Transitions Create Need for Knowledge Transfer

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Now available at amazon.com: by Steve Trautman	Transitions Create Need for Knowledge Transfer Steve Trautman Peer Mentoring Workshop (An excerpt from Steve's book, Teach What You Know: A Practical Leader's Guide to Knowledge Transfer and Peer Mentoring) At the heart of every transition there are people - people who know (I call them peer mentors) and people who need to know (the apprentices). Everyone falls into one of these categories, and depending on the moment, they might even flop back and forth from one to the other. Trouble is that much of this is never really spelled out. Sometimes people are clear about their role as expert and trainer and often they’re not. Sometimes they know that they should teach but don’t know how. Sometimes they know how but don’t want to. Sometimes they’re the apprentice and need to learn but aren’t even aware of it… You get the idea. The opportunity for confusion is real. How organizations understand this issue in the trenches as well as from the top down has a profound impact on how smoothly the transition goes. Here are some examples of common transitions. As you read through the list, tick off how many of them you’re facing today: New technology (such as introducing a new knowledge base or a new customer relations management system) where some people get more training and have to bring back their new skills to the larger organization. Reorganizations where new teams are forming and people are transitioning from one part of the company to another so they have to get up to speed as well as hand off their old responsibilities. Recent hires of employees, contractors, vendors, partner companies, or interns. Mergers and acquisitions. New process or product launch or new customer requiring a newly formed project team to focus on meeting some new objective. Recent layoffs where remaining folks have to pick up work of those who left. Aging workforce begins retiring before they can fully train others on what they know. Business changes requiring cross-training to improve flexibility. Outsourcing requires having to partner offshore. New physical space for offices or production. New markets, products and customers. Throughout any transition, there is much information that must be known. Think of all the skills, processes, standards, tools, templates, policies, success metrics, and requirements that must be known in your department or organization – big or small. These are actually the easy ones because they can be seen and done within tight parameters. What about all of the other information that must be known like history, tribal knowledge, collaborative team issues, customer issues, culture and communication strategies? These are all much more amorphous and loose. How do people get to know them? From other people, that’s how. They learn all of this information from the people sitting right next to them. I bet that for every transition above you could easily make a list of the peer mentors (subject matter experts) and the specific apprentices in your organization. Now imagine how well things would go if those peer mentors were really good at explaining themselves and ensuring a transfer of knowledge and understanding to the apprentices. You probably have some of that happening already. Lots of people are already good at this. Imagine what would happen if nearly everyone had a baseline of skills to replicate themselves in a predictable way. This isn’t some far off utopia. It is already happening in many forward thinking organizations. We’ve studied and are replicating the behaviors of those who are good at knowledge transfer; that is, the people who are already good at teaching what they know. Each time they face a new question they instinctively assess the situation and respond with an eloquent repartee seamlessly expounding on only the most salient information in exactly the right format to aid their befuddled apprentice. Then there are the rest of us mere mortals. When faced with a question, we do one of many things: Jump up, slap on a red cape and leap out of the cube with a hearty “I’ll save you!” That’s easier than taking the time to teach anything. Right? Talk until we say something – starting in the middle, looping around through 12 years of experience and landing with a hopeful, “did you get all that?” Jump to the white board and carefully diagram the schematic of the bowels of the ACME 2000 Turbo Jumpracer. All you asked was how to find the “on” switch. Grunt some unintelligible instructions and hope the apprentice will go away. Wouldn’t it be great if a peer mentor, when faced with an (informal or formal) opportunity to transfer knowledge, would be able to take this path: Recognize that they have something to teach and define it in terms of a measurable learning goal. Quickly assess what the apprentice already knows and wants/needs to know. Ensure that they have the minimum required setup (vocabulary, workstation, access, etc.) to be successful. Organize the topic into a brief lesson plan. Teach and assess along the way to make sure the apprentice isn’t lost. Send the apprentice off with specific instructions of what to do next. Follow up with peer-appropriate feedback. While that sounds great, it also sounds like a lot of work. We’re all busy people and none of us can carve out hours every day to be this