Measuring KM: Measures, Targets and Rewards

Measuring KM Measures, targets & rewards David Gurteen Gurteen Knowledge Bogota, June 2010

Begin with the end in mind
A talk on measures, targets and rewards
An explanation of the Knowledge Café
A Knowledge Café on the topic

The context
Start with the business issue
Measures
Targets
Rewards

Start with the business issue The measures will then naturally follow

Business issues and outcomes
“ People will not share their knowledge” is NOT a business issue
“ Implementing a knowledge sharing system” is NOT a business outcome

Business issues and outcomes
“ Slowness to market of new products” is a business issue
“ Shortening the time to market of new products” is a business outcome

Business outcomes
These are not business outcomes
Doing KM
Improving knowledge sharing
Creating a learning organization
Creating a knowledge driven organization
Setting up communities of practice
These are business outcomes
Cutting costs; Improving profit
Improving quality
Reducing staff turn over

Measure against business outcomes
Business outcomes
Cutting costs; Improving profit
Improving quality
Reducing staff turn over
These can easily be measured
Doing KM cannot!

Understanding measures Understanding KM measures

Two things can be measured
Measure the knowledge of an organization
Intellectual capital
Measure outcomes of ‘knowledge in action’
Say a KM project
My interest is in outcomes – demonstrating the value of a KM project

Some considerations when measuring things

Beware the word “Measure”
Beware the word “measure”!
Other words: performance indicator, metric, ROI (return on investment)
Performance indicator is usually best
Measures and metrics imply an exactness that is usually not achievable
Its ok 'to measure' but you don't create 'a measure‘ but an ‘indicator’

What is the ROI of KM?
Common question
There isn’t one – only an ROI on the business outcomes
Distinguish between
estimating an ROI before a project i.e. justifying the expenditure
after or during a project i.e. demonstrating value
Its hard to estimate a financial ROI before a project

Why measure?
Could be for one of several purposes
To conform to laws or regulations
To deliver on a promise or agreement
To meet a service level agreement
To justify your existence
To enforce performance
You have been told to
To prove to yourselves you are not wasting time
To provide feedback that facilitates learning

Keep asking the question why!
What are the real objectives and are measurements the best way of achieving them?
Don’t measure for its own sake!

Beware not measuring
Your manager may not have asked for measures
But when the going gets tough you had better be able to justify your existence
Your manager’s manager may have different ideas
Your manager may change!
When cuts have to be made – KM is high on the list! (KM means Kill Me!)

Plan to measure before you start
You should plan to measure before you start a KM project - not after
What you measure and how you measure will affect how you do things!!
Too often knowledge managers don’t plan to measure up front!

There are multiple stakeholders
Multiple stakeholders will 'measure' you depending on their perspective
Don’t assume
you know what the right measures are. Ask your stakeholders!
they will measure you by the measures you have agreed to provide them!
Understand what is important to them
You may be measured on their 'gut feel’

Prime stakeholders
The sponsor
Agree & measure what’s in it for them!
Senior management
Agree & measure on business outcomes
Staff
Agree & measure on what's in it for them

Two types of measure
There are two types of measure
you can measure activity
e.g. creating an ideas database
or you can measure business outcomes
e.g. improved innovation

Focus on outcomes not activities
Too often we measure activity rather than outcome
And we try to measure & justify KM projects on activity rather then outcome
Sometimes activity is the only proxy we have but too often we focus on activities at the expense of outcomes

Examples of measure of activity
Number of documents captured in a database
Number of times a document is read
Number of meetings held
Number of active communities of practice
Time taken to complete a task

Examples of measure of outcome
Bid to win ratio
Increased sales
Decreased costs
Improved quality
Reduced development time
Reduced staff turn over
Percentage of customers happy with service according to customer satisfaction survey

Activities v Outcomes
Measuring activity is useful as it can be a good indicator that things are going well
Having 10, 20 or 30 communities of practice is meaningless in terms of business outcome
The real measure is the impact on the business
This should relate to the business purpose for which the communities were created e.g. getting new products to market faster

