NINETEENTH KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT ROUNDTABLE
CONVENED ON SEPTEMBER 24, 2004 AT MITRE WASHINGTON.

Resources:

• Meeting Overview
• Agenda
• Oranization List
• Presentation by Mr. Kent Greenes

 

Brief:

The 20th meeting of the Knowledge Management Roundtable (KM RT) series was held in the conference room at SAIC, Tysons Corner, VA , on March 8, 2005. It was jointly sponsored by Defense Contract Management Agency (WWW.DCMA.MIL) and the Federal CIO Council's KM Working Group (WWW.KM.GOV) Community of Practice Special Interest Group.

Held in conjunction with the School of Public Policy's International Center for Applied Studies in Information Technology (ICASIT) and Virginia's Center for Innovative Technology (CIT), the KM RT seeks to broaden the application and advance the effectiveness of KM practice in organizations in the region. CIT seeks to increase the Commonwealth's economic competitiveness and quality of life by advancing the development of Virginia as a technology state and by creating and retaining technology-based jobs and businesses.

As part of its efforts to achieve these results, CIT provided a grant to ICASIT to help initiate a shared KM culture among organizations in Virginia by identifying organizations interested in KM and convening the first KM Roundtable that was held in March 1999. (KM Roundtable, March 1999). Subsequently, a KM RT has been convened nearly every quarter: KM Roundtable, June 1999, KM Roundtable, September 1999, KM Roundtable, February 2000, KM Roundtable, May 2000, KM Roundtable, August 2000, KM Roundtable, November 2000, KM Roundtable, February 2001, KM Roundtable, May 2001, KM Roundtable, August 2001, KM Roundtable, November 2001, KM Roundtable, February 2002, KM Roundtable, May 2002 , KM Roundtable, October 2002, KM Roundtable, February 2003, KM Roundtable, September 2003 , KM Roundtable, March 2004, KM Roundtable, May 2004, and KM Roundtable, September 2004

 

MEETING OVERVIEW

The Knowledge Management Roundtable (KMRT) met with 23 members present to hear presentations on the topic of "Communities of Passion." The sudden snow storm prevented many members from coming to this event. The objective for the session was for the Round Table members (1) to leave with an understanding of the critical issues in sustaining communities of practice, (2) to share knowledge among the members of community, and (3) to transfer relevant knowledge to the members who need it. The presenter related stories regarding how CoPs thrive based on his real experiences within a large organization - SAIC

The agenda for the meeting is shown below:

10:30am Communities of Passion (click to download the slides)

• Mr. Kent Greenes, Chief Knoweldge Officer and Senior Vice President, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

• Facilitated Discussion, Dr. Moonja Kim, DCMA

Presentation:

"Communities of Passion" -- Mr. Kent Greenes, Chief Knoweldge Officer and Senior Vice President, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC)

Mr. Greenes talked about the importance of "Passion" of members of communities as well as the leaders of communities to sustain the Communities of Practice (CoPs). In addition, he said that CoPs need the following 7 elements to thrive:

• INFORMAL networks dedicated to sharing knowledge among practitioners or operators
  

• Common sense of purpose, DESIRE to share knowledge and experience to meet a real need
  

• RELEVANCY to members' needs
  

• Operate through TRUST, RECIPROCITY, & RECOGNITION
  

• RESPECTED & PASSIONATE leaders
  

• A VIRTUAL meeting place, anytime
  

• Meet FACE-TO-FACE once in a while

He gave an example of how CoP could work with Special Operation Force Psych Ops Community where members participate as peers and share local experiences and new learning, then CoP could validate and renew common processes as "better" practices emerging from the field. Then the body of knowledge accumulated will be shared by others and become educational portal.

He also talked about the CoP Engine, which is a cycle of 4 phases:

• Visibility of people, tools and documents, where the awareness and identity valued. Examples are shared documents, search and taxanomy, shared tools and samples, people finders and connectors, face-to-face meetings.
  

• Mutual Support, where trust is valued. Examples are discussion forum, telecoms, chats, peer-assits.
  

• Company-wide Learning, where openness and reflections are valued. Examples are action reviews, lessons learned, knowledge assets, retrospects.
  

• Distributed Teamwork, where cooperation is valued. Examples are documenting and validating best practices, ad-hoc teams, joint projects.

Mr. Greenes emphasized that effective knowledge transfer is accomplished by community of Practice. When the right content with the right context and through right conversations timely, trusted and highly relevant knowledge is transferred, effective learning is accomplished. He quoted "Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him" by Aldous Huxley.

Regarding CoP evolution and effort, Mr. Greenes pointed out that practitioner-driven CoPs do well because they build it and come. Participation grows by personal networks and passion, fueled by a need not being met through other means, and the level of effort increases as members take on ownership and responsibility. For Organizationally-driven CoPs, explicit effort is required to externally motivate members and entice them to participate, so "you build it and they might come." It takes longer to make this kind of CoPs thrive because members may not feel the ownership and they may not want to stay and participate. CoPs can be a powerful value driver for members for career development. CoPs take a lot of effort, but it is amazing how fast knowledge can spread.

Moonja P. Kim,
Coordinator of KM Roundtable meetings, Defense Contract Management Agency, 6350 Walker Lane, Alexandria, VA 22310 (703) 428-1483