August 22, 2023 • 21 mins
Nick Milton is director and co-founder of Knoco Ltd ( www.knoco.com ) with over 30 years’ experience in Knowledge Management. Working with Knoco Ltd, Nick has helped develop and deliver KM strategies, implementation plans and services in a wide range of different organizations around the globe. He has a particular interest in Lessons Learned programs, Communities of Practice, Knowledge Retention, KM Strategy, KM assessment and KM implementation. He has worked with KM teams in multiple sectors and in more than 40 countries. Prior to founding Knoco, Nick spent two years at the center of the team that made BP the leading KM company in the world at the time; acting as the team Knowledge Manager, developing and implementing BP's knowledge of "how to manage knowledge", and coordinating the BP KM Community of Practice. Nick is a widely recognized coach and trainer, and has given keynote speeches at most of the leading international Knowledge Management conferences, such as KM World, KM Europe, KMUK, KM Russia, KM Egypt, IAPG Argentina, IKM Jakarta, KM Singapore and KM Brazil. In 2007 he was awarded “Lecturer of the year” from Chalmers University. He was a member of the international working group which developed ISO 30401, the management systems standard for KM, and a co-author of BSI 34401, the guide to use of the ISO standard.Nick blogs most weeks (www.nickmilton.com) and can be found on Twitter (@nickknoco). He is based in the UK, near the city of Bath.
Nick is the author/co-author of the following books:
The Knowledge Manager’s handbook
Designing a Successful KM Strategy
The Lessons Learned handbook
Knowledge Management for Teams and Projects
Knowledge Management for Sales and Marketing
Performance through Learning – knowledge management in practice
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:27):
This is Edwin k Morris,
and you are about to embark on thenext Pioneer Knowledge Services because
you need to know a digital resourcefor you to listen to folks share
their experience and knowledge aroundthe field of knowledge management and
non-profit work.
(00:57):
If your company or organization wouldlike to help us continue this mission and
sponsor one of our shows, email,
B Y N T k@pioneerkss.org.
We.
Follow up with a secondsegment with Nick Milton,
and we're gonna dig a little deeperinto the I S O for knowledge management,
(01:21):
find out more about the why, where,
and how that it allbecame and what it is to
organizations today. Nick,let's talk about this.
When did this all start for you?
Because you said you were part ofthe planning of this whole thing.
Yeah, yeah.
I was part of the team thatdeveloped the ISO standard.
(01:43):
I think it goes back to,let me see now. Is it 2014?
I think it was.
There was this request fromthe Israelis to put a knowledge
management standard together. Hmm. Thereused to be a, although it still is,
there's a clause in ISO 9,001,
which requires anybody working a qualitysystem to manage the knowledge within
(02:06):
that quality system. Hmm.That was not a KM standard,
that was a quality standard withrecognizing knowledge as an asset.
But the Israelis in 2014 came upwith a request that we should have
a similar standard forknowledge management. And that was for three reasons.
Firstly, an increasing understandingof the importance of km.
(02:27):
Secondly, ambiguity inunderstanding what KM actually is,
and thirdly,
multiple and common failures of KMprojects and initiatives because
people were taking incompleteapproaches. You know,
things like the technology led approach,
which we've known foryears is not gonna work.
Or they build a library ofeverything, you know, approach,
(02:47):
which we know is not gonnawork., we thought that,
or the Israelis thought thatif we had a helpful standard,
it would at least point people in theright direction and point them away from
some of the most common pitfalls.So once that proposal was received,
it had to go around to allof the ISO members. And iso,
(03:09):
practically every country in theworld is, is a member of iso.
I think it's about 180 countries.And we got approval to go ahead.
There were some countries were suspicious,
Germany was not very keen on the idea,
but they decided that if therewas going to be a standard,
they'd like to be involved in draftingit. Mm-hmm., we then,
this must now be about 2015,
(03:32):
it was agreed that we'dstart work on this.
