designed, facilitated, useful, successful, impactful… or not. There is a related, mundane, day-to-day topic: the case of everyday meetings. We spend sometimes so much time that we might want to think about how to make them as useful.

And in this post, I just want to stop and consider how to plan your time in these day-to-day meetings in the best possible way, from a KMer perspective (also because good KMers are innovation conveners – and good practice-shapers).

So many (bad) reasons to hold a meeting – time to reverse the trend (Credits: Axbom)

So here are some principles to get your started in planning your (attendance at) meetings:

Come prepared

Long preparation, short war so… If you’re not prepared, you’re likely going to be wasting your time and others’. And as I keep referring to meeting cost calculators (such as Meeting Ticker) everyone’s time amounts to quite a lot of money in the end.

Make sure there’s an agenda

If the agenda really concerns you there is a point in attending and contributing (unless you’re forced to attend). If there isn’t one, you’re wasting your time again.

Say no to meetings

If you’re not prepared, or if others aren’t, or if there’s no clear objective, the meeting is not worth it. Be ruthless and put a stop to this nonsense! Don’t encourage more fluffy and useless meetings. You can follow these simple rules to eliminate such useless meetings.

Plan your meetings in ‘bundles’…

Rather than have a meeting every other hour, how about clustering your meetings one after another so that you have some specific ‘meeting times’ and you can also enjoy some ‘non-meeting times’ to get other important things done?

…And at otherwise unproductive times (for me right after lunch)

Maybe you can use time when you’re least effective for your personal work to have meetings, it’s a great way to be productive at all times. For me that’s right after lunch. First thing after lunch. On the contrary, having a meeting at the middle of the morning or the afternoon (simply because you don’t have anything planned then) sounds -to me- like a missed opportunity to avoid seeing your productive time torn apart by islands of activities.

Now then, when you’re in the meetings / discussions…

When it’s over, it’s over!

This simple OST principle applies for day to day meetings too. Why use the time you planned just because you have it if you’re done or you’ve achieved your objectives? Stop when you’re done. Claim your freedom again 🙂 Or spend it happily with others.

Claim your time back! (Credits: Scott Adams)

One thing leads to another – of balancing objectives and energy and keeping the process in sight

Sometimes a meeting unravels a whole set of issues that were unexpected and are actually really important to discuss. Then either there is an option to spend just a bit more time on the issue(s) and significantly negotiate its resolution, or a commitment to discuss this must be made at a later time. Just don’t let things hanging, which leads me to my penultimate point for today…

Summarise concrete follow up

Unless this was a blue sky brainstorming session, you should make sure there is a clear harvest of: insights, recommendations, decisions… so that the meeting – however productive it was while it happened – does not lead to a completely unproductive standstill afterwards. This is about managing your time in the longer run.

Use your time differently in meetings

You may want to try walking meetings, meetings in a totally different environment, online meetings where you’re learning to use a new technology (plan the time well on this one ;), meetings with a different dynamic… The point is to also think ‘differently’ about your time in meetings… so feel free to add your own meeting time tips here! But hopefully with all of this, you can finally say ‘good bye’ to acute meetingitis…

Think out of the box with meetings… (Credits: Todd Nielsen)

Related blog posts:

• Stop taking hostages! The ills of poor event design and facilitation
• Use quality face-to-face time for synergy, not for logorrhea
• Do you suffer from acute ‘meetingitis virtuales’? Here’s some antidote

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A good idea for today and everyday: paraphrasing

Paraphrasing always had a negative connotation for my French ears. Like beating around the bush or repeating things without value.

I know a much better meaning now: it’s a cornerstone of listening and learning.

I’ve been in this wonderful course from Sam Kaner about facilitation and participatory decision making. Quality stuff! And one of the first skills we learnt was paraphrasing.

Paraphrase, mirror, mimic each other, create a connection and have fun! (Credits: Arnold Newman / Getty Images)

This technique is useful for events and any piece of work involving people conversing, in fact even for personal life.

Essentially it’s about interpreting what someone said to check we understood. Sometimes it’s just mirroring (repeating), sometimes drawing the person to say more, or even ask others t osay more about the same topic. Obvious you would think! All the more so as facilitators. Yes, I do it often,  but not systematically. And as Sam would say, you have to commit to it.

And yet how often have I really understood everyone’s point? How often have I taken things for granted? Time to change that and practice.

