All Life Is Problem Solving

Every once in awhile the issue of the relationship between Organizational Learning (OL) and KM comes up as an issue. It happened a couple of weeks ago in the actkm group. Here’s my take on the issue.

First, a lot of what one thinks about the relationship depends on how one views OL and KM. So let’s get to some definitions. For me, OL refers to the organizational processes through which individuals, groups, teams, communities, and the organization itself learn. And, by now, you know that I think KM refers to activity (policy, programs, projects, etc.) intended to enhance knowledge processing where knowledge processing includes: 1) problem seeking, recognition, and formulation, 2) knowledge production (including information acquisition, individual and group learning, knowledge claim formulation, and knowledge claim evaluation), and 3) knowledge integration (knowledge and information broadcasting, searching/retrieving, teaching, and sharing. [Read more →]

Even though my series on National Governmental Knowledge Management is finished. I’ll be filing additional individual blogs on the subject from time-to-time. The purpose of this entry is to make available a recent presentation of mine based primarily on Parts One and Two in the series. The presentation, originally given to The George Washington University Complexity Seminar is here. I look forward to comments.

In a Thought Leader piece in the February 2009 issue of Inside Knowledge, Neil Olonoff made a case for the importance of recognizing that all our knowledge is uncertain, that we in Knowledge Management should have no hesitation in admitting uncertainty, and since we “live in a world of uncertainty, we should use that truth to find our way.” (p. 5)

I very much agree with this main point of Neil’s argument, since I’ve been a dyed in the wool fallibilist for many, many, years. However, in arguing for fallibilism, he stated:

”. . . The famed philosopher Karl Popper showed that scientific statements are not truly verifiable. What makes them scientific, in fact, is not their truth or verifiability. It is, paradoxically, their falsifiability.” [Read more →]

(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, and pointed to one of them, the Open PSP, as the pattern most closely connected to the likelihood of successful adaptation — the state of the organization that PSP management should seek to achieve and maintain (Part Two). We then reviewed Steven Spear’s Chasing the Rabbit, and argued that his four capabilities were closely related to the four aspects of the PSP and that his picture of ‘high-velocity,’ ‘rabbit organizations’ was very closely related to our view of the Open PSP (Part Three). [Read more →]

Previously, I’ve written about the great cost of the filibuster to the American body politic, and specifically criticized it as one of the primary barriers to successful adaptation to the various challenges faced by American Society. Norman Ornstein in an article entitled “Our Broken Senate” covers the evolution of immobilist Senate practices including the filibuster in an illuminating way, saying: “The expanded use of formal rules on Capitol Hill is unprecedented and is bringing government to its knees.” [Read more →]

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) blogged at the Huffington Post on his Credit Card Reform Bill intended to: “stop abusive and deceptive credit card practices once and for all.” If it passes, the Bill would, among other things, do the following:

— End universal default (the practice of using information unrelated to payment performance in connection with a particular credit card to raise rates and lower credit limits in connection with that card.)

— “Any Time, Any Reason” interest rate hikes. [Read more →]

I don’t think this one is an April Fool’s joke. This morning Kirk Nielsen reports on a fainting spell that resulted in his missing out on finalizing a date with “a fantastic woman,” and also in medical charges exceeding $10,000 for relatively minor treatment. He ends his sad lament on current medical reality in the early 21st Century USA with this question: “My date in Duluth gave me a break. When are America’s health care givers going to give all of us one?”

My answer is: when we put ’em out of business and move to single-payer universal health care.

Last week, during a talk I gave on National Governmental Knowledge Management to George Washington University’s University Seminar on Complex Systems, one of the members of the Seminar, asked a question about the Distributed Organizational Knowledge Base (DOKB), an important aspect of the Knowledge Life Cycle Framework. Specifically, she asked how the KLC and the DOKB notion, took account of the problem of disappearing human knowledge or “leakage” resulting from retirement. At the time, I answered that the DOKB has no trouble treating “leakage” as an aspect of change. I think this answer is right as far as it goes. But, on reflection, I also think a blog answering her question in more detail is a good idea, since there was hardly time in a seminar question and answer context to to do it even a minimum of justice. [Read more →]

A stunning analysis of the economic crisis by James K. Galbraith just appeared in the Washington Monthly. What’s stunning about it is its wide-ranging analysis of the present economic crisis; its historical perspective; its properly skeptical remarks about CBO and other projections based on standard economic models and available historical data; its very clear-eyed view of the chances of success of the current recovery strategy of the Administration; its suggestion of remedies based on a long view of what we must do; its analysis of the so-called “deficit,” “entitlement,” and “potential inflation” problems; and its willingness to go way beyond prescriptions based on the happy view that if we tinker a bit, or even a lot, with Banking Systems and inadequate stimulus packages, we can bring back an international economy successfully driven by the bankers and high finance. [Read more →]

In “Democracy and Spreading Knowledge Transparently,” I wrote about President Obama’s tendency to exclude certain policy alternatives in explaining his thinking to us. In his world-wide Town Hall event, he showed another variant on the theme of lack of knowledge transparency in his public communications.

This time the subject was Marijuana Prohibition and his reply to a question about whether ending it would be likely to stimulate the American Economy. He replied with a dismissive answer, chuckling and using a mild put down of part of his audience, while simply asserting that it would not do so, without explaining the thinking of the Administration about ending Prohibition. [Read more →]