knowledge management in Africa: reflections on KMCA 2012

Its 3.30am and I am sitting at Khartoum airport waiting for the flight back to Heathrow at the end of one of the most exacting yet rewarding weeks I’ve had in over 35 years of working across many continents.

Sudan challenges you: its people are warm, inquistive with an insatiable desire to learn. And yet time management is a work in progress and the ubiquitous presence of officialdom and the ongoing sanctions a significant drain on effectiveness and enthusiasm.

Despite these constraints the young are vibrant, highly intelligent and moved to laughter and song with little prompting.  The society is very oral; stories are the currency of communication. External opinion is highly sought after and there is a work ethic that is both surprising and refreshing. By way of illustration:

It’s 5.45pm on the first day of Knowledge Management Capacity in Africa 2012 conference held in the Friendship Hall Khartoum.  This inaugural event on Knowledge Management which kicked off at 8am has attracted over 500 delegates and nearly 50 international participants though I am the sole European. The timing has gone awry by some distance.

I get to my feet to begin my presentation entitled “missions and knowledge production” and having summoned water bottles and moved everyone around, ask the assembled throng in the Omduran Room what they want to do.

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By a unanimous show of hands they indicate a desire to continue and we ultimately finish at 7pm in time for a Knowledge Cafe.

The audience listens attentively and I get a lot of positive feedback.

At the Knowledge Cafe I lead a ‘table’ of young Sudanese women who are keeping up the pace.  The session eventually ends at 8.30pm some 12 hours after the day began.  It is an indication of things to come over the following two days (and nights).

The Conference Chair Gada Kadoda, a woman of astonishing capacity and vision, has assembled an impressive array of speakers and presentations: from Washington to Malaysia via the UK with a big representation from Africa. I have two presentations to give and as it transpires to facilitate the closing conference session on Saturday morning before a caravan of minibuses sets off in search of the Sudanese Pyramids.

Over the next week or so I will be drawing on some of the conversations and highlighting examples of knowledge at work in Africa; for now here are some high level thoughts after 3 days of the conference.

  • Technology I the ongoing sanctions means that some of the essential foundations for a dynamic knowledge society are absent. Software and hardware are in plentiful supply but access to the latest upgrades are restricted and effective support is difficult to come by even though maintance is included in the original purchase.
  • e-commerce is constrained by the lack of an effective payment platform such as PayPal which is restricted.  While the new regulators can plan for a time when the situation returns to normality by setting up the distribution network now, it means they are unable to encourage the growth of an industry that would facilitate a faster move towards a knowledge based economy. To illustrate the importance of e-commerce, figures just released show that over 30% of all purchases over the holiday period in the US were conducted online.
  • Communications I the size of Sudan makes the laying of cable impractical; cell phone usage represents a high percentage of the communications media and some 22 million people have mobile devices (over 2/3 of the population).
  • Knowledge (and information) sharing I ‘my data is my soul’ is a phrase oft repeated. It illustrates more than any other the challenges organisations face in encouraging professionals to part with what they know.
  • Knowledge Management I is a discipline that’s attracting interest yet their are a fair share of cynics especially among those who seek substantive method and measurement. A number of prominent organizations have initiatives in train and like the citiens of many developing countries certification programmes are highly sought after. The term remains a deterrent for some and Knowledge Sharing was more readily endorsed.
  • Collaboration I group work is an accepted part of the culture and there is no reluctance to act as the spokesperson for the group or in expressing ideas and opinions. Most people have a Facebook account of sorts yet few have heard of TripAdvisor!
  • Food I plays a huge role in lubricating tongues. But everyone sits down at the first opportunity which tends to restrict conversation to those in the immediate circle.
  • Stories travel I in the past the travellers (or Bedouin) were the custodians of stories, today that role is being increasing filled by online connectivity which places an emphasis on effective means of collection, storage and dissemination.

I had the pleasure of working alongside/talking to a number of Sudanese graduates and undergraduates a number of whom presented papers on Wednesday. Two in particular interested me: one was about a process of measuring the effectiveness of km in a private company; the other an annual attempt at knowledge transfer by the students to rural areas in which they’d identified and engaged with a local stakeholder who became their voice and ears.

Perhaps though the highlight was interacting with so many people for whom the sharing of knowledge is critical for survival; where information that stays in someone’s head or laptop might save lives; where different techniques are needed to get the stakeholder buyin and ensure sustainability.

KMUK 10: power of micro narratives

KMUK 10 was held concurrently with the FIFA World Cup. At that time a lot of debate was going on about the abject performance of the English football team (twas ever thus). Looking back now it was clear old ways of presenting information were becoming stale.
If Emile Heskey is the answer, are we asking the right question?

The depressing performance by the English team at the South African World Cup illustrates the old adage that knowledge out of context is just information. Despite both teams possessing the latest analytical technology, a more astute German team executed their tactical plan perfectly and embarrassed England. And historical contexts are important here; a non-goal scorer remains a non-goal scorer and is therefore unlikely to change the course of a game when coming on as a substitute.

KMUK 2010

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of chairing the annual 2 day UK knowledge management event (kmuk http://kcuk.wordpress.com/) held this year in Canary Wharf London. In addition to 120 or so senior practitioners the speakers were drawn from across the globe; an interesting mix of people who’ve done stuff and are moving onto pastures new, those who are prominent advocates, those at the forefront of new thinking and of course Dave Snowden the recipient of a science in km award who fits at least three of the above and can be relied upon to give a provocative address.

