Mrs. Françoise Rossion hello everybody.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Good afternoon, Ms Rossion and participants throughout Europe. Here is the Lernia conference in Gothenburg, Sweden. At the keyboard, Mr Jens Frejrud.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Welcome on board, Jens.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Do you have any question, comment or open discussion that you would like that we initiate?

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. I have a question I would like to start with: which is the role that customers play in a successful Knowledge Management?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Do you mean internal customers of the system or external customers of the overall organisation?

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Both internal and external

AIKE, Kuopio/Guest Good afternoon Mrs Rossion and discussion partners. Greetings from AIKE, Finland. In your presentation of today, you mentioned that quantity breaks quality. How would you advice us to encourage colleagues to trust their good practice to be "good enough" to enter in the Exemplo?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I will split the answer into two parts. First for 'internal customers', it is clear that they are at the center of the KM System. If the systems does not match their expectations, they won't use it. In other words, any Knowledge Management initiative MUST start with an assessment of the

Gregoris-HRDA/Guest How do you apply the concept of Knowledge Management without losing the confidentiality principle and how do you measure the success of this , since Knowledge is something intangible?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. needs regarding knowledge capture, dissemination, reuse etc.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. If your KM programme answers to these needs, you can assume that it will be used... and successful; if not, you have a big problem.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. For the external customers, same answer: if you deploy a knowledge sharing environment for exchanging ideas, information and even knowledge with your customers, you must make sure that the KM approaches a 'win-win' approach: you will learn from your customers and they will learn from you. Again, the start up of th initiative must rely on a strong business case built together with your customers, internal and external.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I handle the question from AIKE

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I can refer to an experience that I have got in another organisation. They ware facing the same challenge: how encouraging people to share their knowledge?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. The first point is to demonstrate the value of ANY knowledge by success stories, just as these told by your colleague Frederic this morning.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Another point can to reassure your colleagues by introducing a kind of quality process: any knowledge is valuable... some are more applicable than the other ones but it UP to the others to decide the applicability of the knowledge. Any knowledge can be relevant at one moment or at another.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Let's come back to my own experience with this organisation: they have decided that everyone could introduce new documents (whatever the name you give to this document: knowledge, information, etc.)

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Continuing with the customer question: do you have any advice of how to assess these needs?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. They have set up a first quality level by enabling to some 'experts' to review the submitted knowledge and to decide that some information were more applicable to different countries (it is also an international organisation) and they called it 'best practice'. It was a second level of 'hierarchy' in the knowledge.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. And lastly, they defined a third level of hierarchy: the 'standards' that are knowledge applicable in ALL countries. Clearly, the result is that there are many documents labeled as just 'knowledge',

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. there are a few less documents labeled as 'best practice'

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. and there are few documents labeled as 'standard'.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. When the user of the system connects and looks for information, depending on his needs, he looks either for knowledge in general... and is very happy if he has a lot of documents but his need can be so restrictive that he could get no answer.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. If he is sure that he will get answers but he wants qualified documents, he can have a look to 'best practice'.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. If he is looking for a highly qualified and recognized practice, he will look for standards.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. In the meantime, the person who wants to contribute can remove this 'intellectual barrier': it won't interest others... any piece of knowledge is interesting. But the only way to convince your colleagues is to communicate with them and to demonstrate by examples how a small information can have a big impact.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I come back to the question of Lernia: assessment of the needs.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I have conducted many 'knowledge audits', that 's the word given to this kind of assessment and there is no unique answer.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. The first step for assessing the needs is to gather the customers themselves.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. For achieving this, you can proceed step by step: first of all, determining who will be the 'customers'? or who are the customers you want to focus on?

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. I imagine that some people may have difficulties in expressing their needs in these areas, and I guess I´ looking for some useful tips´

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. the second step is to consider the method: you can have 'face to face ' meeting with each 'type of customers' and interview them with formal and less formal questions... it is a heavy process but it can be required by the hierarchical level of your customers or by the culture of the enterprise. That's what we are doing at the moment for a chemicals company. I have done it in the past for Eurocontrol as well: challenging and multicultural environment.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Another way to process is to facilitate workshops.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. It is clear that the success is depending of the preparation of this workshop.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. We generally structure the workshop according to the following.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. and tricks for my assessment process

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. First step: getting to know each other (they are many 'ice breakers' that you can make... I cannot give you a list of them but you can find books with very easy tips)

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Second step: to start the brainstorming by introducing yourself the KM enablers... and to group people by small teams in asking them to brainstorm on the issues that they may have regarding these enablers.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Generally the discussion relies on examples of what has been done in other similar organisations... so that they can already start to build on existing ideas.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. It is clear that the result of this first brainstorming can still be 'unclear' or difficult to scope but the only way to arrive to a consensus is to proceed step by step by initiating an interactive dialogue.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Useful tips, thank you. Do you recommend any books in particular?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. In KM, you do not have ONE solution but solution adapted to your environment and to your culture.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Regarding a book on 'ice breakers', I do not know the references by heart but I can send the references to Frederic who will follow up. For KM in general, I recommend

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. very often a book of Thomas Davenport: 'How companies manage what they know' (HB, 1998): a lot of experience, a lot of stories, a good structure, a lot of open reflections...

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. You have also many KM forums, with a lot of online tips and tricks. I can follow up as well if it interests you.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Answer to the question of Gregoris about confidentiality.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Sharing knowledge is not about sharing any information to anybody at any time...

