John's response to the questions of measuring knowledge are too
linear and simple cause and effect for me. I have no argument with
statements like "whether it's worth all the bother must be defined in
customer benefit terms". What is far from clear, however, is that
you can trace a one-for-one connection between learning some
particular thing and the production of customer benefit -
particularly regarding more important and long-term matters. It
might be obvious that learning how to make a better weld benefits
customers but far from obvious how acquiring some knowledge about
biology might assist in the process for metal bender. And yet, John
Neil at Unipart has provided the opportunity at Unipart U for this
activity. There are too many possibilities in between to mention.
I think the job of business is to convert what is unknown into what
is useful. The profits don't go to those who do what is alrady well
known. The distinction between improvement, innovation and invention
won't help because we need to do all three and the knowledge required
for any one of these is seldom as simple and direct as John
indicates. How will it benefit the customer to have a welder be able
to operate in a groupware system with his own PC? Only time will
tell - but I'll bet on that one. (And it will be an entrepreneurial
decision that I might not win with.)
I think the original questions about measuring knowledge have missed
an important starting place that John's response reveals. What do we
mean when we refer to "knowledge". John's response makes an
undifferentiated hash of knowledge, information, learning,
curriculum, conceptualisation and application or use. Whatever I can
glean from his use of these terms as operational definitions I can't
make operational sense of.
If knowledge refers to facts or "bits of information" then learning
becomes gaining bits of information. And the process of "making
available for use" becomes, apparently, conceptualisation and
generalisation which are too general (and I think inaccurate) for
use.
If knowledge is a term distinguishing ability to act, then many of
the confusions turn out to be conceptual and disappear into
operational effectiveness. I offer the operational definition of
knowledge, for purposes of organisational learning, as "the ability
to respond with action to circumstances in ways appropriate to the
intention of the actor." It is not, then, particularly relevant
whether knowledge requires information or learning or any particular
kind of these - such as implicit or explicit. It does become
challenging how to measure this important phenomenon and focusses the
measurement on performance.
What to measure, then might best be found in improvement in
performance. The most important improvements in performance may not
be of a specific and direct result for the customer but in the area
of building capabilities to respond to different situations. The
particular area of this might be building "platforms" for development
and application of knowledge itself.
How do you measure an increase in knowledge of a welder? Surely, by
measuring the speed, quality or other characteristics of welds and
the processes of producing them.
How do you measure an increase in organisational knowledge of
welding. Surely, by measuring the speed, quality or other
characteristics of welds and the processes of producing them
exhibited throughout the welding force.
How do you measure the platforms that will improve future ability to
weld? This is not so easy. But it becomes easier if we have
different time scales and processes for testing processes which can
be applied before specific results to a "final product" are known.
This is mainly an adjustment to temporality.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk