Work

business & working

Working Together

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Tom Haskins has presented an excellent series of posts on complexity, work and collaboration, comparing aspects of the Cynefin and TIMN frameworks. As I thought about what Tom has written I saw one more column that could be added to his comparison, provided by Shawn at Anecdote, and that is how we can best work together at different levels of complexity.

Even though all levels of complexity exist in our world, more of our work (especially knowledge-intensive work) deals with complex problems, whether they be social, environmental or technological. As can be seen in the table below, complex environments & problems are best addressed when we organize as networks; our work evolves around developing emergent practices; and we collaborate to achieve our goals. As Shawn’s post shows, coordination, cooperation and collaboration are not the same thing.

Working Together
Complexity (Cynefin) Social (TIMN) Practices Group Work
Chaotic Tribal Novel Action
Simple Tribal + Institutional Best Coordination
Complicated Tribal + Institutional + Markets Good Collaboration
Complex Tribal + Institutional + Markets + Networks Emergent Cooperation

I’m putting this table up because it provides a quick view of why we have to change how we teach, train and work. Ask any organization how many of their problems are complex and how important it is to address these. Then find out how social networking is supported and encouraged. Ask how emergent practices are developed and whether anyone actually monitors the process or captures learning that enables emergence. Finally look at whether groups merely co-ordinate activities or perhaps co-operate and if there is real collaboration. As Shawn writes:

Collaboration works well for complex situations because the style of working collaboratively matches the nature of the issues that complex situations pose. Complexity is unpredictable, and collaborating is adaptable; complexity is messy – it’s difficult to work out the question, let alone the answer – and collaborating involves bringing together a diversity of people and talents to improvise and test possible approaches, all learning as you go. Complexity offers unique and novel conundrums, and collaboration draws on a deep foundation of trust to that fosters creativity and delivers innovations.

This is one more reason to consider a wirearchical management framework built on mutual trust.

ATMC – Providing Excellent Training in a Tough Economy

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The Automotive Training Managers Council (ATMC) annual conference is online and open to members and guests this year. ATMC is focused on the “exchange of training ideas and strategies helpful to both technical and sales/marketing training professionals”. The theme for the conference, to be held on Thursday, 28 May 2009, is Providing Excellent Training in a Tough Economy.

Here’s the schedule (Eastern Time Zone GMT -4):

12:30 PM: Welcome and Brief ATMC Update
12:45 PM: “Training and the Networked Workplace” by Harold Jarche – Workplace Learning Strategist, jarche.com
1:45 PM: “Service Training at Daimler Trucks North America” by Brian Stowe – Manager, Training Development, Daimler Trucks North America
2:45 PM: A topic related to delivering video on the Web by Paul Louwers – President & CEO, AVI (Automotive Video, Inc.).
3:15 PM: A topic related to finding grant funding for training by Jeff Miller – Partner, Incentis Group
3:45 PM: Rapid Networking.

Free conference registration is now available.

Friday’s Finds #1

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In an attempt to make my finds on Twitter more explicit, this may be the start of regular posts on some of the things I learned this past week (weekly seems better than monthly).

Numbers & Measurement

From Charles Green at The Trusted Advisor:

If you can measure it, you can manage it; if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it; if you can’t manage it, it’s because you can’t measure it; and if you managed it, it’s because you measured it.

Every one of those statements is wrong. But business eats it up. And it’s easy to see why.

…

The ubiquity of measurement inexorably leads people to mistake the measures themselves for the things they were intended to measure.

More on meaningless numbers used to measure things, from Dave Snowden.

We face the challenge of meeting increasing legitimate demands for social services with decreasing real time resources. That brings with it questions of rationing, control and measurement which, however well intentioned, conspire to make the problem worse rather than better. For me this all comes back to one fundamental error, namely we are treating all the processes of government as if they were tasks for engineers rather than a complex problem of co-evolution at multiple levels (individuals, the community, the environment etc.).

Open Source

David Eaves discusses how being open, like embracing open source software, is becoming important for economic development:

Vancouver is not broken – but it could always be improved, and  twitter confirms a suspicion I have: that programmers and creative workers in all industries are attracted to places that are open because it allows them to participate in improving where they live. Having a city that is attractive to great software programmers is a strategic imperative for Vancouver. Where there are great software programmers there will be big software companies and start ups.

