Monthly Archives: August 2013

Favourable first impressions of Iran despite ‘come back tomorrow with the fingerprint records…’

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Our first contact with an official at the Iranian Consulate in Dubai in support of our application for a visa.

will we get in?

Nazim (aide de camp from the client’s Dubai office) has handed over our documents at 9am. A prominent Knowledge Management guru/practitioner and I (whose name I am omitting along with that of the client to protect confidentiality), have stopped there enroute to Tehran as there is no Iranian Embassy in the UK. We’ve been assured getting a visa would be straightforward and that the opening hours for visa applications of 8am to Noon would allow us enough time to get on the 18.45 Emirates flight from Dubai to Tehran.

IMG_1108

My hand /fingerprint

So at 7.30 am, having arrived barely 5 hours previously, we were collected and taken to Dubai CID for fingerprinting. This is not normal for either of us. It has been necessitated by the US’ imposition of such a policy for inbound Iranian visitors and as often happens in politics provoked a like for like response.  It proves to be a slightly amusing affair despite the officer in charge holding my hand a little too long for my liking while I am shown where to place my palms on the machine that is to record every detail of my hands not just fingerprints.

no insurance, no entry!

And so to the Consulate.  The official rejection is made in a manner that leaves little room for negotiation. And a new twist, we are instructed to get travel insurance.  This is in itself ironic as UK travel insurance is invalid as the UK Foreign Office issues advice warning UK citizens not to travel to Iran. So here we are being told to buy it otherwise we don’t get a visa.  Help is at hand, a colleague of Nazim’s appears from nowhere on a motor bike, collects our documents, including fingerprint records, and speeds off in the blazing sun (its by now 10.30am and 35c).

InsuranceHe returns smiling some 35 minutes later clutching a couple of policies issued by the Iran Insurance Company! Amid much backslapping off he goes having handed over our documents.  Nazim whose demeanour has changed from misery to euphoria marches up to the counter with the policy.

Come back tomorrow with the fingerprint records!

There is a problem, not all our documents were handed back. Nazim is now crestfallen. Its 11.15am, the noon deadline for visa issuance is approaching, and our records are zooming around Dubai on a motorbike. The likelihood of us getting to Tehran that evening are diminishing rapidly along with his career prospects. We have a packed four day schedule that kicks off tomorrow morning and involves many senior figures, Nazim is on the hook to deliver us to the departure gate with valid visas!

However once more ‘Insurance Man’ delivers. He is back in 15 minutes with our fingerprint documents and with much fanfare 15 minutes before cut off time all documents are submitted.  A visa is duly issued by a woman official dressed in an abaya and hijab not our first contact who is haranguing everybody attempting to submit a visa application.

Declining the tempting offer of a tour of Dubai (I put a marker down for a visit to the Burj Khalifa to watch the sunrise) we return to our temporary home the Le Meridien Hotel opposite the Dubai Creek Golf Course – its way too hot and humid to play golf – and final preparations for the packed week ahead.

Nazim tells us that they went to the Consulate to check everything the previous week and were assured all our visas were a formality. Within a week the fingerprinting and insurance requirements were added. And the official who gave the initial advice was now on holiday.

first impressions

As we begin our descent the fuselage mounted camera on the Emirates Airlines Airbus A330 shows little of the terrain but does reveal an airport some distance from the centre of Tehran, a city which we are to learn is home to some 14 million people.

Women put on cloaks and headscarfs and from now on physical contact (including the shaking of hands) in public between the opposite sexes is the exception rather than the norm.  We land in the dark at 9.50pm at Imman Khomeini International Airport, Tehran.

The airport is a solid structure; quite Easten Bloc in many respects with substantial columns and signage that pays little attention to aesthetics.The immigration hall has a low ceiling which adds to the sense of foreboding I always feel when entering a new country.

As we line up to put our luggage through a scanning machine I note the lady in front has two suitcases larger than her.  My offer to help is politely declined with a knowing look. My earlier fears prove groundless and we are out 30 minutes from touchdown having been met by a driver who instantly makes us feel welcome greeting us with ‘Asr bekheir’ (good evening).

‘Samand_LX_31Our’ car the Samand is ubiquitous throughout Iran and in its ‘satellite’ countries. Iran Khodro Company (IKCO) is the largest vehicle manufacturing company, having an average share of 65 percent of domestic vehicle production with annual sales in excess of 700,000 vehicles that includes a number of French names produced under licence.

As we are to discover, sanctions has served to increase the manufacturing base placing much emphasis on the need for innovation and creativity.  I am to discover that as a result the Stage-Gate Process – New Product Development methodology developed by Professor Robert Cooper is very popular (more of that in a future post) and proves an interesting touch point as I worked with them both a decade ago when helping to introduce the process into many clients.

The journey is eventful and takes 45 minutes. Driving styles mix aggression and faith. Right of way is negotiated though traffic signals are observed. The overwhelming impression is of too many vehicles: entry to the centre on certain days is dependent on your number plate.

Pedestrian right of way does not seem to exist and crossing the road is not for the faint hearted. It requires determination, cunning and luck.  Woe betide the pedestrian who deviates or stops mid way as vehicles swerve around you.

