Asking A Meaningful Question: The ASHEN Model


The language of knowledge is of importance both in discovery and in use. Aside from the question of creating a context in which a person or community are able to recall the nature of what they know, the language of the question has to both provide additional context, and stimulate a way of thinking which is seen as sensible to the subject being questioned. The question must provide a way in which the subject matter is seen from different perspectives in such a way as to stimulate the recall of knowledge and also to describe that knowledge in a manner that can lead to action. The ASHEN question is designed to achieve that, but it should be emphasised that ASHEN is about seeing things from different perspectives to elicit a response; it is not a categorisation model in which knowledge is, for example, either an artefact or a heuristic, but a means of eliciting a response.

art’.ef .act, art-, n. A product of human art and workmanship

These comprise the processes, documents, filing cabinets, databases and other constructed ‘things’ that encompass the codifiable knowledge of an organisation. The management issue here is the removal of duplication and the general optimisation and ready distribution of such artefacts to communities that need them. The artefacts will ideally be in the right place at the right time, even though most people may be unaware of their existence most of the time. This is a non-trivial management challenge for which technology can only support, but not provide, answers.

Many artefacts exist but are not known. They may be notebooks of past exceptions events in the drawer of a staff room of a supermarket; a diary in a caf e frequented on a regular basis by field engineers or a web site using the free space in Hotmail used by individuals in competitive companies who shared a common interest. All three of these examples come from the author’s own experience, and in each case were probably one of the most valuable assets identified in a knowledge mapping exercise. It is important to respect naturally occurring artefacts and to separate the creation and capture of knowledge from its analysis and distribution. It may not be neat and tidy to do so and appears to be anti-rational and sub-optimal; but it works.

sk.ill, n. Expertness, practised ability, facility in doing something, dexterity, tact.

In this context skills are those things for which we can identify tangible measures of their successful acquisition. If I employ a plasterer then I can measure the deviation from a vertical plane of his work and the time taken to complete. Customer relationship is a more different thing to measure and although it has aspects of ‘skill’, the term is not enough in its own right. The time element is an important aspect of the skill measurement. The author is a reasonably accomplished carpenter, but a skilled chippie can accomplish in one hour a task that is a weekend’s work for the amateur.

Skills are something that organisations know how to manage. Both training needs and skills analysis are well-known techniques. Training courses, moderated work experience; the gambit of techniques available is wide and well proven. However, there is always the danger of the codification heresy: the belief that once something is written down, then it is shared. Most of the published ‘success’ stories of Intellectual Capital Management often suffer from this. While skills can be structured and trained, time has to be taken to internalise them. The management task is to catalogue the skills, understand the time horizon and resource requirements for their acquisition and plan accordingly.

heur.is’t.ic (hur-), a. & n. serving to discover

Heuristics or rules of thumb are one of the most valuable of assets and may be articulated without the need to render them fully explicit. They are the effective way by which we make decisions when the full facts are not known or knowable in the time available. A good example is the CEO looking at a range of investment proposals without sufficient time – or the inclination – to go through the detailed case. The decision criteria often take the form of a simple rule set: Has someone I trust checked this out? Will it impact on my targets for this year? Will it distract key staff from other more important targets? They are also the means by which experts and/or professionals make decisions in conditions of uncertainty. The essence of heuristics is that they have fuzzy edges and therein rests their power. They allow greater consistency in conditions of uncertainty but follow the Pareto principle that 80 per cent is good enough. Over time they may become fully explicit and become artefacts, or they may remain tacit – only available to an expert community.

exper’.ience, n. Actual observation of or practical acquaintance with facts or events; knowledge resulting from this

Experience is the most valuable and most difficult of the tacit assets of an organisation. It is difficult for two reasons: (i) the experience may be collective rather than individual, and (ii) replication of the experience may not be practical or sensible. One case will illustrate this; a major UK company knew one of their key assets was the ability to manage cash but they didn’t know why. Using the ASHEN model the artefacts were readily identified in the form of management reports. Skills were a mix of accountancy training and, interestingly, a common training course in negotiation skills. The heuristics in contrast were clinically paranoid in their attention to detail, but made sense when the experience was identified: two members of the finance team had lived through a bankruptcy in a previous employment. That collective experience had given them an ability to spot trends, and take common-sense actions faster and with more effect than others, no matter how intelligent or how well trained. The issue was twofold: (i) the experience was collective – they were a team and, (ii) although it could be repeated it does not make sense to plunge a company into bankruptcy every two years as a training exercise for the finance department! Over time narrative and other techniques can mitigate this problem, but organisations should be under no illusion – mitigation is possible, but there is no full substitute for the experience itself. Key then is to understand the dependence – and the consequent vulnerability in the event of change.

n .atural (-cher), n. Existing in or by nature, not artificial, innate, inherent, self-sown, uncultivated. t .al’ent, n. Special aptitude, faculty, gift, (for music etc., for doing; see Matt. XXV. 14–30), high mental ability, whence ~ED , ~LESS

Like it or not, some individuals are simply better at doing things than others. Whatever the reason or origin of that talent, from an organisational point the retention and attraction of natural talent is a key aspect of knowledge management at all levels of the organisation. It doesn’t matter if it’s the problem-solving ability of a software engineer, the welcome of a receptionist or the entrepreneurial capability of a divisional director. In all cases there is something other than artefacts, skills, heuristics and experience that provides an ‘edge’. In knowledge mapping we improve our ability to spot it and in consequence we can foster its development and attempt to prevent corporate politics from stifling its realisation, but we cannot manufacture or transfer it. We can build the skills necessary to spot it, and foster the experience that will allow us to use it. Like non-repeatable experience we need to understand our key dependencies, measure the risk and vulnerability to loss and take appropriate action.




Managing the Knowledge - HR's Strategic Role
Managing for Knowledge: HRs Strategic Role
ISBN: 0750655666
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 175

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