Via @SoulSoup is the story of DimDim (free, open source, web conferencing platform) [dead link] making CNET’s Webware Top 100 for 2009 [dead link]. Open source is moving up the software stack, first with operating systems, then general applications and now richer applications. Software vendors have to be continuously moving into higher value applications to remain relevant. This is a natural industry evolution that few purchasers, especially in government, understand.

Learning & Working

Rob Paterson:

In 1996, aged 45, I was on a train with Fraser Mustard. We were returning from a trip to Queens University in Kingston,  where he had been giving a master class to  a group of senior people in the Canadian Government service. I had been working for him as an adviser for about a year. Working with him was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. I asked him if he would consider taking me on full time.

“You are an adult now Rob. Time to go out on your own.” He paused and then added. “I am tired. You cannot rely on me for your life.”

The greatest advice I have ever had given by the greatest man I have ever encountered.

Via @changedotorg –  “In fact, if you look at what’s really happening right now in the nonprofit sector, you’ll find several reasons NOT to go back to school and focus on what organizations are really looking for in potential candidates.” When a Degree isn’t enough [dead link]

Charles Jennings:

There’s enough evidence now to show that Instructor-Led Training is not effective as an approach for the majority of employee development. ILT may be helpful for some change management and big-picture ‘concept’ development, but it is demonstrably the least effective and certainly the least efficient approach for most learning that’s required.

Managing emergent practice

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What would happen if you called for closing your training department in favor of a new function?  Imagine telling senior management that you were shuttering the classrooms in favor of peer-to-peer learning. You’re redeploying training staff as mentors, coaches, and facilitators who work on improving core business processes, strengthening relationships with customers, and cutting costs. You’re going to shift the focus to creativity, innovation, and helping people perform better, faster, cheaper. You might want to give it a try.  Perhaps the time has come.

This is how Jay Cross and I finished our article on The Future of the Training Department. We showed that in complex environments, which more of us face each day, only emergent practices are effective, as backward-looking “good practices” are inadequate. Training is a method based on good practices and best practices. We establish our performance objectives based on an understanding of what we want to achieve, usually engaging subject matter experts to help us. But what if nobody knows how to do or even describe our future roles and tasks? That is the challenge for training managers in preparing workers to face complex problems.

According to Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework, sense can be made in complex environments by 1) first probing through some action and then 2) sensing to understand what is happening and 3) finally responding based on what you have learned. Think of it as launching a new Web service. First it goes up as a Beta site and people join and use the services. Through their actions they give feedback; implicit and explicit. An effective strategy is to tap the feedback and actions of users and revise the service. Sometimes it is a radical change that is needed, such as when Flickr (now owned by Yahoo!) changed its early business focus from online gaming to photo sharing. In other cases it is a minor change, like accepting the use of the “@” symbol as a way of sending replies in Twitter. On the Web, and in complexity, it’s – Ready, Fire, Aim, Re-aim. I call it Life in Perpetual Beta.

A key understanding about complex environments is that they cannot be planned for. Certain skills can be developed in preparation for dealing with complexity but it is just as important to have systems in place that support workers in dealing with complexity. Shifting the main effort of the training department from content delivery to connecting and communicating is needed. That means pushing learning development tools to all workers. Everyone is now a subject matter expert at some point in time. Workers need to develop practices so that they can easily capture, find and share emerging practices. Web tools like social bookmarks, feed readers, blogs, and wikis can help (See Jane Hart’s 25 Tools for Learning Professionals).

The training department not only needs to teach how to use these tools but has to mine current practices as they evolve. Sense-making and pattern recognition become core skills for training specialists as they continuously develop new tools and processes based on emerging practices. Working in complex environments requires constant recalibration of methods and practices. There is no status quo.

In complex work environments we may need more coaches and facilitators but they will have to be as close to the work as possible. Standing back with a non-practitioner’s perspective will not help those doing the work. New roles such as ‘coach-as-co-worker’ or ‘facilitator-peer’ may emerge in this environment. As has already happened in this late industrial age, mid-level managers will become more redundant unless they can can do more than just manage. Who wants to hire a knowledge worker, as more of us are becoming, who still needs to be managed?

A landscape of influences

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More exciting pattern and sense-making from Ross Dawson, this time with the Influence Landscape Framework Beta v. 1:

This adds to other conceptual frameworks to inform us on how we can look at learning, work and especially communication in this era. The comment on influence networks echos of connectivism (just replace influence with learning):

Influence flows through networks – it cannot be understood as a linear mechanism focused on individual influencers. There are a number of key aspects of influence networks that need to be addressed to tap the power of influence.

