Yesterday I identified the value and contribution of my research, but I did not give any context. Today I will identify the knowledge gaps, specify the primary research question, list my assumptions and propositions, and outline my ideas. The relationship between these is shown in the diagram below, but first I will identify the knowledge gaps I found in my review of the literature.

The identified knowledge gaps pertinent to my research are: ...

read more ...

The title of my PhD thesis is ‘Visualising Collective Knowledge to Manage a Portfolio of Projects’. It contributes to the bodies of knowledge in the project management, knowledge management, and network analysis disciplines by proving a methodology that elicits the capacity of an organisation to effectively engage in its activities. The methodology, which I have called business network analysis and registered as BNA®, allows managers to examine quantitatively, qualitatively, and graphically, macro and micro linkages between nodes, where nodes are individuals, projects, project teams, business units, entire organisations, or even business functions, policies or documents.

In particular my research has:

• established the utility of managing a complex project, or a portfolio of projects, by mapping artefact, social, organisational and knowledge relationships;
• provided a methodology that allows managers to visualise and weave their artefact, social, organisational and knowledge relationships, thereby enabling knowledge worker and organisational productivity; and
• provided a complete end-to-end example of a knowledge management intervention, which is replicable in other organisations.

The importance of these contributions should not be underestimated. Project failure is an expensive commercial reality, often costing millions and sometimes billions of dollars. ...

read more ...

I've been reading a lot about management, knowledge management and project management lately. Instrumental accounts of management are dominant in the literature. By this I mean management is viewed as a rational technical activity consisting of the skilled application of authority and "scientifically-based" techniques to achieve a desired end purpose. One definition of management could be:

"Management is a trans-disciplinary approach that integrates tools, techniques, and strategies to retain, organise, share, analyse, improve, and apply business expertise (Groff & Jones 2003, p. 2). It is disciplined, deliberate, purposeful, and conscious, and of necessity involves the design, implementation and review of processes to improve knowledge creation and sharing behaviours" (Standards Australia 2005, p. 2).

Now here's the problem. The definition above is actually for knowledge management, but how does it differ in any way from management? Now insert the word project: ...

read more ...

I was introduced the other day to the SMART framework , which I am applying in my current work. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. I'm using the framework to assist in the development of key performance indicators that pass the clean child indicator test .

The SMART framework seems to have immediate appeal to senior management - they like the mnemonic and they like the structured thinking it forces upon them. Sometimes the simplest things matter!

read more ...

I've just finished two days at KM Singapore 2008. The first day included awards, prizes, book launches, a knowledge cafe, and a panel discussion. The second day consisted of four workshops. It was a pretty good event, but I was struck by the invisible nature of knowledge management. Not one person in the panel or in open discussion was prepared to call the discipline knowledge management! Why?

Well the stock answer was it's perceived by senior management and workers as a fad, or something that adds to their burden, so if we call it something else and disguise the fact we are trying to do knowledge management then we can do what we want to do. Even the professor chairing the panel, who runs a knowledge management course, was not prepared to call it knowledge management! This really is a bit sad and some might even argue downright dishonest.

I think the real problem is we claim almost anything to be knowledge management. We can play games and that's knowledge management. ...

read more ...

"Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the cat.
"I don't much care where," said Alice.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the cat.

This quote from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland sums up knowledge management for me - it's a frustrating discipline! It's frustrating because as a discipline it seems to be directionless. It's frustrating because some practitioners claim almost anything to be managing knowledge. I often liken these practitioners to Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty who said in a rather scornful tone, "When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less." It is precisely a lack of shared understanding and common meaning that causes so many problems.

read more ...

Next week I am attending KM Sinagapore 2008 . I am presenting a seminar and workshop called Using BNA™ Techniques in Project Management .

I am also participating in the knowledge café as a presenter. I will be presenting Applying the RAAAKERS™ Diagnostic to Understand Management Stress Points and Assure Project Delivery in a Large Health Organisation . The RAAAKERS™ framework (Responsibility, Authority, Accountability, Awareness, Knowledge, Experience, Resources and Systems) was used as an analysis tool to assist in understanding the main management stress points, and data was presented as a visual analysis . This work, co-authoured with Doctor Mark Burnett, will be published in the coming months in the Journal of Military and Veteran's Health .

read more ...

As a junior officer in the Australian Army I was taught many principles. These included the 10 principles of warfare, the six principles of administration, and the seven principles of medical support. These principles were supposed to be enduring, and used as guides against which plans were tested. Now it seems we have 12 principles of knowledge management , or at least the US Army does. Their principles are:

• Principle 1. Train and educate KM leaders, managers, and champions.
• Principle 2. Reward knowledge sharing and make knowledge management career rewarding.
• Principle 3. Establish a doctrine of collaboration.
• Principle 4. Use every interaction whether face-to-face or virtual as an opportunity to acquire and share knowledge.
• Principle 5. Prevent knowledge loss.
• Principle 6. Protect and secure information and knowledge assets.
• Principle 7. Embed knowledge assets (links, podcasts, videos, documents, simulations, wikis...) in standard business processes and provide access to those who need to know.
• Principle 8. Use legal and standard business rules and processes across the enterprise.
• Principle 9. Use standardized collaborative tool sets.
• Principle 10. Use Open Architectures to permit access and searching across boundaries.
• Principle 11. Use a robust search capability to access contextual knowledge and store content for discovery.
• Principle 12. Use portals that permit single sign-on and authentication across the global enterprise including partners.

Now this is a pretty interesting list, especially when I compare them to the TARDIS principles used in one part of the Australia Defence Force, and developed five years ago. The TARDIS principles were: ...

read more ...

In the coming weeks I am presenting to diverse groups on topics ranging from Business Network Analysis™, to ethics and leadership, and the RAAAKERS™ framework. In keeping with my open sharing practice I will post all papers and presentations to this website, if I haven't already done so.

This week I am presenting to the Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) on leadership and ethics. AMSA is the peak representative body for medical students in Australia. I expect them to be a challenging group, but in turn I intend to challenge them by using the 1994 Rwandan genocide as my case study. My presentation will build on the theme that ethical dilemmas create leadership challenges and poor decisions create ethical dilemmas.

The following week I will be giving two presentations to the Defence Operations Research Symposium, which will be attended by Defence scientists from ...

read more ...