Synchroni's Knowledge Management Forum revolves around a series of visits and workshops to leading KM practitioners in the UK; the 2004 programme is listed below so that you can see the wide range of subject matter the Forum covers.

To quickly go to the topics discussed, click on the subject title:

Taxing Taxonomies with AON
The Knowledge Market with Unilever
Practical Tools and Methods
Cultivating Communities
Finding Expertise
Developing a global KM programme
Leveraging Human Capital
KM for Innovation
 

• Taxonomies
  Held in the AON headquarters in London in April.

  This was a chance to collectively tackle taxonomies, a foundation issue of KM, hearing from AON, one of the world’s largest insurance and risk management companies, and from a recognised expert experienced in designing and introducing taxonomies in a range of organisations and sectors. We also heard from Members, including Sainsbury's who have had to tackle this area in a situation where there were extremely tight timescales and where pragmatism was therefore key.

   

• The Knowledge Market
  The Unilever Team led a Knowledge Market Event, in May in the Institute of Physics, London.

  We had the unique opportunity to learn a powerful technique at our meeting on Thursday 27th May. The Knowledge Management Specialist of the Unilever KM team based in the Netherlands, shared with us how Unilever uses this Knowledge Market technique to identify and transfer critical knowledge across their organisation.
  
  She not only trained us in the use of the technique but also how to facilitate its use across the membership. We used the technique to 'trade' experiences and insights within a key theme, such as communities of practice or embedding KM. This was a great session with the opportunity to learn a powerful practical new technique.

   

• Tools and Methods
  Held in June also at the Institute of Physics, London.

  In this session, the NHS Modernisation Agency and the Scottish Enterprise shared with us their approaches to using a number of tools and methodologies. The session was highly interactive to gain as much sharing of practical experiences across the membership with members coming away from the meeting - not only with deeper insights on the tools and methodologies, but also practical templates and approaches for direct implementation.

   

• Cultivating Communities
  Discussed at Sainsbury's HQ in London in September.

  Our programme commenced after the summer break with a terrific meeting with Richard McDermott over from the US. Richard is a highly regarded practitioner in organisational development within the US and many of you will recall the session with him last year and recall his openness and willingness to share his experiences. Some of you may have read his recent book Cultivating Communities of Practice written jointly by Etienne Wenger, Richard McDermott and William M. Snyder. This was again a chance to work closely with a leading world figure in KM.
  
  Richard led a highly interactive session with Members again - sharing his thinking and developing discussion around the whole area of Communities and also the challenges with Knowledge Working.

   

• Expertise within the Organisation
  Hosted by Clifford Chance at Canary Wharf, London in October .

  The Global CIO of the world's biggest legal firm, Clifford Chance, agreed to host the KM Forum meeting on 28th October, in their offices at Canary Wharf.
  
  He concentrated on the knotty problem of "finding expertise in the organisation". For Clifford Chance this is a major challenge. With over 8,000 employees worldwide operating in 28 countries, and 5,000 subject experts and lawyers there is a continual need "to know what they know and who knows it" as well as "have we done this before and can we redeploy the knowledge we learned from doing this last time". We covered expertise mapping; learning from experience and transferring the learning; a balanced approach to combining human tacit knowledge with systems based records of good practice. A meeting not to be missed in the City of London's new financial heart.

   

• Developing a global KM programme
  At the British Council, in London in January.

  Our first meeting of 2005 at the British Council on Wednesday 26th January was a very interesting meeting with the global CKO, who led us through some practical working processes which they use internally in the British Council across a range of topics.
  
  At this visit, we were shown how the British Council has developed their KM programme in the last two years. The British Council is a large globally distributed organisation operating within many cultures but with a unifying mission to transmit what Britain is about. Besides introducing their KM programme, we were taken through their experience in relation to the following themes:

  • Social Network Analysis,

  • Knowledge Audit and

  • Project debriefing

   

• Leveraging Human Capital
  Held in February by the Royal Bank of Scotland, in London

  The head of employee research and development at RBS, took us through the RBS Engagement Model, which is their approach to welding their 126,000 staff in 28 countries to the corporate strategy. The ultimate objective is to attract and retain the best and to make them as productive as quickly as possible. This meeting provided a chance to focus on people in the organisation and their contribution to strategic goals. This meeting was also of particular interest to HR professionals to see how this model can demonstrate multi-million pound saving for the Bank.

   

• KM for Innovation
  Discussed at Wates Group HQ in Leatherhead, Surrey, in March .

  This exceptional meeting on Innovation was held at WATES Group HQ in Leatherhead, Surrey.
  The Wates Director of Innovation was our host, and their new CEO, ex ICI, joined us. Some of you will remember him from his days as a Forum member a few years ago, and an intrepid fellow-traveller on our overseas forays. He talked about how Wates leading-edge KM work over recent years has enabled them to understand and deal with risk in the business and also how it contributes to value creation.
  Rolls Royce's company specialist in design technology shared how they use the TRIZ system to manage their innovation. (Try Googling TRIZ, very interesting technique and toolkit).