I view the influence mechanisms as sources that one can tap when creating a personal knowledge management system. The landscape graphic also enhances the framework of wirearchy, showing that influence is dynamic and non-linear, as our working relationships must become in a networked environment.

If we put ourselves at the centre of the landscape then how we structure our lenses on the world has a significant impact on what we see. If our organisation only lets us view mass media information or from limited networks then we are closed to a wealth of other sources. If our influencers are only celebrities and famous people we are missing out on a rich source of human experience. If we don’t realize the driving forces changing the landscape then we may be blind-sided by events.

As a node in an open network we have a better chance of influencing our landscape, whether it be for learning, working or communicating. This model gives one more reason to open organisational walls to the outside – so influence can travel both ways.

How complex is our work?

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On my recent post, Emergent practices need practice, I looked at how complexity could not be easily addressed through traditional training methods:

But many of the problems we face today are COMPLEX, and methods to solve simple and complicated problems will not work with complex ones. One of the ways we addressed simple & complicated problems was through training. Training works well when you have clear and measurable objectives. However, there are no clear objectives with complex problems. Learning as we probe the problem, we gain insight and our practices are emergent (emerging from our interaction with the changing environment and the problem). Training looks backwards, at what worked in the past (good & best practices), and creates a controlled environment to develop knowledge and skills.

That got me thinking about what the ‘average’ knowledge worker might be expected to do in the course of a week. I think that there is still a fair amount of our work that is based on our existing skills and knowledge (perhaps 50%) and enables us to deal with complicated issues. This could be writing complicated reports or doing some type of trouble-shooting or problem-solving based on processes and knowledge that we have developed in our professional field. I also think that we all have to deal with routine, simple stuff, but we should off-load as much as possible so that we could concentrate on higher value tasks. It would be best to keep this to a minimum; say no more than 10%. We can also be confronted with total chaos or crises from time to time. Dealing with these requires a lot of energy. Keeping chaos to a minimum would be another objective of the organization; once again, say 10%.

Finally, as we understand the complex nature of our environment or the markets, we would want our workers to be able to address complex challenges. I doubt that all of our work is complex and I’m not sure how much complexity one can handle for extended periods of time. We are constantly trying to make sense and bring some order to our work and that takes effort. I think that 30% may be an appropriate amount of our time.
complex work
Does anyone have experience or data in looking at how our work is divided from simple to complex problems? It seems like a very interesting area for further research.

Work is learning, learning work

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As host of this month’s  Working / Learning Blog Carnival, David Wilkins challenged participants to think about the intersections between working and learning:

  • When does work become learning?
  • When does learning become work?

The integration of work and learning is a key part of my professional practice. Why?

Networks — Our workplaces, economies and societies are becoming highly networked. That means the transmission of ideas can be instantaneous. There is no time to pause, go into the back room and develop something to address our challenges. The problem will have changed by then.

Life in perpetual Beta — Not just rapid change, but continual change, requires practices that evolve as they’re developed. In programming, this has meant a move from waterfall to agile methods. Beta releases are the norm for Web applications and as we do more on the Web, other practices are sure to follow.

Complexity — The Cynefin framework shows that established practices work when the environment or the challenge is simple or complicated. For complex problems there are no established answers and we need to engage the problem and learn by probing. This requires a completely different mindset from training for defined problems and measurable outcomes. The integration of learning and work is not some ideal, it is a necessity in a complex world.

My current interest in Web social media is that these tools and platforms give us a better way to engage in collaborative work and help us integrate learning into our daily practice, such as personal knowledge mastery. There is no excuse that we cannot address the huge amounts of information and the complexity in our workplaces, as we already have the tools and much practice to inform us. All we need is the will.

“Work is learning, learning work” – that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

(apologies to Keats)

• Did you like this post? Check out the perpetual beta series

Nine Shift in Saint John

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I’ve written fairly often about Nine Shift, both the blog and the book, since 2005. Tomorrow evening, Bill Draves, Nine Shift author, will be speaking at the Faces of Fusion networking dinner in Saint John and I have the privilege of attending.