Some things cannot be measured
Cynefin domains
Simple
Complicated
Complex
Chaotic
You cannot correlate cause & effect in the complex domain
You cannot say this was an outcome of my activity
And thus things cannot be directly measured

Measures distort
Measures distort behaviour
Have unintended & unimagined side-effects
Can be detrimental to the whole!
You tend to only get what you measure
Measuring one thing implies that others not being measured are not important

Softer measures
Outcome based measures
Activity based measures
Anecdotal stories
Success stories
Focused on outcomes
Surveys and polls
Can provide numbers

Better measures
To provide feedback to facilitate learning
NOT for control or conformance
Must be developed, owned and bought into by the people involved otherwise they will be ‘gamed’
They are personal learning tools!

When a measure becomes an objective it ceases to be a good measure!

Targets

Do not set targets Do not set targets

Do not set targets
People are often given ‘targets’ by which they are ‘measured’
A command & control way of trying to force people to change
Targets have similar detrimental effects to rewards e.g. impose an unthinking solution
Rewards and imposed targets will be gamed
Targets need to be agreed and bought into

Examples of poor targets
First piece of baggage should arrive in arrival hall within 10 minutes of plane touching down
Patients when booking an appointment should not have to wait more than 48hrs to see their doctor
In-patients in A&E should be seen by someone within 30 minutes of arrival

Beware of gaming of targets
A measure or target that is based on a simple metric such as a number or time interval is probably a bad one as it can be too easily “gamed”
too simple to reflect the complexity - the multidimensional & contextual aspects
a simple ‘satisfaction survey’ that measures ‘customer perception’ is better

Rewards

Do you believe we need to reward knowledge sharing?

Do not reward Do not reward people for sharing their knowledge

Alfie Kohn and Dan Pink
Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Dan Pink

Rewards
Research shows that giving rewards (even praise) actually result in worse performance and destroys intrinsic motivation

Do not reward To the best of my knowledge, no controlled scientific study has ever found a long-term enhancement of the quality of work as a result of any reward system. Credit: Alfie Kohn

Do not reward
Rewards punish
Rewards rupture relations
Rewards ignore reasons
Rewards deter risk taking
Rewards undermine interest
Loving what you do is a more powerful motivator than any goody including money Credit: Alfie Kohn

Rewards Punish
Threats & coercion destroy motivation and so do rewards
Rewards are manipulative
“ Do this and you will get that” is not much different to “Do this else here is what will happen to you”
When people do not get the reward they hoped for they feel punished
The more desirable the reward the more demoralizing it is to miss out
Credit: Alfie Kohn

Rewards rupture relations
Excellence depends on teamwork
Rewards (especially if scarce) destroy cooperation
Incentive driven employees will not ask for help from their manager when they need it
They will conceal problems from their manager to appear infinitely competent
Credit: Alfie Kohn

Rewards ignore reasons
To solve problems people must understand the causes
They ignore the complexities of the problems
Each situation calls for a different response
Rewards tend to blindly promote a single solution
Credit: Alfie Kohn

Rewards deter risk-taking
People are less likely to take risks; to explore possibilities; to play hunches
The No. 1 casualty of rewards is creativity
Credit: Alfie Kohn

Rewards undermine interest
Loving what you do is a more powerful motivator than any goody including money
Rewards are controlling!
If people focus on getting a reward they tend to feel their work is no longer freely chosen and directed by them
If they have to bribe me to do it - it must be something I don’t want to do!
Credit: Alfie Kohn

So how do you encourage people to share their knowledge and work better together?

Alfie Kohn
Pay people well
Pay people fairly
Then do everything possible to make money (rewards) off people’s minds
Incentives, bonuses, pay-for-performance-plans and other reward systems violate this last principle by their very nature!

