All Life Is Problem Solving

It’s not easy for people to accept that continuous critical evaluation of our ideas is a good thing. During the discussion in the actkm listserv Neil Olonoff responded very strongly to my view that continuous critical evaluation on a level playing field is a good thing. He pointed out that: “Many well-known products and services […]

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Recently, in the actkm group, my friend Stephen Bounds raised the question of the relationship of KM to conflict in the context of a specific situation in which excessive conflict behavior within a project team was threatening successful completion of the project. This led to a pretty vigorous discussion and a great variety of opinions […]

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(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri) In this series, we developed the ideas of the Problem Solving Pattern (PSP) and Problem Solving Pattern Management. We pointed out how vital performing PSP patterns well is to organizational adaptation, distinguished the problem solving pattern from the Operational Pattern (OP) (Part One), defined four types of problem solving patterns, […]

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President Obama, both in his campaign, and in his Administration, has emphasized the importance of transparency in Government. This very day, as I write, he’s running “a world wide” on-line town hall to give people a chance to answer questions, hear his unrehearsed replies, and understand at least some of the thinking behind his views […]

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(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri) We’ve now arrived at the question of how we can enhance processes of evaluating and selecting new ideas in such a way as to move the organization toward the Open PSP. When I discussed creating new ideas in earlier posts, I pointed to a range of measures as enablers of […]

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(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri) Here are some examples of criteria that may be used for comparing alternative solutions (i.e. decision models) in a Comparative Decision Making (CDM) context. — Logical consistency (inconsistent decision models are invalid and must be reformulated) — Empirical fit (competing models fit current and past data to varying degrees) — […]

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(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri) This post is the third discussing the question of enhancing processes and activities we use to develop new ideas. Fourth, current organizational knowledge bases don’t distinguish knowledge from information, and given the importance of previous cultural knowledge for creating new ideas, this is a very big problem for present technology. […]

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In my last post, I asked why we in KM don’t write much about KM strategies. Here I ask the same question with respect to policies. Policies and strategies are not the same. A high-level plan for achieving strategic goals and objectives, and ultimately a strategic vision may include a number of policies. On the […]

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To foster openness in an adaptive team, try to create a culture where team members internalize the following norms, collectively known as the Sustainability Code, developed by Mark McElroy and I a few years ago for our CKIM Workshop. Here’s the code: 1. All knowledge used as a basis for individual and/or shared action by […]

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In a recent discussion in actkm over the past few days, Steve Denning raised the question of how one might create “high performance teams.” In this and the next post, I’ll provide a slightly revised version of one of my replies during the discussion. Unless high performance teams are performing routine business process work using […]

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