Paraphrasing is my new diet. And I’ve just learned again how humbling but refreshing learning is…

Feeling thankful…

PS. And with this post I’m ending the series of short daily posts. Not sure about the whole experiment…

 

From pervasive attention to purposeful intention (the rituals of learning)

The next learning step is everywhere. Curiosity and ritualised investigation accelerate these discoveries though (Credits: photonquantique / FlickR)

This may be related to the anatomy of learning. I notice that we tend to learn in a pervasive way: as we go along we discover micro patterns. But we can, and should, put our attention to the next mile, the next thing we can improve. These micro patterns that come to our attention are an opportunity paving the way for new learning, as they reveal to us a new change that is possible.

Good minds put attention to small incremental changes. Great minds – with wisdom and humility – put moments or happenings into entire wider trajectories of change, based on a conscious, purposeful, intention.
Typically that’s also what great parents do with their children: they raise their attention to the intention behind an act, and explain the very reason why it’s good to celebrate a particular moment beyond just appreciating it. They ritualise that learning.

Raising our attention is hard enough; emphasising intentions of greater significance is even more subtle to get to. Yet it’s what makes learning more collective, more sticky – and what makes long lasting change more likely to happen.

Two examples of putting measures in place to mark the intention and ritualise learning:

• Asking for each post you share: ‘why you should bother reading this’ – because (I) you’ve realised that otherwise the value may not be so clear to readers.
• Stopping criticising only and rather wondering what we (I) can personally do to improve something we are criticising.

Easier said than done, but that’s why learning is the holy grail and why social (and triple loop) learning is so difficult.

Who is in for triple loop learning?

Learning is hard. Hard to understand, hard to apply, hard to make consistent, hard to apply and change behaviour.

Learning about learning is a lot harder.

So when someone starts talking about ‘double loop learning’, eyes start rolling out. And when ‘triple loop learning’ splashes in a conversation, it ends in a circle of silence baked out of disbelief, compassion and impatience mixed with utter confusion…

Thing is: Are there genuine instances of ‘triple loop learning’ we can point to? There’s enough written about the theory of triple-loop learning but exceedingly little about when (where and how) it happens.

I can however think of a couple of examples:

• People working hand-in-hand with the people involved in a given initiative to understand and evaluate their learning about what they’re trying to do – like the IKM-Emergent programme evaluation approach perhaps.
• A community that has managed to work with all stakeholders in and around it to actually self-organise and find its own ways of dealing with its own wicked problems – possibly this was one of the objectives of the Millennium Villages.

Now the question is: can this be funded (by global development actors)? So far, very little chance, it seems. High risk, low certainty, extreme degree of complexity and abstraction (to start with).

But it’s, at the same time, remarkable that we haven’t yet put more attention to this if we want to be more efficient, more effective, more sustainable, scaled up and out and about…

How long before one funding agency, or one collective of people with a strong sense of agency, finds the boldness to just start an initiative that puts triple loop learning front and centre?

How long can we afford to stay at the surface of complex problems? When it’s too late?

Politicians discussing global warming (Isaac Cordal)

The process arts, in defence of sustainable development

Abstrait (Credits: Roger / FlickR)

First of this series of short posts.

Maybe this year we’l be organising some sort of share fair of the process arts,  looking at facilitation, graphic facilitation, social learning and some other process-oriented approaches and tools.

But why really? What is it that ‘process’ awareness, or process literacy has to bring?

The important thing is not your process, the important thing is your process for improving your process.

— Henrik Kniberg (@henrikkniberg) June 7, 2010

Perhaps, just perhaps, process is:

• What connects objectives, activities, outputs, outcomes etc. The glue that holds it together. But also and more importantly it is what creates conversations: budding conversations, sticky conversations, morphing conversations. Because it relates deeply to human connections.
• What creates engagement, empowerment, alignment, thirst for betterment – a sense of collective action, which drives that action for arguably a much longer term.
• What keeps track of micro and macro patterns by putting much emphasis on understanding and assessing – both before, during,  and after the action. M&E and all the rest of it…

So it both pays attention to, stimulates and reflects upon the subtle ingredients that make work ‘work’. Remember: “Look beyond what to do: why and how lead to who.”

The rest is just what’s supposed to happen. And everyone thinks it’s easy enough, but not quite when you put on your ‘process literate’ glasses…

You reckon?

