All Life Is Problem Solving

On March 3, Neil Olonoff posted a blog entitled “KM Solutions for the Coming Federal Hiring Wave.” He also posted the blog to the actkm group listserv, saying: “I’d appreciate your opinions as to whether you consider the solutions below to be KM services. I also would love to hear your thoughts on how KM can meet the challenges posed by a rapidly expanding workforce.” I responded to his post to actkm and will repeat my reply here to give it additional distribution in the blogosphere. [Read more →]

Today, Dave Snowden blogged about a personal experience with National Health Insurance in the UK, which I urge you to read. His conclusion, with which I agree is:

”Critically I have no bill, no money to pay. I didn’t sit in the hospital worrying about a fast discharge or maybe compromising on tests for financial reasons. Free at the point of entry health provision is a basic test of civilisation and humanity in any society.”

Indeed. And for all the enthusiasm many in America feel about President Obama’s impending health legislation, and for all that it would create a system in which all Americans will have access to the equivalent of the current Medicare system now restricted to older Americans, it will still not fulfill the standard of “free at the point of entry health provision . . .” So, even if The Administration’s legislation passes in something like its present form, the health care system in the US will still not meet the “basic test of civilisation and humanity in any society.”

Thinking about the sorry state of the world economy today and the continuing and impending destruction of already created wealth, I recalled the words of Oliver Cromwell to The Rump Parliament in 1653, echoed by Leo Amery to Neville Chamberlain in the Norway Debate of 1940.

“You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!” [Read more →]

In Part Two of this series, I pointed out that KM personnel need a measure of autonomy from line authority and an ability to define for themselves where knowledge processing in locales and other groups needs to be enhanced. This is critical for avoiding “the strategy exception error,” of exempting the process of strategy making from Knowledge Management, by making KM subordinate to strategy. The “strategy exception error” can be ameliorated, by making sure that local KM chiefs and staffs can get funding from the Knowledge Accountability Office (KAO) for projects that will strengthen both the strategy-making process (an activity relying on knowledge making) and also the full range of knowledge processing in various domains, regardless of whether local agency decision makers have formulated strategies that emphasize the importance of adaptation and problem solving. [Read more →]

Every once in awhile someone in Knowledge Management will state the view that organizational knowledge is the set of beliefs on which there is an organizational consensus. This viewpoint fits with constructivist approaches to knowledge because, according to the constructivists, knowledge comprises the belief filters we humans create to interact with the world, and then label with the honorific, “knowledge.” And organizational knowledge is just the subset of these beliefs that humans in organizations agree should have that label. There are lots of difficulties with this view. I’ll review some of them in the rest of this post [Read more →]

In this post, I’ll provide a more detailed envisioning of the Information Clearinghouse, or, if you like, the external knowledge and information integration, function of a proposed Knowledge Accountability Office (KAO), established by Congress. In an earlier post, I listed the functions of the KAO as: 1) perform KM Research and Development, 2) coordinate information availability about KM and knowledge processing including information about activities and impacts performed outside the Government, 3) fund KM programs and projects across the National Government, and also 4) evaluate the impact of KM and knowledge processing activity across the decentralized, partially self-organizing clusters of KM activity. In envisioning the coordination function, it’s important to keep in mind that since the KAO also is charged with evaluating the impact of KM and enhancements in knowledge processing across the Federal Government, it will also have a mandate from Congress to command evaluation reports and data about these matters from all Federal agencies and to conduct coordination activities necessary to get the information it needs from them. [Read more →]

At lunch yesterday, just hours before the President’s speech to the Congress proposing the outlines for a reconstruction of the American economy enabled by Government action, a leading Republican prepared the way by providing some comic relief:

“We’re advocating that Congress freeze all federal spending immediately,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), the chairman of the House Republican Conference, during a Tuesday luncheon at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “People out there are hurting, and they understand what you do when times are tough. You make hard choices. Today House Republicans are urging the Democrats to do the same. We think it’s time that the Democrats put our money where their mouth is.” (italics added) [Read more →]

(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri)

New solutions to problems are always inventions, however humble. They don’t become innovations however, until they’re communicated to people, and get used in practice. In an Open PSP organization, new ideas are communicated by interpersonal and electronic means in four categories of communication (or integration) activity: broadcasting, search and retrieving, teaching, and sharing, In each of these categories open communication in an organization is characterized by:

— high internal transparency,

— a high extent of distributed access to means of communicating information and knowledge,

— a high extent to which the organization is open to seeking problems in new solutions created in the PSP,

— at least a moderate level of trust in the communications activity category,

— high quality of electronic and interpersonal methods of communication,

— a high extent of collaborative integration in communicating solutions,

— short cycle times in integrative activities,

— a relatively low ratio of messages received to messages sent, and

— a relatively high velocity of communication activities. [Read more →]

(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 the creative process. But what measures are effective in “killing our worst ideas?” Pretty much the same ones as are important in generating new models. Criticism, like other parts of the problem solving process, must be distributed and open, and the changes in group environments, Information Technology, knowledge bases, and social technology, should also be implemented to enhance evaluating and selecting among new ideas in a pre-practical action context. [Read more →]

My friend Mark McElroy just released a new presentation outlining a straw man specification for a comprehensive triple bottom line sustainability index for organizations comprised of context-based metrics. The work discussed in the presentation is unique and very important, and I recommend that anyone interested in sustainability (which should be everyone in my view), take a look at it.

To Be Continued