A review of stories, project knowledge and sharing project knowledge using stories. Includes an introduction to to my storytelling model for KM in projects.
2. STORIES - WHAT ARE
THEY GOOD FOR*?
Sharing Knowledge
Sharing Values
Developing Trust & Commitment
Generating Emotional Connection
Learning
* D. Sole and D. G. Wilson, "Storytelling in Organizations: The power and traps of using stories to share knowledge in organizations," Harvard Graduate School of
Education, 2002.
3. WHAT IS A GOOD
STORY?
A good story contains:
A Setting
A Character or Characters
A Plot
A Backstory
Some level of Detail
4. STORYTELLING
Stories must have context and focus.
Stories must be memorable to be effective.
Stories make knowledge more memorable via
vivid imagery
elaboration
episodic memory
6. MODERN FAIRY TALES
One Minute Manager by Blanchard and Johnson
(1994).
Book starts with the following sentences:
Once there was a bright young man who was looking for
an effective manager.
He wanted to work for one. He wanted to become one.
7. LEARNING VIA STORIES
Stories make knowledge more memorable via the
‘availability heuristic’
Something that is vivid and memorable will be
learned easier
Reverse availability heuristic:
Make things vague, abstract or uncomfortable if
you don’t want them remembered or used.
11. AVAILABILITY
HEURISTIC
Bears are dangerous. They attack and kill people.
Moose are cute. They are slow and stay in the woods
Vivid imagery will usually win out
14. STORYTELLING
Storytelling is suggested as a means to build a shared
knowledge-base for organizations
Storytelling can be used to
Build a shared understanding
Make sense of past actions
Provide for future vision
16. KM IN PROJECTS
Disterer (2002)
traditional PM is overly concerned with
efficiency and effectiveness of project team
members
knowledge needs of future projects isn’t within
the context of the current project requirements;
17. KM IN PROJECTS
Owen, Burstein & Mitchell (2004) - “knowledge
gained in a project needs to be transferred to an
organization’s memory for reuse in other projects”
Kasvi, Vartiainen, & Hailikari (2003) - knowledge
management practices were “weak and
unsystematic” in project teams
18. KM IN PROJECTS
Leseure & Brookes (2004) -
Knowledge is generated within one project and
then lost. Failure to transfer this knowledge…
leads to wasted activity and impaired project
performance”
19. KNOWLEDGE TYPES IN
PROJECTS
Reich (2007) - Four types of knowledge in projects:
Process Knowledge
Domain Knowledge
Institutional Knowledge
Cultural Knowledge
20. PROJECT KNOWLEDGE
Behavioral Technical
Knowledge Knowledge
Cultural Domain
Knowledge Knowledge
Institutional Process
Knowledge Knowledge
22. STORIES & KM
So...we know that we want to create stories with
vivid imagery, a plot, characters and a reason for
people to read.
We also know what types of knowledge we want to
share / capture in projects.
Now what?
23. MAIN QUESTIONS
How can we share knowledge across teams while
minimizing impact on team member’s time?
Can we use stories to share knowledge across project
teams (and organizations)?
What types of project knowledge best fits the
storytelling method?
24. STORYTELLING MODEL
Step 5 - Documenting
the Story
Step 1 - Capture
the Story
New Team
Member Step 2 - Craft
Questions the Story
Step 3 - Telling
Project
Weekly the Story
Learning
Journals
Journal
Project
Learning
Previous History
Weekly
Learning
Meetings
Histories
Step 4 - Internalizing
the Story
25. CAPTURE MECHANISMS
First step - how can we capture knowledge?
Lots of tools but what’s the best way?
Why not use the tools people are already used to
using?
Email, IM, Blogs, Wikis, Twitter & other Social
Media
Weekly Journals
26. CRAFT THE STORY
Step 2 - Story crafting
using snippets of information from users, how can
we build a story?
Plot. Backstory. Characters.
requires a very experiences story-crafter / story-
teller
27. TELLING THE STORY
Step 3 - Storytelling
How do we tell the story?
provide stories as electronic versions for people to
read and search for?
28. INTERNALIZING THE
STORY
Step 4 - Internalization
How can we ensure the user has taken the right
knowledge from the story and internalized it?
Require journal entry about ‘what i’ve learned
since last time’?
29. DOCUMENTING THE
STORY
Step 5 - Documentation
Entire process is electronic.
Stories, user snippets and project info is searchable
and hold metadata (tags, keywords, etc)
all information & knowledge is available to any
other project
30. NEXT STEPS
Validation -
Quick case study run with good outcomes
How to validate moving forward?
How to capture information?
How to build stories effectively?
31. FURTHER RESEARCH
Additional avenues for further research:
Research into best methods for capturing stories.
What types of questions are best for gathering
project knowledge?
How do we get people interested in sharing
stories?
How does KM fit into the formal world of PM?
Hi everyone.
My name is Eric Brown and I’m here talk about Storytelling for Knowledge Management.
I’ve been researching the topic of Storytelling as a means to convey knowledge in projects using digital tools. While my main focus has been on project teams, this could be applied in areas outside of project management.
Before we dive into the topic too far, let’s review what stories are and what they are good for.
In 2002, Sole & Wilson wrote a paper titled ‘Storytelling in Organizations’ and described the use of stories in organizations.
They determined that stories were best utilized for: read bullets
In order for stories to work, they must (change slide)
read bullets. talk about vivid imagery.
Think about fables that you heard/read as a kid. (flip page)
episodic memory - something so vivid (and scarring?) that you remember it immediately.
talk about one minute manager - best selling book.
written in fable format...starts out with the introduction to a character, the quest and sets the reader on a journey.
stories work by making knowledge memorable via the ‘availability heuristic’...which is a fancy way of saying ‘vivid imagery’
Let’s look an example of vivid imagery:
Everyone’s heard stories of bear attacks. There are movies and books about bear attacks. There are even products for hikers and campers to keep bears away but there aren’t many ‘moose-b-gone’ products.
Which one is more likely? A bear attack or a moose attack? (click slide)
We remember the stories of vicious bear attacks because they are more vivid, therefore we tend to think they are more regular activities than moose attacks.
mean looking
yogi bear was an anomaly - but....how many people die each year because they thought of yogi bear when they see this animal?
talk about cuteness, bullwinkle
imagine my surprise!
I was within 20 yards of a moose...and I knew they were more dangerous than a bear...i set the world record of the 20 yard dash up a hill by a fat man!
So...let’s move on to projects and knowledge in projects.
last slide on storytelling
1st bullet - makes act of capturing knowledge have a lower priority during a project
2nd - project managers and leaders do not focus on these efforts
read & talk about slide.
talk about types of knowledge in projects.
Process Knowledge: knowledge that project team members have regarding the project
Domain Knowledge: knowledge that a project team or member has about the industry, technology, processes, current situation, business and products
Institutional Knowledge: knowledge that a project team or member has about the organization.
Cultural Knowledge: knowledge about the organizational culture as well as cultural backgrounds of the project team members.
I’ve been working on a storytelling model that incorporates digital means of collecting and sharing narratives.
When a new team member joins the project, they are asked to answer a series of interview questions using journaling / blogging software. These questions are added to their history.
Each member keeps a weekly journal. These are reviewed at weekly meetings. the journals entries are combined into weekly learning histories.
Weekly histories are combined into the Project Learning history which tells the story of the project. Learning Histories are based on Roth & Kleiner’s work.
Each team member writes about lessons learned during the week and comments on learning history (internalization).