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. One of the golden rules for the knowledge sharing environment is to set up a 'knowledge policy'.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. First, you have to determine which kind of knowledge you will make available.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Second you have to determine who can have access to what: it can be groups of people or individuals.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Third you have to secure your environment by technology.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. The determination of the membership, with authorization to have access to this type of information or not, is a crucial step while deploying KM.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. It is part of the 'trust' concept.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. If people have the feeling that the information is not secure, they won't contribute or they won't use it.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. As we progress along the discussion, you can see that KM is more than just a technology and that many processes must be considered before or while launching an initiative.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Now the second part of the question: how do you measure it?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I would answer to this question by a first assessment: the measure you will set up depends on your KM project.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. For example, if you set up a community of interest, the measures will be different that those you will use if you set up a portal or a skills database.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Even more, depending on the why, you can have specific measures for measuring if you have achieved the results you were looking for.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Do we know how extended the use of KM is among enterprises and organizations?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. There has been a period of enthusiasm about KM in the entreprises and I would say that two years ago, one company over two had a 'KM' officer, with KM initiatives (the 'KM' initiatives can be just document management systems).

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Now with the economic problems, many private companies have abandoned the idea to have a 'KM' programme for the whole company but they speak about collaboration,

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. they speak about portals... and the continue the spirit of KM but without any KM officer labeled as such.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. In the public sector, things are moving ahead.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I have been responsible for KM initiatives in the public sector, and at that moment, the hierarchical structure was so heavy and the culture so 'unflexible' that it

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. looked very difficult to come to any consensus and to any involvement of the management in the initiative.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Hi, Kathrine Engman here, my question is are you talking about Europe or the whole world?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. It took place five years ago.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Now the situation has totally changed!

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Here in Belgium, there is a lot of interest in KM and I would even say that the public sector is perhaps more open than the private one to the ideas of KM.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. We have also the push of the European Commission (I have worked for them 6 years ago).

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. The 6th Framework programme pushing ahead KM, E-learning etc is very positive.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. This is interesting because in Sweden it is the same trends...

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. We probably experience the same movement. Just as an example, in Belgium, they have decided to set up a service called 'Direction Gestion des Connaissances'. The purpose of this service

Gregoris/Guest Thank you for answering the confidentiality and measurement of success question. If I may ask another question, referring to Frederic’s presentation (this morning) what in practice do you actually include as a provision in employee job description for Knowledge Sharing?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. is to help and coach Belgium Ministries for KM initiatives.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Frederic is next me: he will answer to the question himself. On my side, I can answer for my own team as I face also the same KM challenges.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. We have a collaboration team site and some are contributing, some other not.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I have planned in their performance 'assessment' of the year a section on K sharing attitude.

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. OK, this is also interesting because this can mean that KM will be isolated and we miss the opportunity to spread KM to the enterprises..

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. The people from the team are aware of this: I will evaluate not the 'number' of contributions but mainly the spirit behind the contributions... it is clear that for doing this assessment,

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. you must know your people and what they are capable to share or not (as project managers, they have more to share, probable, than as developers).

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Answer from Frederic....

Gregoris/Guest To Frederic - Warm greetings from George Panayides sitting next to me

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. To gregoris: A few examples of concrete tasks one could include

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. into a trainer's job description on knowledge sharing

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Can you give us some good example of members in EVTA who have used KM in an innovative way?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. in Exemplo: consultation of the extranet, drawing up a description of good practice,

Lernia, Sweden/Gu.. Which country has used KM in the best way and how?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. make requests for information, lookout for colleagues of the same field from other EVTA-members, active participation in an Exemplo community of practice

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. , implementation of a good practice from another EVTA-member.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. It is Françoise again.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Questions from Lernia....

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Personally, I have not made any benchmark of the EVTA countries. I cannot answer to the question... I think that any country can use the system in the best way

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. if the country has interest in using Exemplo. As country's representatives, you can play a great role by not only contributing the system but also by making feedbacks:

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. feedbacks about the strengths and weaknesses of the system if there are,

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. feedback about the content: what is useful for you

Gregoris/Guest If the answer to the job description question is completed, can I ask then how different is the KM concept from what some of us call MIS (Management Information Systems)and to what extent is the KM concept depending on the level of computerisation the organisations may have?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. success stories or just stories about how you have reuse the information you have found on Exemplo. Each country story can be a 'best way' to share with each other country.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Gregoris, you have pointed to a key question. Indeed, there is a lot of confusion between MIS and KM but in the meantime, both are complementary.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Starting a KM approach in an organisation where you do not have even a computer where every one can connect is no sense... except if the organisation is SME with 30 persons and the sharing takes place at the coffee corner.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Some companies and organisations have still a long road to do and have to go through the internet availability, document management systems etc. before considering a KM programme.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. In the meantime, if you consider KM as a 'philosophy', you can instill the knowledge sharing spirit in order to prepare the 'future'... and encourage your people to collaborate and share their expertise.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. I have been involved in KM programme for a great retailer company. And the main barrier has been the IT barrier.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. The employees had no access to the internet.... and the IT director estimated that the money to invest for equipping the offices was to high facing the return of investment. Another issue

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. was the bandwidth: not enough bandwidth and hence very long time of answer: can be discouraging while you are looking for information.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. They are many enablers in a KM programme: technical enablers, cultural enablers, processes etc. all these enablers must be seriously taken into account for avoiding any barrier while developing your KM system.

Gregoris/Guest It is approaching time to go , so I would like to congratulate the organisers and all contributors to this event. Good bye from HRDA in Cyprus.

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Nice greetings from Belgium! We have been very happy to share ideas with you...

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Any other point you would like to address before the week-end?

Mrs. Françoise Ross.. Hence, I have one question for you: what do you consider as the main benefit of Exemplo?

Gregoris/Guest Have a nice week-end. Bye.