Steve Swan asked: Replying to LO21710 --
>Under what function (finance, R&D, engineering, leadership/management,
>logistics support, etc.) is there a "system" that captures knowledge,
>experience, ideas, and solutions?" What is the vision for a system (HRIS
>if you like) that captures all four? What is the intended use of these
>bits of information? How does the organizational learning style fit with
>the use of a system?
Every day, individuals in organizations are encountering new challenges,
carrying out investigations and tests, analyzing problems, creating new
knowledge, discovering solutions, gaining new experience, writing incisive
reports, gaining experience that is new to them, discovering new and
profound questions. In other words, individuals are learning a great deal,
but their organization may be learning very little.
In some instances, these discoveries are captured in reports that are made
available throughout the firm, but these situations are rare. If employees
had to report on every learning event, there would be little time to do
anything but write reports. Furthermore, if everyone had to read all of
these reports from everyone, the entire organization would come to a
grinding halt.
Much of this information and knowledge is confined to that individual and
perhaps to a very small circle of associates. Some of it is recorded in
diverse media such as the payroll system (from time sheets), work orders,
memos, sticky notes, e-mail messages, progress reports on projects,
comments on a notepad, etc. This information is not generally accessible,
and is not structured in a useful way.
For organizations that rely on that kind of knowledge, a system is useful
as a means of capturing "tidbits" as well as big ideas, indexing them, and
making them available throughout the organization to others at the time
that the information is required.
For individuals, it is a way of maintaining an up-to-date record of their
experience, capabilities, achievements, discoveries. Traditional HRIS
systems don't do that.
How often have we heard someone say "Harry had a situation just like this
last month. Let's get him in on this and find out how he solved it"?
Knowing about Harry's experience is accidental. A system could
economically bring together many bits of information as well as some large
chunks, which would bring to light a the experience of Harry and any
number of folks which would otherwise be overlooked.
This is particularly critical to larger multi-site organizations that work
on a project basis where there is an almost infinite variety of
assignments.
>Human endeavor requires human interest. Regardless of some "new" system
>design, without a common interest in the capturing and use of these four
>categories by the vast majority of the organization, the potential value
>is negligible.
I agree that human interest is important. There has to be a good reason
related to corporate needs for this kind of system. For many firms, the
potential value is enormous. I think of a scientific consulting firm whose
eastern division encountered what they thought was a unique problem, spent
a considerable amount of time coming up with a solution (which was charged
to their client), but later accidently discovered that another division of
their company had two years earlier solved an almost identical problem.
>In the military, as in many organizations, standing operating procedures
>are developed. In a learning organization these are "living" and grow
>(quality) with each learned experience. Why does there have to be a
>"system?"
There doesn't have to be a system. A system becomes useful when the
certain factors make simple procedures ineffective. Some of these factors
are:
the number of people involved
the number of locations involved
the frequency of new learning incidents
the complexity of the work
the cost of not distributing the learning
Brock Vodden - Vodden Consulting
"Where Systems and People Meet"
Serving South Western Ontario
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca
Check out our website at
http://www.voddenconsulting.on.ca
--"Brock Vodden" <brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>