Musings of the past week, and a blog experiment

Last week was very rich in conversations that relate to this blog as my organisation was holding its annual communication and knowledge management review and planning meeting. And on the back of that, lots of great free-floating conversations with colleagues and friends…

The blogging experiment this week: one short working out loud post every day (Credits: Jonolist / FlickR ‘Random Musings’)

 

So I start this week with lots of ideas in mind to further develop as blog posts, including:

• What is it that the focus on processes can really bring to sustainable development? Is it all and only about the micro-patterns of learning, engagement, or even about getting to a higher level of consciousness that would help us think differently about development?
• In relation to this, what are genuine examples of ‘triple loop learning’? And in relation, why does no one want to fund ‘social learning’ and attempting to reach that third loop?
• Thinking about all kinds of platforms that help us save time make informed decisions about e.g. which social media to use (non profit tech for development for instance)… and taking stock of stock-taking exercises…
• Wondering about Facebook for organisational work – a good idea? A dangerous approach? Is there such a platform as mentioned previously that can inform me well about this?
• Using Fridays for creativity – what could be the best ideas (and boundaries) to make it work?
• I’m also having to facilitate a Powerpoint hell trip and wondering what to do about this and in relation, wondering about setting up a blog specifically on facilitation.

…Lots of ideas, lots of questions, lots of blogging material…

And the blogging experiment will be to try to do a series of Seth Godin‘s: a short ‘working out loud’ post every day… Let’s see if I manage to get to this 😉

Knowledge management strategy development: Taking stock

Nothing like having your back to the wall to do some useful research.

Here I am, fishing for ideas on good communication and knowledge management strategies. I addressed how to develop a communication strategy a while back. And though I’ve shared some ideas on how I would go about a KM strategy, I haven’t really synthesised all the stuff I’ve found useful to do so through the years; so here’s some stock-taking exercise for resources dealing with designing and rolling out a knowledge management strategy.

How to develop a KM strategy? (Credits: UNU-ViE_SCIENTIA / FlickR)

Caveat: This is not a simple exercise, as most companies want to preciously hoard their information about this business-critical area of work. Case studies do exist a bit everywhere but this post doesn’t attempt at highlighting those in particular.

Caveat 2: Because it is not simple, and I didn’t get enough time to search thoroughly for all that might be out there, this will be a ‘living post’: I will enrich it with other resources that I think should feature here. So, feel free to bring up your key readings on this 🙂

…or indeed videos (haven’t yet checked this Kana 5-video tutorial on KM strategies)…

KM4Dev conversations about KM strategies (Stock-taking on stock-taking)

A KM4Dev conversation (Credits: Westhill Knowledge)

As ever, the KM4Dev wiki is a gold mine of relevant information and as you might expect, KM4Devers have explored this topic more than once. So we have four waves of KM strategy conversations here, as well as some useful (quite recent) case studies at the end.

The four conversations cover:

• How a 10-year vision about KM can be developed in an organisation
• Where to start with a KM strategy
• Using frameworks and getting started
• The stealth approach in KM strategies

What’s useful: the attention to principles of action and the fact that this resource is quite easy to absorb and to implement as it has a good, concrete, summary section. An excellent starting point.

APQC’s resources on knowledge management strategy

APQC’s interactive KM strategy framework

APQC have a lot of experience with KM and they are really interested in connecting with other people that work on or around KM (they incidentally interviewed me a couple of times about getting KM and comms accepted and valued and about developing a content management strategy that works across generations of workers (the second part of a two-piece series).

Their interactive KM strategy framework allows you to select a different phase of KM strategy development and zoom in on specific challenges and related posts, other writings or resources… So a good complement to the KM4Dev wiki. However here nothing is said about how you should go about it, but that’s because APQC, like quite a few other people mentioned here, makes a business out of advising you on KM too.

Josef Hofer-Alfeis KM master course (and module on KM strategy)

Josef Hofer-Alfeis

This series of 12 Powerpoint presentations might, at times, seem a bit dry to read  but it contains a wealth of advices regarding knowledge and knowledge management. The part 5 focuses on developing a knowledge and then a knowledge management strategy, looking also at how to measure KM successfully and how to launch your KM program.

There is perhaps nothing really brand new in this but the merit of this master course is to be quite comprehensive and to be transparent.

Designing a Successful KM Strategy (N. Milton & S. Barnes)

The recent book by Stephanie Barnes and Knoco’s Nick Milton is allegedly one of the best reads on this topic and is most likely selling fast too. I don’t like to promote pay-for resources so much, that’s why I’m keeping this for the end of this selection.