Bob Buckman Our approach to KM is far more than stick or carrot. We say, "Knowledge Sharing is your job. Do it!" As a reward you may keep your job.

Intangible Rewards
Opportunities for Personal Development
Recognition
Loving what you do is a more powerful motivator than any goody including money

David Gurteen
We cannot change other people's behavior - only they can do that!
Threats, rewards and praise do not work
We don't need to be told what to do. We need to understand the world better & then we will see what needs to be done for ourselves
So how do we better understand the world?

How do we understand better? Through being involved and engaged in the world and through open conversation !

Questions

The Gurteen Knowledge Cafe

Conversational Cafés
A conversational café is a simple process for bringing a group of people together to have open conversations about a topic of mutual interest with a specific business purpose in mind
Examples
World Café
Knowledge Cafés
Gurteen Knowledge & Innovation Cafés

Different forms of Café
Many forms of café adapted to different purposes
Gurteen Knowledge Café & World Café
Learning and engagement
Gurteen Innovation Café
Surfacing issues
Refining issues and problems
Developing responses
Inspiring action & innovation
AARs, peer-assists, retrospects could be considered forms of Café

The birth of the Gurteen Knowledge Cafe London, Sept 2002

Conversation The most powerful knowledge sharing and learning tool that we have at our disposal

Business is a conversation Business is a conversation because the defining work of business is conversation - literally. And 'knowledge workers' are simply those people whose job consists of having interesting conversations. David Weinberger The Cluetrain Manifesto
Conversation is central to all that we do
Its our job!

Conversation is a learning technology Conversation is the most powerful learning technology ever invented. Conversations carry news, create meaning, foster cooperation, and spark innovation. Encouraging open, honest conversation through work space design, setting ground rules for conversing productively, and baking conversation into the corporate culture spread intellectual capital, improve cooperation, and strengthen personal relationships. Jay Cross, Informal Learning Jay Cross

Conversation is a meeting of minds Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits. When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them, reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in new trains of thought. Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards. Theodore Zeldin Conversation Theodore in an Oxford Historian

Dialogue The kind of conversation I’m interested in is one in which you start with a willingness to emerge a slightly different person. Theodore Zeldin Conversation Theodore in an Oxford Historian

Principles of Dialogue
Suspend assumptions, do not judge
Observe & listen to one another
Welcome differences & explore them
Allow taboo subjects to be raised safely
Listen to your inner voice
Slow the discussion
Search for the underlying meaning
Dialogue is based on the work of the physicist David Bohm

Summary
Business is a conversation
Conversation is a powerful learning technology
Conversation is creative
Understanding is more important than knowing more
Dialogue is the key to quality conversations

Conversation? What is the role of conversation in business? How important is it? How would you encourage more?

The Gurteen Knowledge Café Process

Café Process
Talk + question
Small group conversations
Whole group conversation in circle
Round-robin individual sharing in circle

Key Aspects of Gurteen Knowledge Cafes
Relaxed, non-threatening, open conversation
No one is forced to do anything
Everyone is equal
No table leaders
No reporting back
Sharing circle: individual summary at end
No overall summarization or attempt to reach consensus
No capture on flip-charts
Outcomes: what people take away in their heads & how they act on what they have learnt

Knowledge Café Examples
National Audit Office
What should we do with social tools?
Dubai Holdings
Evening on the canals of Amsterdam
StatoilHydro
merger, management training, retirement, transfer of technical expertise
PortalParnership
A sales tool

Questions

“ How do we measure the impact of KM?”

www.gurteen.com David GURTEEN Gurteen Knowledge Fleet, United Kingdom Tel: +44 7774 178 650 Email: david.gurteen@gurteen.com If you would like to receive my free monthly Knowledge Letter that is now in its 11 th year and is distributed to over 17,000 people world-wide then just send me an e-mail.

Licence
You may use these slides under the following Creative Commons Licence
Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/

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Measuring KM: Measures, Targets and Rewards

by David Gurteen on Jun 11, 2010

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