Standard standards are writtenby working groups of experts
drawn from the member countries.And these experts are not paid.
They spend their time,
they spend their travelexpenses themselves because they think this is a worthy
cause. Okay.
And each of the experts reports back to a
(03:55):
mirror committee in their ownorganization in America, A N S I,
in the uk it's B S I and so on. Every,
every country's got one ofthese mirror committees.
Various levels of draft are producedand they're cycled around these mirror
committees for edit review and input.
Everything is done face to facebecause the main philosophy behind an
(04:20):
ISO standard is that we shouldhave unanimous agreement. Wow.
That sounds difficult..
It's, it's difficult. And therewas an awful lot of discussion.
Yeah, I bet. Who is the ringmasterthat makes sure everybody,
I, I just can't, even knowing theacademic frameworks that I've worked in,
(04:40):
I'm like, I'm like, oh my goodgosh, are you kidding me? A hundred.
Percent. No, it's,
it's helped by the fact thatthere is a very well-defined
template for a, a managementsystem standard. Ah.
So there's a limit to what you canchange and what you can add. Ah,
we could modify it forknowledge management,
but ISO believe they knowhow things work. Yeah.
(05:03):
And they believe that they workthrough planning, checking,
doing acting simple P D C A model.
So it took about three yearsto write this standard. Um,
anybody could join anyof the mirror committees.
Anybody on the mirror committeecould join the working group.
It's entirely voluntary. And I wason the B SS I mirror committee,
(05:23):
and I was on the ISO draftingpanel. I came to a point,
I think it was 2017,
where we put a committeedraft out for public review,
and it was published on the internet,
and we widely advertised it, andwe got lots and lots of comments.
Some comments were very helpful, somecomments required us to change things,
(05:47):
which we couldn't change. Uh, somecontradicted each other. Mm-hmm.
. So we had to do a bitof a juggling act. And some people,
rather than using the comments reply form,
sent a whole bunchof annotated text back,
which was very difficult to deal with. Uh,
now really we're working through itparagraph by paragraph and we want to say,
what are all the comments onthis paragraph? But anyway, 2018,
(06:11):
we had three days in Paris Okay.
To take all of those comments andcome out with a final draft. And that,
that was what we came out with.
That was what was published as ISO 3 04 0 1 colon 2080. Mm-hmm..
Mm-hmm., I've alreadytalked about the 50 something,
54 shalls that are within the document.
The ISO standard is a type A standard.
(06:33):
So it's one that you can measure againstand it's got those requirements in it.
For example,
the organization shall determine externaland internal issues that are relevant
to its purpose and that affect its abilityto achieve the intended outcomes of
its knowledge management system. Mm-hmm., to meet that, you know,
you'd have to have a list of,
of issues that have beenanalyzed and and so on.
(06:55):
There are 10 sectionsin the standard itself,
plus some appendices andplus an introduction.
We wrote quite a longintroduction because, uh,
knowledge management needs a little bitof a lead in for anybody who's new to
it. So we talked about someof the principles mm-hmm.
behind knowledge wetalked about mm-hmm. ,
(07:17):
some of the sister disciplines thatgo alongside knowledge management,
like information management,like records management,
which are adjacent but not identical.
And then within the bookendsof the introduction and,
and the appendices is the bodyof the standard itself. Okay.
The first three sections are informative.They have no shalls in there,
(07:41):
but then you get to sections4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
and they tell you what you shalldo. Firstly, you set the context,
you determine what outcomes you want fromkm you determine who the stakeholders
are and what their interests are.You determine what is the scope,
both the organizational scope, butthe knowledge scope as well. Mm-hmm.
(08:01):
. Mm-hmm. ,
this is all really good stuffthat every KM project should do.
All too often we find projectsthat haven't done this homework that have jumped
in with, you know, we'vegot this technology,
how should we roll it out withoutsaying, yeah. What outcome do we want?
And who are the stakeholders? Whatdo they want? Have we asked them?
There's then a little bit aboutthe dimensions of the framework.