IMG_1206On arrival we receive a warm greeting from the receptionist at the Raamtin Hotel a boutique establishment with 70’s decor. The  hotel is situated on the main North – South route but is surprisingly quiet. Water runs down each side of the street from the nearby mountains that form a backdrop to the metropolis.

River by the road

 

Room 309 which also has a 70’s feel about it overlooks the tree lined road which has many pedestrians despite its steep incline. It feels European in many ways and first impressions are favourable.

capturing & exploiting corporate knowledge in HMRC: bombs, cakes and critical knowledge

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The impending release of the UK Government’s Knowledge & Information Strategy has shone a spotlight on the need for all areas of government to capture, effectively manage and share the knowledge and information they create and receive…if they are to deliver a world class and publically accountable digital public service.

I wonder how many UK taxpayers associate HMRC with being at the leading edge of government practice? Yet a few months back 14 senior business people gathered for the first modules ran by Victoria Ward and I of a Civil Service Learning pilot programme* entitled capturing and exploiting corporate knowledge. 

The venue was Whitehall, London yet the delegates came from around the country and represented a wide variety of disciplines from across HMRC: VAT Directorate; Anti Money Laundering; Large Businesses Service; Corporation Tax, International and Anti-Avoidance (CTIAA); Specialist Investigations; Local Business Comliance: and Excise, Customs, Stamps & Money Services (ECSM).

in advance

We asked the delegates to:

…bring along an object. An image, document or small artifact that illustrates a memorable event with which you were involved during your last couple of years in the business. It might be a decision, a new piece of policy or a transaction.  We are going to ask you to talk about the object and use it during the exercises so please think carefully about what you might choose.

Here’s why: Objects stimulate conversations; people feel comfortable talking about them in environments where otherwise they might not open up. They reveal insights other techniques fail to unearth and so are effective as icebreakers and as triggers for more in-depth discussions on events and projects.

One of the core beliefs I’ve developed working with Sparknow is that, to be effective and valued, knowledge management has to be about helping to improve the decision making capacity of individuals, teams and organisations. Indeed it features in the opening sentence of the World Bank’s definition of KM:

…Knowledge provides insight for decision making…

So, much of early stage investigation into critical knowledge has to be around events and decisions and how knowledge has (or has not) informed them. Objects have proved to be a good way of facilitating those early dialogues and feature prominently in the work we do.

By combining timelines and objects to examine an event or decision in an Anecdote Circle we imagined this would act as a real stimulus in helping to place clarity around the concept of critical knowledge.

module one: Positioning

aims

  • understand the importance of critical knowledge to HMRC

objectives

  • able to identify critical knowledge
  • see how and why others identify and capture critical knowledge

Reassuringly people were prepared and had an object, an image or something in mind (this is often not the case). Here’s an extract from Victoria’s fieldnotes taken during the plenary debrief on the memorable objects session:

My object wasn’t that helpful, it was just a document…But it was a conversation starter, very simple very plain, a trigger… It brought a story to life and helped with focus

The Anecdote Circle helped the delegates identify the event or decision they wished to examine in more detail.

For that we invited them to use a tool, (worksheet) for conducting a more in depth (Deep Dive) type of discussion, Sparknow has christened the Narrative Grid.

Narrative Grid Worksheet

Narrative Grid Worksheet

Comments were broadly favourable and the Narrative Grid was to feature later in the programme by which time they were more attuned to its benefit and skilled in its application.

From looking at critical knowledge from an internal perspective we shifted to the external environment drawing on examples from the nuclear industry, the health industry and the regulatory industry to illustrate how they had set about identifying what critical knowledge was in their business and why they set about capturing it. A common theme running through each example, with which the HMRC delegates were able to empathise, was the need to mitigate risk especially around the departure of staff with considerable expertise and experience.

There was broad agreement that critical knowledge:

‘It’s the knowledge HMRC would struggle without if it lost’

And in working through examples the delegates were able to identify two compelling metaphors: bomb defusing and cake makingcolored_wires_bomb_cutter_3268

  • In defusing bombs the precise critical knowledge is knowing what wire to cut.
  • For recipes, it’s not just the recipe, ingredients, marinading, but how hot is my oven?

    Flower Bomb Cake by Madeline Ellis

    Flower Bomb Cake by Madeline Ellis

 

 

 

 

 

Module One ended with us providing the delegates with a set of references and reading. We also provided a link to an interview I’d conducted with Gordon Vala-Webb a promiment KM’er in Canada who was in charge of a project to capture and retain knowledge for a regulator at a time when many of its most experienced staff were about to retire and would impact them operationally. Gordon gives an eloquent explanation of how a large govenrment organisation tackled this and determined the knowledge they could least afford to lose. Here are a few snippets:

…we took a risk management approach and got each of the branches to fill in a risk assessment form as part of the annual business planning process… a high score would have resulted in the branch developing a risk mitigation plan… we provided guidance on different approaches which included videoing, interviewing, expanding procedure manuals…in some cases they kept the retiring staff on call…

…I believe if we had not had this program people would have been scrambling to keep operating…

More to follow on Modules 2 through 6 over the next few weeks.

 

*Sparknow and Knowledge et al worked in partnership to deliver this programme.