Creating A Meaningful Context

The ideal context for the disclosure of knowledge is at the moment of its creation or use. At this time the environment has stimulated the subject and there is a greater chance of awareness of the nature of the knowledge in use. Of course this is not always possible and we may have to rely on recollection, or fiction to create the context. One of the ironies of knowledge work is that fiction can be as important as fact in revealing the context of knowledge use.

A key learning from fieldwork is that the preliminary search is not for knowledge itself, but for evidence of knowledge use. Accordingly we create the context in which a knowledge question can be asked. Accordingly the purpose of initial enquiry is to identify knowledge disclosure points (KDPs) through observation of the moment of creation or use. The most common KDP is a decision as we always use knowledge in decision-making consciously and unconsciously. KDPs can also be acts of judgement, problem resolution, learning points, solution discovery, conflict resolution or any combination or permutation thereof. Various techniques serve to ‘surface’ KDPs in an organisation, most of which are orientated to the stimulation of story telling.

Stories are the means by which humans communicate and recall experience and through which they communicate knowledge. Elicitation of stories provides one of the most effective means by which evidence of knowledge use can be identified. An interesting feature of this practice is that fiction is as valuable as fact, the speculations of what could have been and might have been reflect the knowledge assets of an organisation to the same or greater degree than fact. Methods for the elicitation of story include:

Field Observation drawing on techniques from anthropology. Here the investigator becomes a part of the environment, an unseen observer. Critical is not to act as a consultant either external or internal, but to undertake labour or service in the organisation as a new, and junior member of staff. The author in carrying out this work has stacked shelves in supermarkets, been plunged into sewers, swept metal scarf from a factory floor and acted as a bag carrier for a merchant banker. The essence of this approach uses the human obligation of gifting; by providing service we create an obligation for openness.

Story Circles are effective for groups of people with a common experience and history. They work on the natural human tendency to reminiscence and to a certain degree, the desire to tell a better story than someone else in the circle. Story telling stimulates the memory; it provides the contextual stimulus to recall specific events and experiences. Story telling is not a natural process in some cultures and it cannot be forced but it can be enabled. Scenario planning or alternative history techniques can create an environment in which people will tell stories without being asked to. The essence of a story circle is to replicate the natural process of story telling that takes place around the water cooler, over a meal or in the mess.

The Na ive Interview utilises the naturally occurring social networks that exist in all organisations. For example, issuing 250 tape recorders to 250 randomly selected staff asking them to find two or three people based on different selection criteria (normally opposites such as youngest–oldest, most and least experienced etc. The interviewers are then provided with indirect questions designed to stimulate the recall of relevant experience. This technique is more likely to tap into open disclosure than a formal interview conducted by third parties: the na ive interviewer will utilise the social obligation of their own trusted networks.

Virtual Story Capture is not as rich as the above techniques; the nature of human communication and trust is not best served in a virtual space where social clues are restricted. For example, in a physical story circle it is not possible for anyone to lurk without other members of the group being aware of their nonparticipation, whereas lurkers are common in virtual discussion groups. The value of virtual story telling is that it can reduce cost, which is legitimate, provided the limitations are acknowledged and validated by other techniques, but the main value is the ability to create anonymity in a virtual space which can enable disclosure of core material which would not be revealed in other environments.

Life-cycle Interviews focus the interviewer on the natural cycle of decision-making. What decisions are made on a daily, weekly, monthly or annual cycle? The process of walking through past experience provides a stimulus for recall and can be combined with a story circle. As a one to one interview it is the least effective of the techniques as the interviewer can too easily influence it. There is a tendency for an interviewer who has conducted two or three interviews to form a hypothesis and then to only see evidence that supports that hypothesis in subsequent interviews. This is a variation of the pattern entrainment referenced earlier.

All of the above techniques are designed to create a rich body of anecdotes that can be used to reveal knowledge disclosure points. This can be done by review of recorded material from the above exercises, or by a review period with participants in each process. The intent is to generate as many knowledge disclosure points as possible over multiple versions of each process and then to cluster and group the results. It is then possible for each cluster of knowledge disclosure points to identify individuals or groups who make the decision, exercise judgement, resolve the problem or whatever. We can then conduct a more structured and traditional interview process with those individuals or groups asking them in the context of the KDP cluster, a meaningful question about the knowledge they use, have used or might use.