(08:26):
The fact that we have to look atcodified knowledge on the one hand and un
codified on the other.Uh, just as a side issue,
we didn't use the termsexplicit. And tat gonna.
Say is, where did thoseterms fall out and.
Why? I tell you why, becausepeople understand them in,
in rather different ways. Lots of people,
about half of the people that we'vesurveyed think that explicit knowledge
(08:47):
is the same as documented knowledge.
The other half think that explicitknowledge need not be documented,
but it's the things that,you know, you know, you know,
basically you can explain, explicitmeans can be explained. Mm-hmm.
If we use the word explicit,
half of the people are going to heardocuments and half of the people are going
(09:07):
to hear, well, it could be documents,could be in the heads. Could be. Yeah.
So we use the terms documented andundocumented or codified and un codified
really, because you can store, it doesn'thave to be a document. It could be a.
It's a smaller box. It's a smallerdefinitional box. You, you can't,
you can't get lost too muchfrom codified to not codified.
Exactly. Plus it is the phase changein how you manage the knowledge,
(09:31):
because it's the point at which theknowledge becomes decoupled from the head.
Mm. Anything that is codifiedhas now left its knower. Yeah.
And can be managed by electronicmeans. Anything that's un codified,
you've got to find the personand talk to the person.
Two different styles of management.
Until we can get to the, uh, synapse, uh,
access point to where I couldjust plug in the brain and.
(09:53):
Suck it. Yeah. Yeah. One day.
.
Not yet. So that's, that's that.
We've got a little bitin there about culture,
and this is where one ofthe big arguments came.
Some people wanted a wholeexplanation about how you
should be setting in place a KMculture. Hmm. Other people said,
(10:15):
no, it's too fuzzy a term.
So what we've ended up doingis having one clause that says,
you shall demonstrate how you areaddressing the cultural aspects.
And then an appendix about ways inwhich you could do that. Yeah. Yeah.
So you're not telling people what to do,
you're just saying you must have thoughtabout it and you must have documented
it. That's.
Probably a good way to go, because yeah.
(10:35):
The trying to get a prescription fora culture change or adaption very
tough. Is pretty tough. Yeah. I justask 'cause I've got it up here too.
'cause I'm very impressedwith the document because I, I, for two reasons, as,
as a kmr myself, I thought, oh my gosh,
this is finally gonna put someauthority behind what km what I feel km
can bring to an organizationand what it should do.
(10:58):
Because the i s o for me was gonna be afoundational thing that pivots a lot of
people away from, oh, it's just afad. It's just a blah, blah, blah,
and we're not gonna do it because itbecame more substantial with the I S O.
Yeah. Is it being adapted to,
and I think you said in your surveyit's not really had a huge effect,
but has it changedanything in the market? I.
(11:20):
Don't know, and I can't answer thatyet. Okay. If I do another survey,
I think I will be ableto answer that. But I,
I think what it does isit changes the focus.
KM knowledge management.
Most of us focus on the K ISO3 0 4 0 1 focuses on the m
So it's approaching knowledge managementfrom a different direction. Okay.
(11:42):
And it's that a directionthat we seldom address.
If you go and do a Google searchfor knowledge management process,
knowledge management, technology,knowledge management roles,
knowledge management, governance,you'll get loads of hits for process,
loads of hits for technology,
(12:02):
and few on roles and almostnothing on governance. Hmm.
ISO 3 0 4 0 1 is 70%governance, 15% roles,
a tiny bit on process and almost nothingon technology because ISO is not going
to mandate what technology you use. Itmandates the management framework Yeah.
That you set around it. Andthat's why I think, Edwin,
(12:24):
I think this is revolutionary for manypeople because it's bringing half of the
phrase, bringing the management ofthe phrase back into prominence.
Do you think it ever was in prominence?
Wasn't the management piece always kindof the weak link in this? Yeah. Yeah.
