Share Now!

Since my ARP revolves around stimulating knowledge transfer, I keep thinking about ways get force my group to share their practices. Share now or you’re fired! However, I need to continue to remember that this is about changing my practice. However, I guess changing my practice includes changing the way I manage. So I can set expectations around knowledge transfer. But I want to engage them in ideas on how to do it. One thing that occurred as I was thinking about this is that no one ever really shared with me how to do my job. Plus, if I were to suddenly leave, the next person would learn in the same way I did: osmosis, trial and error (and for me it was lots of error!). That would be fine if I wasn’t working with a large dollar budget. So I need to begin thinking also about how I am going to transfer my own knowledge if I am not physically available.

Changing the Names to Protect the Guilty

Our face to face ARP meeting was great. It was good to talk with each other about the people that can help us and the challenges we face. I really feel like each of us can contribute and give ideas to each other. Just talking about my project and hearing their reaction is helpful. I hope I am providing useful feedback as well. One area I spoke openly about was some people issues that I need to work through. However, as we went about documenting our meeting, I realized that I really need to speak of some of the problems I face, especially people problems, in generalities. Negative employee performance is not something I can share openly without legal ramifications. This will be something I need to keep in mind as I work through the entire process. I may have to use general examples or use fictitious names when addressing employee issues.

That's not an ARP. THIS IS AN ARP!!!!

I expressed this in class today. Everyone seems to be struggling with the size and scope of their ARP. Some seem to think they are taking on too much. I keep wondering if I am making it too simple. Also, part of my plan includes getting my employees to kind of self direct the transfer of knowledge. But I'm wondering what happens if they reject any introduction of technology. Maybe I am trying to see too far into the future. I need my ARG members to hold my hand. Or maybe a group hug.

Successful Learning Experience

My most recent successful experience was when I pulled together a large group of individuals with different areas of responsibilities to try to improve and standardize a process that involves all of them. Wow. That sentence was a bit long. Anyway, even though I was called the "champion" of the improvement exercise, I saw my role more as a facilitator. I think it was succesful in that we all learned how the whole process flowed. That was a big goal of mine. I wanted everyone to understand what everyone else did and why. It helped us reduce flow time and eliminate some non-value added work. I think it worked because it was not my job to bark orders but to stimulate dialogue and ideas. That doesn't mean I didn't provide structure. I kind of provided a road map but gave them the flexibility to figure out how to get there.

Reading on the Red-Eye

I'm looking forward to lots of reading on the red-eye tonight. Who knows how far I will get before I zone out. Why did I choose the red-eye? Anyway, it seems to be all about data colection and analysis. I am looking at using a tool internal to my company that can be used to design surveys and collect data. So it should work nicely as long as I can figure it out. I have only taken surveys others have put together. This will be the first time I am the surveyer.

First ARG Meeting

It will be interesting digging into the ARP's of some of my cadre mates. I can see how the pooling of knowledge will be of great benefit. Our first meeting seemed to go by quickly even though it was an hour and a half. I'm looking forward to meeting with them in FL. There are times when I feel I know what direction I am headed with my ARP and others when I feel I am clueless. I am hoping that these group meetings will help me guage where I am at and where I need to head. It is always helpful to get feedback. I also hope that I am of some help to my team members too.

Change is Good

Well I felt I had made some real progress when I solidified my condensed problem statement for 638 and chose my theorist for 633. But once I spent some time digging into finding resources to support my literature review, I found that I was not done at all. I'm retooling my statement and have found a new theorist that better fits my ARP direction. I found it very eye opening that I could feel so confident in what I had accomplished then return to it a week or two later and discover that it was insufficient.