Knowledge Matters™

On Thursday the 12th of June Patrick Byrne and I will be once again present "Understanding the Complexity of Program Management ". This time the presentation is to the Sydney Chapter of the Project Management Institute. The presentation shows how HolisTech® Pty Ltd's Project Knowledge Model and Knowledge Matters™ Business Network Analysis™ (BNA™) techniques can be used as a diagnostic methodology to inform project and program managers. Using real data the presentation shows how the method can be used to understand the alignment of outcomes, achieve requirements consistency, and understand the "stakeholder weave".

To give you a flavour of the presentation content have a look at the following blog-posts: ...

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Yesterday was my last day working on the TARDIS knowledge management system and for HolisTech® Pty Ltd . It was both a sad day and a relief. It's a relief because for the past fortnight I've been somewhat schizophrenic. I've been schizophrenic because despite my best efforts I've found myself thinking and working (albeit unpaid) for my new organisation, and at the same time working in TARDIS and for HolisTech®. The net effect has been very long hours where I've been burning the candle at both ends, and is my defence for failing to blog in recent days! But I digress. I thought today (to stay with the medical theme) we would look at corporate amnesia.

Amnesia is a devastating disorder, which results in short or long-term loss of memory, and sometimes an inability to imagine the future . Amnesia is sometimes the result of a disease, but more commonly occurs from physical or psychological trauma. Now it seems to me corporate amnesia - the loss of collective organisational memory - is endemic these days, and is the result of both physical and psychological organisational trauma. ...

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I've been head-hunted to be the principal change champion in a large health services organisation, and to work up the information/knowledge management requirements for what will be potentially a multi-million dollar initiative. Whilst I am very excited I am also quite sad because this means I will be leaving HolisTech® Pty Ltd and TARDIS .

TARDIS is a joint venture between HolisTech® and the Australian Department of Defence to build and maintain a knowledge management system. I believe it to be one of the most significant attempts at knowledge management within the Australian public sector: an attempt that truly has tried to integrate people, process, technology and content. I'm very proud to have been associated with TARDIS, so today I thought I would share with you some of the lessons I will take away.

Just over four years ago Pat Byrne and I began to put the TARDIS dream into reality. We began with an interesting set of high-level requirements and constraints, with the constraints largely setting the direction of TARDIS. The two most important constraints were:

• only existing software and hardware were to be used, and
• software coding was to be absolutely minimised and kept to the application level.

Now with the benefit of hindsight I think these two constraints were truly inspired. ...

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On the 14th of May Patrick Byrne and I will be presenting "Understanding the Complexity of Program Management " to the Canberra Chapter of the Project Management Institute. The presentation shows how HolisTech® Pty Ltd's Project Knowledge Model and Knowledge Matters™ Business Network Analysis™ (BNA™) techniques can be used as a diagnostic methodology to inform project and program managers. Using real data the presentation shows how the method can be used to understand the alignment of outcomes, achieve requirements consistency, and understand the "stakeholder weave".

To give you a flavour of the presentation content have a look at the following blog-posts: ...

read more ...

Yesterday Patrick Byrne and I provided a presentation on ‘Understanding the Complexity of Program Management’ to the Melbourne Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Just over 150 project and program managers attended the session. This was the first time we have exposed our Project Knowledge Model and Business Network Analysis techniques to a public forum of our peers. ...

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Today I thought I would share with you HolisTech®'s Regulatory Risk Cube. In 2003 Patrick Byrne and I completed an assignment with the Royal Australian Navy. We were helping the Navy to design a regulatory framework. As part of the assignment we ran several workshops with ten diverse organisations, including the Australian Antarctic Division, the Australian Council of Healthcare Standards, and the Civil Aviation Authority. The workshops were interesting because the participants were benchmarking themselves against each other, and each expected the others’ system would be the same or very similar - in fact they were very different. The challenge was to develop a generic regulatory framework that encompassed all approaches. One of the outcomes from the workshops was the Regulatory Risk Cube, which is depicted below.

The cube has three axes. The x-axis shows the impact of the adverse event. The y-axis shows the chance of an adverse happening with high-risk at the top of the axis. The z-axis shows the risk being considered against system maturity from high/low to low/high depending on the circumstance. ...

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It has been a busy week again, but a thoroughly enjoyable and productive one. On Wednesday and Thursday I attended the ‘Promoting a Culture of Knowledge in the Public Service’ conference in Sydney, which was organised by the Ark Group . On Friday I helped to run two post-conference workshops with my business partner Patrick Byrne . The conference was a small boutique affair with only about 30 people attending, which provided plenty of opportunities for networking. Several themes emerged from the conference, which are not new and are consistent with the popular literature. I’ll recount them below and offer some comment.

Unfortunately I missed most of day one, but the slide set and notes give some pretty good insights. Further because of the small size of the conference it was possible to talk to most of the participants. The keynote was given by Paul McDowall who talked about knowledge management in the Canadian Public Service . The slide set shows some models in use by various departments in the Canadian Public service and highlights to me the absolute need to tailor an initiative to the organisation. It also seems in common with Australia that “knowledge management” is a dirty phrase, and hence knowledge management initiatives are badged as something else. This was a theme in one of our workshops, where we suggested the value proposition of a knowledge management initiative is “using knowledge productively”, rather than “we are going to manage knowledge”. ...

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Understanding the Complexity of Program Management . A presentation in February 2008 by Patrick Byrne and myself to the Melbourne Chapter of the Project Management Institute . Just over 150 project and program managers attended the session. This was the first time we exposed our Project Knowledge Model and Business Network Analysis™ techniques to a public forum of our peers. Between March and July 2008 this presentation in one guise or another has been given to the Sydney and Canberra Chapters of the Project Management Institute, and the Australian Institute of Management.

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The First 40 Years

I was born in 1959 and spent most of my formative years in and around Fremantle Western Australia. I am married and have three adult children dispersed around Australia, and a 16 year old son attending St Edmunds College in Canberra .

I am a graduate of the Officer Cadet School Portsea and the Australian Army Command and Staff College Queenscliff. I have over 20 years experience with the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps and the Royal Australian Infantry , including hospital commands, and operational service in Rwanda , East Timor, and Bougainville. I also have substantial experience as an adult trainer, and have held senior instructional appointments in Australia, the USA and Canada. I retired from the Army in 2000 having attained the rank of Colonel.

A significant personal achievement was the amalgamation of ten inefficient health organisations across Australia, over a three-year period, to form three multi-functional hospitals, resulting in significant personnel savings and efficiencies. I also conducted research to identify injury and disease trends of Regular Army soldiers. For these initiatives I was awarded the Geoffrey Harkness Medal for outstanding services to the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps , particularly in the area of developmental work. ...

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