It was. Yes. You know, if peoplewrite knowledge management well,
they're generally using a 48 font forthe knowledge and a 10 font for the
(12:46):
management. We're trying to justexpand that font a little bit. .
Yeah.
I mean, not literally. That'shilarious. Not literally, but hilarious.
You know, I like it.
And then there seems to be a good focusin this ISO about the leadership. Yeah.
You, you say it's heavy to governance,it's heavy to setting up the how. Yep.
Uh, and that's been a,a weak link, I think.
(13:09):
And even in my formal educationof knowledge management at the master's degree
level, the how was still not clear.Mm-hmm., it's like, okay,
I get it. And I I see thevision. I see the light. Yeah.
But I still don't understand the how,how, how, how, how do I do all this?
So this I s o is the how and itshould be on everybody's shelf.
(13:31):
It's the how and it,
it's the how this how startswith the leader comes down,
through the policy comes down,
then through delegated authority comesdown through plans and objectives,
resources, the resourceshave to be trained.
And then I think chapter eight is aboutthe operational processes that are
(13:51):
applied.
And then nine and 10 are about how youreview and improve the system going
forward. So not onlydo you define the how,
but you define how you're going to learnfrom operations and how you're going to
improve the how. If peoplefollow that philosophy, it's,
it's a much firmer way to go.
(14:11):
It has always been, and I hear again, I,
when I was so excited to hearthat this was coming out,
because there seems to be a bitof quicksand that most KM is
operated on, and it's eitherpersonality base, you know,
somebody's a firecracker and you're doingstuff and blah. Mm-hmm..
But it's always been a, in my view,
it's been a bit of a challengeto sustain resources for equal
(14:35):
KM parts. And that'salways been a challenge.
And this gives at least to theoperator, to the CAM operator,
the, the owner of it in anorganization to start building a,
a more sound foundationfor that going forward.
And to be part of that resource poll, uh,
at the C-suite to say, you know, Hey,we, we need, we need this stuff because,
(14:59):
so it brings a lot of weight and gravity.
It's an unfamiliar document to,um, many knowledge managers.
So last year in the UK we came up with a
second standard, which is aguide to the ISO standard.
It's a British standard 3 4, 4 0 1.But I think it's useful to anybody,
(15:19):
you know,
for each of these 54 shalls to giveexamples of how you might actually meet
them, things you can think about,things you could do. It's got no shalls,
it's not a requirement standard,it's an advisory standard. Hmm. I'm,
I'm pleased with that one. Again, Iwas on the drafting team for that one,
and I think it fills a bit of a gap,
a bit of a conceptual gapfrom the knowledge management world and the standards
(15:43):
world.
So where is the biggest payoff?
The biggest payoff is starting your KMprogram in the right way and not hitting
one of these blind alleys.
The biggest payoff is knowledge managementimplementations that work and work in
a sustainable way thatavoid the trap that you've,
you've mentioned just now the trap ofpersonality of the charismatic leader.
(16:04):
When the charismatic leader goes,everything collapses..
Exactly. Not a very goodsustainment model. No.
Or the chief executive whose,whose baby it was, right.
Who then leaves and nobody wantsthe baby. They're like, put.
'Em out. What's the bestadvice from Nick Milton?
For anyone that wants toknow more about knowledge
(16:26):
management.
? Well,
this is where I plug the book thatI wrote with Patrick Lamb
because as.
Just by my book, and you'll have allthe answers. Is that what you're.
Saying? In a way, because likeI said in the previous podcast,
(16:46):
this is the book that I wish I'd had 20,
30 years ago because it would'veanswered all of my questions.
We deliberately wrote itin that format and it's,
it's like a journey throughknowledge management.
It's a bit light on the strategy piecebecause I wrote a previous book with
Stephanie Barnes called Designingan Effective KM Strategy. So me,
(17:07):
maybe you wanna buy thatone as well..
If they come armed withthe I S O in your texts,
there should be absolutelyno reason they fail.
There should be no reason. Absolutely.
Okay.
