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Reinventing the wheel?
Development and relief interventions: challenges for knowledge management
Silva Ferretti
Oxford Brookes UniversityAid Workers Network
Updates and news, who is doing what where
Manuals, how to guidelines
Reports, data on operations
Collaborative processes of data / information exchange across organisations
Organisational learning
Conceptualisation of knowledge(research studies, production of manuals and procedures)
Coordination mechanisms
Monitoring and evaluation
Communities of practice
On line training
Discussion lists
Correspondence from HQ
Information and information generation processes
INFORMATION FROM
LEARNING
INFORMATION FOR
OPERATIONS
Knowledge: “A fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert inside that provides a framework for incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and applies in the mind of knowers . In organisations, it often become embedded not only in documents and repositories but also in organisational routines, processes, practices and norms”.
Information: A message, usually in the form of a document or an audible or visible communication, that is meant to change the way the receiver perceives something. It must inform: it is data that makes a difference.
Data: “Discrete, objective facts about events”
Information for operations, information from learning
Organisation staff
External stakeholders & resources
Leve
ragi
ng
indi
vidua
l ex
perie
nce Learning by
doing, organisational
mem
ory
Learning in organisation
Knowledge
Adaptation,change
learning
Action
Learning in the humanitarian system
individuals
organizations
“system”
Collective learning
The Aid Workers Network
http://www.aidworkers.net
AWN: some of the assumptions behind it
The wheel is continuosly reinvented in the field
Aid workers need tailored information
There is not a ready-made answer to everything
Knowledge is not held by ‘experts’ only (& the challenge of ‘quality’)
Knowledge management is essentially about people (not IT)
There is a need for a generalistic community, able to bridge across specialised CoPs and organisation. Development / relief workers, national / expat staff can benefit from a common arena for knowledge exchange.
A broad community of aidworkers can create the critical mass that allow for economy of scale in information circulation.
Components of the network
Members (the community)
Content the library,
the super-manual
Q&Athe meeting area,
the help desk
Demand-driven information and knowledge exchange
AWN: participants
AWN: the importance of facilitation
Self-directed
K-services & networks
Faciliteted translfer
Resources required
Results achieved
O'Dell, Carla, and C. Jackson Grayson. 1998. If only we knew what we know. New York: The Free Press
Create trust
Make knowledge sharing a habit
Provide support and guidance in using IT
Promote the network
Support activists
Animation
Networking
Creation of trustUser support
facilitation
organisations
CoPs
Q&A
members gatekeepers
AWN: pushing and pulling information
Newsletter FacilitationCreation of content
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/refsettle/The website of the PhD research (to be updated soon)
http://www.aidworkers.net/ The website of the aidworkers net
Silva Ferretti:
[email protected] or [email protected]
To find out more
