Developing, Documenting, and Distributing Learning 33Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without writtenreviewed to ensure effective investment is appropriately placed where it can maximize
return. The KM strategy has provided a measurement tool in the Business Challenges,
although the financial implication of the Challenges has only recently been recorded and
realized. Attendance on postprogramme conference calls is lower over the last eight
months than what it was 12 months ago. In Europe, the number of colleagues comfortable
with a three-day learning event in English outside of the United Kingdom is diminishing.
Over this time, the organization has developed a more pan-European business, uniting
colleagues from across Europe in an increasing number of projects. Delegates and
learning professionals in the business are now pushing the KM strategy to deliver a
global, Web-based interactive tool to share stories, post documents, and caretake the
learning community. Lessons learned include:
- KM across a large organization with diversity across geographies, languages, and
regional, local, and office cultures requires persistence, creativity, and ownership
from the audience. Knowledge must be easy to access, relevant to the day job, and
seen as an added value to individuals personally and professionally, and to
individual and team performance. - This programme benefited from transparent senior leader involvement and commit-
ment. Senior leaders gave their time to be present at the three-day event and their
endorsement to the KM strategy post event. Without this support, which included
a time and a direct financial cost, the learning and therefore KM strategy would not
be implemented. - Stories from colleagues, peers, and senior leaders are rich, credible, and effective
tools in transferring and sustaining learning, both for the storyteller and for the
listener. - Upon implementation of the Managing Essentials programme, the KM was neces-
sarily owned by the L&D team. This meant a small number of people brainstorming
on ideas to develop the strategy. Now that the programme is embedded, known and
branded as a success, the L&D team can now hand this responsibility over to the
end users who have already attended the programme. This will generate a wealth
of more ideas immediately relevant to the business, hand in hand with ownership
of those KM processes. - Blend the KM activity with a variety of media to match learning styles in the
audience. After a learning event, keep any KM intervention 60 minutes or less for
two reasons: the delegate is more likely to clear time to attend in his/her diary, and
the facilitator is more likely to retain the attention span of all attendees. - Keep the key messages short and simple to allow easy, quick, and frequent
reinforcement. The Managing Essentials learning event has approximately 10 key,
high-level statements. While each delegate usually chooses between one and three
of these messages to focus on first when back at the office, the programme manager
refers to a variety of the 10 whenever communicating to the group. - In this case, the external delivery partners’ style, delivery method, and connection
with the delegates have a significant impact on the effectiveness of the KM. On
conference calls after the programme, delegates make consistent reference to the
humor and personal teaching “stories” of the facilitators when reflecting on the
event. The three-day event is, however, a relatively short intervention in the overall
strategy. Coupled with the dynamic facilitation, the role of the programme manager
is important in reinforcing the key messages. Over the life of this case, the