Nine Shift
Nine Shift

The basis of the book is that in the next decade what we do during 75% of our waking day (nine hours) will drastically change. In Chapter One the nine shifts, described several years ago and taking place at this time, are [my comments]:

Shift One. People work at home. [like most of my colleagues]

Shift Two. Intranets replace offices. [and maybe cafés replace offices too]

Shift Three. Networks replace pyramids. [same for the training department or the leaking organizational pyramid]

Shift Four. Trains replace cars. [ I already enjoy train service as often as possible]

Shift Five. Dense neighborhoods replace suburbs. [on the changing suburbs, from The Atlantic March 2009]

Shift Six. New social infrastructures evolve. [new forms of structures are already being developed]

Shift Seven. Cheating becomes collaboration. [collaboration is a required skill for the networked workplace]

Shift Eight. Half of all learning is online. [in spite of New Brunswick’s drastic reduction to its distance learning budget]

Shift Nine. Education becomes web-based. [is there any doubt?]

I’m looking forward to finally meeting Bill and hope to have more to add to this theme.

Marketing for Consultants

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In the article So You Want to Be an E-learning Consultant… I discussed the pros and cons of consultancy as well as the various areas of practice in our field. One area I did not discuss was attracting and retaining clients. As the saying goes, when you’re working, you’re not finding new clients and when you’re looking for clients, you’re not working. I decided to look at a number (32) of my past projects and see how my clients had come to find me. I broke this down into three main categories, with the number of projects shown in brackets:

  1. Direct reference (20) from a member of my business community, defined as someone I know or have met or may have worked for or with previously. This includes follow-on projects.
  2. Indirect reference (9) through one of my professional networks, also known in social media as a “friend of a friend”.
  3. Client found me on the Web (3) via some form of search.

Obviously my closest connections are my best sources of client referrals. I haven’t calculated the revenues from all of these projects but I can say that the third category, while only three projects, generated a significant amount, so passive Web marketing should not be discounted.

Effective knowledge sharing

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The mainstream application of knowledge management, and I would include learning management, over the past few decades has got it all wrong. We have over-managed information because it’s easy and we’re still enamoured with information technology. However, the ubiquitous information surround may put a stop to this. As enterprises become more closely tied to the Web, the principle of “small pieces loosely joined” is permeating our industrial walls. More and more workers have their own sources of information and knowledge.

Following on from yesterday’s post, connecting and communicating through effective conversations, I’d like to quote again from Dave Pollard’s experience with knowledge management:

So my conclusion this time around was that the centralized stuff we spent so much time and money maintaining was simply not very useful to most practitioners. The practitioners I talked to about PPI [Personal Productivity Improvement] said they would love to participate in PPI coaching, provided it was focused on the content on their own desktops and hard drives, and not the stuff in the central repositories.

We can add to Dave’s anecdotal evidence the research from  Wharton’s Haas & Hansen in Does Knowledge Sharing Deliver?, via Tony Karrer. The researchers found that the two types of organizational knowledge – codified in a knowledge base and interpersonal sharing – are appropriate to different tasks. Generally speaking, codified knowledge does not help teams to produce any better unless the team is rather inexperienced. Interpersonal sharing can be more effective for some teams but it is time-consuming. According to Haas:

“We find that using codified knowledge in the form of electronic documents saved time during the task, but did not improve work quality or signal competence to clients, whereas in contrast, sharing personal advice improved work quality and signaled competence, but did not save time,” Haas says. “This is interesting because managers often believe that capturing and sharing knowledge via document databases can substitute for getting personal advice, and that sharing advice through personal networks can save time. But our findings dispute the claim that different types of knowledge are substitutes for each other. Instead, we show that appropriately matching the type of knowledge used to the requirements of the task at hand — quality, signaling or speed — is critical if a firm’s knowledge capabilities are to translate into improved performance of its projects.”

The inability of expensive enterprise knowledge management systems to deliver broad results is similar to the 80-20 funding ratio between formal and informal learning. We’ve been putting too much money in the wrong place.

A way forward for KM and Informal Learning 2.0

We should move away from central digital information repositories (KM, Doc Mgt, LCMS, etc.). I’m not advocating tearing down any existing IT infrastructure; just enabling a parallel system, which may exist already, to grow. Some suggestions:

  • Develop measures that can help experienced knowledge workers capture and make sense of their knowledge.
  • Support the sharing of information and expertise between knowledge workers, on their terms, using personalized knowledge management methods & tools.
  • Keep only essential information, and what is necessary for inexperienced workers, in the organizational knowledge base – keep it simple.