Well that's all I needed to hear becausethat's the first time I've ever heard
any guarantee for, uh, kms. Sothat's a helpful thing. Thank you.
(17:30):
You are very welcome. You're verywelcome. The next book is going to, uh,
be a little bit more specific aboutthe different context. In that one,
you'll be able to see, okay,I'm a kmr in in an N G O,
what's it gonna look like for me?
But also what does it look like in othercontexts and what can I draw from those
(17:50):
other contexts?
Well that's exciting. When'sthat coming out? Next.
Year? February maybe. All.
Right.
Well we will definitely have you backon the show to talk about all of that.
As it kicks off, what's10 years gonna bring?
What's 10 more years gonna bringto the world of the formal sense
of knowledge management?
Is that a question? I'm.
Asking you. You're the co you're theguru, you know stuff. Yeah, I, come.
(18:15):
On, I don't know the future. I think it,I can think it can go a couple of ways.
Okay.
I think it can continue tobe consolidated as a robust
management discipline or Ithink it can follow the various
technological hype curves.
And there's always that push for novelty
(18:36):
in the tech world because there'salways some new technology that
promises to completely overturnkm. Uh, first it was SharePoint,
then it was enterprise search, then itwas, you know, knowledge engineering.
Now it's chat G P T and theseare all focusing on the 20% of
(18:56):
the knowledge that's codified anddocumented. And the rest, the 80%, is.
The 80 20 still a valid number?I don't know. Even now I,
I know that's been a rule of thumb, butI don't know where it came from. So I'm.
Just asking, I dunno whereit came from. Either.
, I've seen it usedeverywhere. So I'm just curious.
Uh, I dunno, what would.
(19:18):
You say it is now?
What would you guess from your experiencein all these surveys and everything
you've written and read,what would your guess be?
I think it depends very much on what thesort of knowledge you're talking about.
The sort of knowledge you're talkingabout. Oh, interesting. If it's, you know,
knowledge of the, um,knowledge of the Crimean war,
then all of that's documented.If it's knowledge about how to,
(19:42):
how to combat covid,
it wasn't more than two years ago wehad zero documented knowledge. Even now,
I'm not sure that there,
I think there are some reports goingaround in the uk there's reports still
being created about how thegovernment handled Covid,
but they will be so politically situationthat whether they'll be useful in the
(20:04):
next pandemic or not, I don'tknow. Mm-hmm.,
it depends on the knowledge. Is itold static knowledge? Is it new?
Continually evolving knowledge?If it's continually evolving,
then maybe 95% of it is in the heads.
If it's old static knowledge,all of it's in the books.
You look at your context andyou decide what is the balance.
(20:25):
That will vary by industry.Um, for example, you know,
if you're writing customer manuals foruh, Chevrolet Jeeps, that's, you know,
that's pretty old knowledge andyou can write that all down.
But if you are writingknowledge about how to build ai,
I bet none of that's written. Alright.
How does that feel?
Excellent. Okay. Right. Well, Iguess we're pretty well done, aren't.
(20:49):
We? Well, thanks for being here today,Nick. It's been a very enjoyable journey.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
If your company or organization wouldlike to help us continue this mission and
sponsor one of our shows, email,
B Y N T k@pioneerks.org.
(21:22):
You have just finished our latest becauseyou need to know a public service of
Pioneer Knowledge Services.
Please join us on LinkedInand find us@pioneerkss.org.
This is Edwin k Morris,
and you are about to embark on thenext Pioneer Knowledge Services because
you need to know a digital resourcefor you to listen to folks share
their experience and knowledge aroundthe field of knowledge management and
non-profit work.
(00:57):
If your company or organization wouldlike to help us continue this mission and
sponsor one of our shows, email,
B Y N T k@pioneerkss.org.
We.
Follow up with a secondsegment with Nick Milton,
and we're gonna dig a little deeperinto the I S O for knowledge management,
(01:21):
find out more about the why, where,
and how that it allbecame and what it is to
organizations today. Nick,let's talk about this.