Designing a successful KM strategy

The reason why this features here – and before I have even read the book myself (though I ordered it) is that Nick Milton has been blogging very regularly the past few years, and very regularly about some very good stuff. So do check his blog.

The points that I like about his approach to KM strategy include among others: Pilots, change management (not just KM), attention to facilitation as part of the skill set of a knowledge manager, guerrilla strategy, attention to principles and key knowledge areas, in addition to the standard stuff you can find in other resources mentioned here.

The tip of the iceberg: tentative first steps in cross-organisational comparison of knowledge management in development organisations

What we think about with KM strategies is sometimes just the tip of what needs to be taken care of (Credits: Infertilegirlinafertileworld)

Sarah Cummings and I wrote this overview of KM strategies a few years back. Although dated (2009) this comparison draws a few conclusions that are relevant regardless of the KM strategy context:

• Four pointers to make decisions: the complexity of the organisation (or network etc.), strategic orientation (navel-gazing or outward-focused), learning phase in the strategy development and reference framework;
• Four elements of a KM strategy: scope, approach, tools/practices, monitoring and evaluation…

The link above leads to the pay-for version of the full text article on the Taylor & Francis website but you can also request it to me here as it has become public access and will soon be moved to the Open Access platform of the Knowledge Management for Development Journal.

What about agile KM then?

Now, if I’m true to my own model of KM=CDL, I would end this stock-taking exercise by wondering how a KM strategy addresses a) cultivating conversations, b) documenting these and other experiences and c) stimulating action-focused learning, and this at organisational level but with a strong inclination to connect with individual level and (inter)institutional level. But that is too much at this stage, so more matter for another post.

You can see more resources in my bookmarks on KM strategy and as mentioned above I’ll keep on updating this so watch this space!

Related blog posts:

• KM=CDL, on the journey to universal sense-making
• Harvesting insights (3): Agile KM, between stealth and big bang
• Knowledge Management… the fountain of resilience, adaptation, innovation and sustainability (and buzzwords!)
• A simple KM and communication strategy… with double focus on the context
• Power your communication with ‘KM inside’
• Communication, strategy and revolution

And of course all other ‘stock-taking’ posts…

“Get me trained and I’ll become a superhero!” I mean, come on…

A short post, for an idea that is not really new in my (mind)world: Training is great. But it won’t give you the superpowers you were expecting…

Where do people get this idea from? Even in my close surrounding people believe training is the surest way to become someone else, and I see countless CVs that display a sometimes endless list of training courses like a proud badge of capacity. Like: Training transformed me into a superhero!

Become a superhero with training? Errrrm…. (Credits: MindMappingSoftware)

I don’t deny that training:

• Can bring critical new information and skills;
• Challenges your thinking about some theories and practices that you may not have been exposed to;
• (If done well) Puts you in concrete situations where you have to show and encourage new behaviours.
• … and probably a few more benefits…

But on the downside:

• How many training courses are actually designed around your context, your issues, your needs and opportunities?
• How many training courses pay attention to how you will apply the new information and skills in your work tomorrow, next week, next year?
• As a result, what is the likelihood that you apply new information and skills in your day-to-day work (unless you have the capacity/authority and discipline to enforce this? We already know how difficult it is to change.
• How likely is it that you change your behaviour as a result of training? Some psychological research argues it takes (a minimum of) 21 days to change a major behaviour. Well, how many 4-week (20 working days) training courses have you gone on?
• How likely are you to change that behaviour if you don’t have a practice of reflection about your ongoing work and naturally try to accommodate the new skills and information in your natural ecosystem and routines?

Training goes back to way back when and yet it feels to me as likely to be a fit as playing bilboquet (cup and ball) guarantees… (Credits: Noël Tortajada / Rita Productions)

This is why in KM there is much more emphasis put on coaching, mentoring and communities of practice, on ‘learning on the job’ for continuous learning than on sheer training. And though that idea has been critiqued, if not criticised, I believe much more in the idea of 10000 hours of practice, and better still: 10000 hours of action learning.

So: training? Yes! But make sure it’s adapted to you, prepare yourself to putting the training insights into your context… and just don’t put all your eggs into the training basket…

I’m just sayin’…

And for whatever it’s worth, if you consider training, you might look at how to calculate return on investment. If anything, it just shows how complex it is to have training lead to value and impact.

Related blog posts:

• Capacity development: Taking stock
• From evil-inflexible to fantastic-elastic, the not-so-simple shades of willingness to change
• I WANT (YOU) TO CHANGE! Yes but how?
• Capacity for change