It is a few years (in fact a decade) since Sparknow was a disruptive force at the sister event in Brussels, constructing a garden shed (‘scriptorium’ – a slightly quirky neutral space where delegates could retire to for reflection about the need to cultivate and propagate) among the many software vendors’ exhibits that were the backdrop to the conference. Today such vendors are conspicuous by their absence; perhaps Autonomy’s increasing ownership of the business enterprise search space has forced those that remain in business to explore new horizons?

I was looking for evidence of a new disruptive force and for signs of life among the km community. Did I find it? There were a couple of global km programmes showcased, Heineken, Sanofi Pasteur being two. The majority focused on specific solutions. People such as Bonnie Cheuk have made a virtue out of the necessity of identifying a business problem and then illustrating how km tools and techniques can help solve it. The example presented demonstrated how to use social media to help develop a new strategy. BAE Systems and Burges Salmon (law firm with big Bristol presence) have used an Autonomy based system to help them provide their internal clients with insights and what they described as best practice.

A lot of what was presented was illustrations of good professionalism. The absence of solid metrics was bemoaned (as it always is); people who measure tend to rely on surveys.

lightening bolt: Using stories to present issues

Was there a lightening bolt? If I’m honest the disruptive force / lightening bolt would seem to be increased use of narrative and story. The challenge; how to honour the original voice in an environment where sound bites and 24×7 headlines drive the attention span of audiences?

One presenter (Helen) chose to be bold. She read out three stories and invited the audience to discuss each one. They focused on how a centrally driven change management effort was being received. There was an audible buzz; the delegates had listened and had differing emotions. The language and way of presentation had struck a chord and the delegate’s feedback reflected this:

  • A very illuminating session on the power of micro-narratives; how much you can learn from a short story. Good to have opportunity to discuss, rather than just being another ‘lecture’.
  • Very participative, and found it useful to engage in discussion around the stories.
  • Great to take this approach as contrast to presentations. Supports reflection and some slower learning.

illustrating the value (and effort) of story work

Helen is now grappling with the outputs of this exercise and since this is a common issue I thought I’d play back something one of our clients said about an assignment Sparknow worked on with them on a couple of years back:

  • One of our strongest impressions… was the absolutely meticulous attention to detail. I think this is both a good and bad thing – it leads to a fantastic product every time but at a very high resource cost from those working on the project. One thing I particularly noticed being so closely involved in the narrative research project was how important that attention to detail was in ensuring the right questions were asked of customers to bring out the stories – I had absolute confidence in the project right through the process.
  • The method generates extremely deep insight and the stories have proved extremely powerful both in and out of the Boardroom. It has been interesting watching people react to the stories – they can make people very uncomfortable or react quite strongly. The interesting thing is that they don’t allow people to ‘hide’ from the truth and therefore the impact of just the .stories collected is long lasting, as well as the insights generated.
  • Story work seems to be resource intensive (probably associated with the meticulousness of what was done) so it is something you have to pick and choose carefully where you use it – not only in terms of spending the money but also in terms of the impact that can be created with particular sets of stories. * The audio material is still being used to this day so there is quite a legacy!

an alternative summary: ‘Good wrap-up and collation of key points from sessions.’

As a departure from the usual Chairman’s Summary session Christopher Heimann and I invited each participant to share with his or her partner whatever they wanted to as takeaways. We stressed this was not a conversation more an exercise in listening and being heard. We asked the pair to repeat this process with the other partner acting as teller and vice versa.

Based on a technique we’d used in Darfur it illustrated how valuable (and in a pressure situation, cathartic) it can be to tell and hear your story played back at the end of a tiring day. It surfaced many previously unspoken issues and being unexpected shifted thinking, two of the many virtues of a narrative approach.

using the past to inform the future: Asian Development Bank

In 2010 in Manila, staff and Alumni at Asian Development Bank were handed a book and cd as part of a new Human Resources strategy, the culmination of an assignment to create a Living Archive for the bank that had begun back in November 2008.

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Here is the story of the assignment.

“…the story he told me about his work… made things come alive, and showed where my project fitted into a much larger and more complex picture than I had foreseen or understood.”
Rajat M Nag
| Managing Director General

In November 2008 ADB officials and alumni embarked on a journey to find new ways to share reflections, insights and experience. Recognizing the power of narrative to stimulate dialog and unearth the hidden stories that best illustrate an organization at work, ADB appointed Sparknow LLP, a knowledge and communications consultancy, to help to create a Living Archive and to nurture the individual and collective practices that will allow ADB build a new narrative capacity to marry to the substantial analytical skills it already has.

An exhibit, plenary sessions, a combination of short, structured sessions and more extended oral history interviews, interactive workshops and on location sound recording were techniques employed to capture the content that forms the backbone of an embryonic Living Archive upon which ADB can build.

Today, the Living Archive comprises:

  • a slim book, ADB: Reflections and Beyond, capturing significant events in ADB’s history told through the eyes of some of those who were involved
  • a set of audio clips for use in induction and training
  • a CD featuring the sounds of ADB and Asia as a backdrop to many illuminating reminiscences about working for and in ADB
  • a narrative practitioner manual to support ADB in evolving the processes and practices across the organization.

A small group of determined, enthusiastic and skilled Narrative Practitioners has worked with Sparknow throughout and these people are now equipped to listen for, capture and share stories about ADB, its work and impact on those it seeks to help. These processes and their products can be seeded through all parts of the organization, whether it’s the formation of a community of practice, better handling of a mission debrief, or new ways of evaluating and carrying out after action reviews. ADB’s narrative practitioner team will help to build on the work with Sparknow in 2010 and make the most of the possibilities it has opened up.

Fast forward a couple of years to 2012 and this case study is now part of a publication from the Ark Group entitled Making Knowledge Management Work For Your Organisation”