When did this all start for you?
Because you said you were part ofthe planning of this whole thing.
Yeah, yeah.
I was part of the team thatdeveloped the ISO standard.
(01:43):
I think it goes back to,let me see now. Is it 2014?
I think it was.
There was this request fromthe Israelis to put a knowledge
management standard together. Hmm. Thereused to be a, although it still is,
there's a clause in ISO 9,001,
which requires anybody working a qualitysystem to manage the knowledge within
(02:06):
that quality system. Hmm.That was not a KM standard,
that was a quality standard withrecognizing knowledge as an asset.
But the Israelis in 2014 came upwith a request that we should have
a similar standard forknowledge management. And that was for three reasons.
Firstly, an increasing understandingof the importance of km.
(02:27):
Secondly, ambiguity inunderstanding what KM actually is,
and thirdly,
multiple and common failures of KMprojects and initiatives because
people were taking incompleteapproaches. You know,
things like the technology led approach,
which we've known foryears is not gonna work.
Or they build a library ofeverything, you know, approach,
(02:47):
which we know is not gonnawork.
or the Israelis thought thatif we had a helpful standard,
it would at least point people in theright direction and point them away from
some of the most common pitfalls.So once that proposal was received,
it had to go around to allof the ISO members. And iso,
(03:09):
practically every country in theworld is, is a member of iso.
I think it's about 180 countries.And we got approval to go ahead.
There were some countries were suspicious,
Germany was not very keen on the idea,
but they decided that if therewas going to be a standard,
they'd like to be involved in draftingit. Mm-hmm.
this must now be about 2015,
(03:32):
it was agreed that we'dstart work on this.
Standard standards are writtenby working groups of experts
drawn from the member countries.And these experts are not paid.
They spend their time,
they spend their travelexpenses themselves because they think this is a worthy
cause. Okay.
And each of the experts reports back to a
(03:55):
mirror committee in their ownorganization in America, A N S I,
in the uk it's B S I and so on. Every,
every country's got one ofthese mirror committees.
Various levels of draft are producedand they're cycled around these mirror
committees for edit review and input.
Everything is done face to facebecause the main philosophy behind an
(04:20):
ISO standard is that we shouldhave unanimous agreement. Wow.
That sounds difficult.
It's, it's difficult. And therewas an awful lot of discussion.
Yeah, I bet. Who is the ringmasterthat makes sure everybody,
I, I just can't, even knowing theacademic frameworks that I've worked in,
(04:40):
I'm like, I'm like, oh my goodgosh, are you kidding me? A hundred.
Percent. No, it's,
it's helped by the fact thatthere is a very well-defined
template for a, a managementsystem standard. Ah.
So there's a limit to what you canchange and what you can add. Ah,
we could modify it forknowledge management,
but ISO believe they knowhow things work. Yeah.
(05:03):
And they believe that they workthrough planning, checking,
doing acting simple P D C A model.
So it took about three yearsto write this standard. Um,
anybody could join anyof the mirror committees.
Anybody on the mirror committeecould join the working group.
It's entirely voluntary. And I wason the B SS I mirror committee,
(05:23):
and I was on the ISO draftingpanel. I came to a point,
I think it was 2017,
where we put a committeedraft out for public review,
and it was published on the internet,
and we widely advertised it, andwe got lots and lots of comments.
Some comments were very helpful, somecomments required us to change things,
(05:47):
which we couldn't change. Uh, somecontradicted each other. Mm-hmm.
rather than using the comments reply form,
which was very difficult to deal with. Uh,
now really we're working through itparagraph by paragraph and we want to say,
what are all the comments onthis paragraph? But anyway, 2018,
(06:11):
we had three days in Paris Okay.
To take all of those comments andcome out with a final draft. And that,
that was what we came out with.
That was what was published as ISO 3 04 0 1 colon 2080. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
54 shalls that are within the document.
The ISO standard is a type A standard.
