Learning
from Experience (LfE) Toolkit
What is knowledge management? Nobody doubts
that it’s all about sharing knowledge and
turning it to business advantage, but that’s
where the consensus stops. Software vendors
want it to be an IT thing, and they’ll sell
you expensive software that reckons to be a
KM system. In fact it will usually be just
an ‘electronic document management system’ (EDMS),
a sort of information management
system). EDMSs can be invaluable but when
they aren’t an essential part of their work
people very often can’t be bothered to use
them and they can be a big disappointment.
They’re just one kind of KM tool, and there
are many others. Management theorists tend
to claim that KM is really a behavioural
thing, about getting people to recognise the
value of sharing knowledge and to adopt the
right behaviours, and they make a big issue
of corporate culture. But most practising
knowledge managers will tell you that you
need the tools AND the culture: there’s no
point having pen and paper if you don’t know
how to read or write - or vice versa. You
can’t manage people’s knowledge directly,
but you can give them the tools and you can
give them a working environment where
knowledge can flourish. IT can be an
enormous help managing data, information and
explicit knowledge - the stuff you can put
in a document or in a database. However, a
lot of the knowledge that’s most valuable in
a business is TACIT. It’s only in
people’s heads, and IT can’t get at it. A
fully capable KM system needs to cope with
tacit as well as explicit knowledge, and
that can’t be done with IT: it needs
PROCESS tools. And, finally, it’s one
thing making knowledge accessible, but it
doesn’t do any good unless it goes back into
people’s heads so that it influences their
thinking. So KM has to consider that too.
The focus of Learning from
Experience (LfE) is about the PROCESS TOOLS
and BEHAVIOUR needed to handle the
TACIT knowledge that construction’s tended
to ignore, and about the whole cycle of
CREATING it, making it ACCESSIBLE,
SHARING it, and INTERNALISING it.
The Learning Toolkit
contains:
•
a
CONTENTS MAP, which explains the various
components in the toolkit and who they are for.
•
a one-page
SUMMARY OF THE
BUSINESS CASE, aimed mainly at directors
and partners
•
the
LEARNING MANUAL, which explains
- why LfE makes sense, where it has been used,
and what the business benefits are (in rather
more detail than The business case in a
nutshell)
- the
principles and processes involved, and
- how to set up a learning programme, tailor it
to suit your particular circumstances, and make
it work.
• CASE
STUDIES which describe practical trials of
the Learning Manual methods carried out on real
construction projects by
•
WORKSHOP LEADER’S GUIDE, a compilation
of advice and tips from an experienced
facilitator, written for people responsible for
leading workshops, and
•
SLIDES
to use internally when making the case for a
learning programme, introducing staff to LfE and
training learning review leaders.
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