rigorous. This is universally the biggest concern that people everywhere face and this was most certainly the case at Microsoft, when I developed Peer Mentoring initially. So, I’d like to promise up front that none of the individual tools or ideas that I’ll suggest will take you more than 5-10 minutes to use on your first try. They’re designed with the busiest of people in mind; people who are already trying to teach on the job every day, but could use some help making it go better. Tools for Knowledge Transfer Roles in Peer Mentoring Who is responsible for what? Since peer mentoring is usually very informal, participants’ roles and responsibilities are often vague. It helps to provide language that can be used to define the expectations of the manager, the peer mentor and the apprentice so that there is less frustration and greater efficiency. Think about how a manager and a peer mentor can tell the apprentice, “We’ve been thinking about you and we have a plan to help you get up to speed. Let’s talk about what you can expect from us and the best approach you can take for your own development.” In a matter of minutes this sets everyone’s expectations and sets the stage for success. Managing Communication How do I stay in touch and still get my own job done? For most peer mentors transferring knowledge isn’t explicitly on their task list. It comes under “other duties as assigned.” There is no doubt that it is harder to keep up with your own work when you’re a peer mentor. Offer advice for keeping daily interactions useful while still getting your regular work done. Think about improving email communication, controlling interruptions, improving one on one time, quick status reports and guiding better problem solving questions. Focusing on the Most Important Information Where do I start? Too often a peer mentor’s vast knowledge overwhelms the apprentice. Make sure to figure out where to begin, what doesn't need to be said and how to organize needed information into manageable, useful chunks. Just talking this over will spark some interesting conversations about how you introduce your apprentice to the content and, its relationship to the “big picture.” You can quickly build this foundation of understanding or deal with an apprentice who takes far too long to stabilize in the new role. Developing a Training Plan What are the skills, measures, resources, and dates needed to hit the mark? Think about ways to “deconstruct” the apprentice’s job into a list of specific skills (things you know how to do), measures of understanding (“test” questions you’d have to pass to prove you learned) and resources that can be used to pass the test (such as classes, peer mentors, web sites, documentation, etc.). Having a plan to use as a point of reference means your apprentice will be able to drive far more of his own development, and it’ll keep you from bouncing all over the place. Telling What You Know How do I teach? In order to cover information effectively, you’ll need to develop basic lesson plan and delivery techniques. Think about identifying the “least amount of information necessary” to make your point, and organizing an outline of all of the content you’re going to teach before you start talking. Developing an effective way to give demonstrations will help as well. Leveraging Learning Styles What if we aren’t on the same page? Not everyone learns the same way, so peer mentors shouldn’t teach the same way to every apprentice. Consider the different learning styles and recognize that you’ll need to teach differently to an apprentice who might have a different learning style than you do. Then you can adjust your teaching and make the knowledge transfer process more successful. Assessing Knowledge Transfer How do I know if they are learning anything? Ensuring that an apprentice is really learning requires more than just asking, “Are you with me?” You have to determine your apprentice’s prior experience and knowledge before beginning and then use direct assessment questions to track their progress while you’re teaching. Plan to formulate simple, open ended questions that can be asked in any situation to make sure you’re not wasting time rambling on when little is sinking in. Giving and Getting “Peer Appropriate” Feedback When and how should I say what I am thinking? What does it take to create an environment where a peer can quickly and safely give feedback to a colleague? The secret is to focus on the goals that were set and to talk about whether those goals were exceeded, met or not met. In this way a peer mentor and an apprentice can help each other perform at their best because they’ve got guidance from the people who see their work most closely, their peers. Peer Mentoring from a Distance What if I rarely or never see my apprentice? Many teams have members spread all over the globe. The key to making this work is a disciplined approach to managing the relationship. Each Peer Mentoring idea described above can be used to improve communication and knowledge transfer when distance is a factor. Since every company relies heavily on subject matter experts to deliver information, and many engineers do not excel at communication and knowledge transfer, it makes sense that steps would be taken to support engineers and help them improve this skill. Peer Mentoring: A Practical Approach to Knowledge Transfer 1-day Workshop
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