Knowledge (Part 2) – an enterprise-wide methodology

In Part 1 of this post I gave an overview to the process of levering knowledge and creating information (KLIC) in the workplace through carrying out a simple knowledge gap analysis or ‘information audit’.  This approach works well when levering knowledge from an individual or small group of people for a particular purpose. But what about an approach that can work across a whole organization as an ongoing knowledge initiative? I was prompted to think about this by a response from someone to the original post who admitted that a lot of this ‘knowledge’ stuff was confusing and was asking for a simple, practical and above all logical methodology or set of tools that could be used by virtually anyone in any organization. 

Therefore in this post I will attempt to outline a metholodolgy for carrying out an organization wide knowledge initiative based on an approach that I have found to work very well in the past - the Quality Circle. The approach is fairly non-prescriptive and should be scalable for organizations of different sizes and with varying resources.

The elevator interview – ultra quick intranet user research

Want to get some fast feedback on your intranet but both time and resources are very limited? Try the user research version of the elevator pitch – the elevator interview.

I stumbled across this technique when carrying out some user research in one of our sites and the intranet webmaster who was my tour guide for the day kept bumping into people she knew in the elevator (or lift in the UK). She asked them what they thought of the intranet and I was really surprised at how much information could be transferred in a very short time. I also got the feeling that, as time was short, users had little time to be polite and so I got a better picture of their true feelings.

Intranet user research: A methodology for contextual enquiry

A good intranet can only be built on the foundation of solid user research.  James Robertson talks about this in his excellent article Conducting intranet needs analysis . James discusses several methodologies that can be used but the one I want to focus on is what James calls ‘contextual enquiry’ .

To quote James directly -

‘(Contextual enquiry) is a combination of staff interviews and workplace observation that involves exploring issues with a staff member, while situated within their normal working environment. By conducting the interview ‘in context’, it becomes possible to see the resources used by staff when conducting work activities.

The interviewer can also ask the staff member to show them how they complete specific activities, for example, showing how they find a piece of information on the intranet.’

Over the years I’ve found contextual enquiry to be by far the most illuminating, innovative and motivating experience associated with intranet user research.

Improving your intranet – keep it sustainable using kaizen

Things can go so badly wrong with an intranet that the intranet team is left floundering.  Many intranet teams can get dispirited because the myriad of problems seem insurmountable, the size of a mountain, or at least an elephant.

What usually happens then is that an equally large re-design project with the turning circle of an oil tanker is initiated. However vital parts of the re-design don’t work or even make the problem worse and at the end of the project the team throw their hands up in the air in exasperation and doom and gloom descends once more. Sound familiar?

James Robertson talking at the BBC last year stated research has shown that  intranet re-designs in general do not work and Lou Rosenfeld, as quoted in the Brainspill blog,  felt that many re-designs were only skin deep anyway -

‘Re-design” implies only a cosmetic change. Too many redesigns are just changing the window dressing on the same product – decidedly not changing the product itself.  If the problem that prompts a redesign is that the information isn’t being used (because it’s not well presented/organized/found/etc), then changing what color it is doesn’t genuinely help.’

So what is to be done? How can we get rid of the elephant? Simple – we eat it. And how do you eat an elephant? One slice at a time ……or in other words by adopting kaizen.

User/stakeholder maps for intranets

Having worked in intranets for over a decade now I know how easy it is to forget who all the work  is really for and who else might be affected by the decisions we make.

I have found it useful, especially when changing things , to try and keep the users and stakeholders of my intranet in the forefront of my mind.  I manage this by using an approach I call the ‘User/Stakeholder Map’.  You can use the map to consider who the key users and stakeholders of your intranet are and, as it’s in a simple graphic format, you can print it off and tack it to a wall so that it is visible to your intranet team at all times.

Minimise your project failures by using FMEAs

I am now working as an information architect getting involved in all sorts of web and intranet projects and the question I recently asked myself was ‘If I only had one tool or approach that I could use in such projects what might that be?’ Without any hesitation the answer would be FMEA.

Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is an approach that is aimed at reducing project risk and it is simple, intuitive, collaborative and team based. It has been used extensively in the defence and automotive industries for many decades and I have seen the approach prove itself time after time. So what is it and how can it be applied to web and intranet projects?

It is about getting the right people together at the right time and asking the right question. The right people are those who are going to be involved directly in the project and who have relevant experience and knowledge. The right time is before the project has kicked off and when sufficient hard information is available to enable the team to make informed judgments during the compliation of the FMEA . The right question – ‘What could possibly go wrong?’.

Content Value Analysis for Intranets Part 2 – A methodology

I’ve written before on an approach called Content Value Analysis (CVA) and I’ve now produced the detail of how this might be done in practice. Chiara Fox of Adaptive Path in her presentation on Content Analysis came closest to this approach when she talked about Content Audits at Euro IA 2008.

However there is a crucial difference between our approaches – the use of statistical techniques and documented heuristics. No don’t reach for that mouse yet! What I’m suggesting is not difficult, will give great substance to your final analysis and will probably save you a lot of work.