>It was Plato who first defined 'skill' as the useful application of
knowledge mediated by experience, and competence as the capacity to
achieve an objective through the deployment of skills. So measuring
knowledge is not what one really wants to do in a workplace - it is the
holistic measurement of competence and performance (from which knowledge
may be inferred) that is important. <
How does this translate for knowledge creation? Since the payback on new
knowledge can have quite a delay in time, maybe some indicators could be
useful. Some I used as a manager to get a feel for the timeframe of a
team's focus are listed below. Difficult to collect but fun to track.
MEASUREMENT OF PEOPLE INTERACTIONS
Usage of the word I versus usage of the word WE
Word "we" used focused on the future versus "we" focused
on today's problems
Word "I" focused on the future versus "I" focused on
problems
Amount of conversations about future/focus versus
personal agendas
Per cent of "around the coffee pot" conversations focused
on creating.
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Others I pondered but never used.
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Cycle time of DECISION to actually create a proposed
experiment (the antithesis of procrastination)
Amount of encouraged disagreement (among the
team) on new ideas
Number of simple inventions put to use per person
(I like to say per nose to connote a nosy attitude
about the future.)
Have a great day!!
-- Dave Buffenbarger Organizational Improvement Coach Dow Chemical Company dwbuff@aol.com (517) 638-7080