(06:33):
So it's one that you can measure againstand it's got those requirements in it.
For example,
the organization shall determine externaland internal issues that are relevant
to its purpose and that affect its abilityto achieve the intended outcomes of
its knowledge management system. Mm-hmm.
you'd have to have a list of,
of issues that have beenanalyzed and and so on.
(06:55):
There are 10 sectionsin the standard itself,
plus some appendices andplus an introduction.
We wrote quite a longintroduction because, uh,
knowledge management needs a little bitof a lead in for anybody who's new to
it. So we talked about someof the principles mm-hmm.
(07:17):
some of the sister disciplines thatgo alongside knowledge management,
like information management,like records management,
which are adjacent but not identical.
And then within the bookendsof the introduction and,
and the appendices is the bodyof the standard itself. Okay.
The first three sections are informative.They have no shalls in there,
(07:41):
but then you get to sections4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
and they tell you what you shalldo. Firstly, you set the context,
you determine what outcomes you want fromkm you determine who the stakeholders
are and what their interests are.You determine what is the scope,
both the organizational scope, butthe knowledge scope as well. Mm-hmm.
(08:01):
this is all really good stuffthat every KM project should do.
All too often we find projectsthat haven't done this homework that have jumped
in with, you know, we'vegot this technology,
how should we roll it out withoutsaying, yeah. What outcome do we want?
And who are the stakeholders? Whatdo they want? Have we asked them?
There's then a little bit aboutthe dimensions of the framework.
(08:26):
The fact that we have to look atcodified knowledge on the one hand and un
codified on the other.Uh, just as a side issue,
we didn't use the termsexplicit. And tat gonna.
Say is, where did thoseterms fall out and.
Why? I tell you why, becausepeople understand them in,
in rather different ways. Lots of people,
about half of the people that we'vesurveyed think that explicit knowledge
(08:47):
is the same as documented knowledge.
The other half think that explicitknowledge need not be documented,
but it's the things that,you know, you know, you know,
basically you can explain, explicitmeans can be explained. Mm-hmm.
If we use the word explicit,
half of the people are going to heardocuments and half of the people are going
(09:07):
to hear, well, it could be documents,could be in the heads. Could be. Yeah.
So we use the terms documented andundocumented or codified and un codified
really, because you can store, it doesn'thave to be a document. It could be a.
It's a smaller box. It's a smallerdefinitional box. You, you can't,
you can't get lost too muchfrom codified to not codified.
Exactly. Plus it is the phase changein how you manage the knowledge,
(09:31):
because it's the point at which theknowledge becomes decoupled from the head.
Mm. Anything that is codifiedhas now left its knower. Yeah.
And can be managed by electronicmeans. Anything that's un codified,
you've got to find the personand talk to the person.
Two different styles of management.
Until we can get to the, uh, synapse, uh,
access point to where I couldjust plug in the brain and.
(09:53):
Suck it. Yeah. Yeah. One day.
Not yet. So that's, that's that.
We've got a little bitin there about culture,
and this is where one ofthe big arguments came.
Some people wanted a wholeexplanation about how you
should be setting in place a KMculture. Hmm. Other people said,
(10:15):
no, it's too fuzzy a term.
So what we've ended up doingis having one clause that says,
you shall demonstrate how you areaddressing the cultural aspects.
And then an appendix about ways inwhich you could do that. Yeah. Yeah.
So you're not telling people what to do,
you're just saying you must have thoughtabout it and you must have documented
it. That's.
Probably a good way to go, because yeah.
(10:35):
The trying to get a prescription fora culture change or adaption very
tough. Is pretty tough. Yeah. I justask 'cause I've got it up here too.
'cause I'm very impressedwith the document because I, I, for two reasons, as,
as a kmr myself, I thought, oh my gosh,
this is finally gonna put someauthority behind what km what I feel km
can bring to an organizationand what it should do.
(10:58):
Because the i s o for me was gonna be afoundational thing that pivots a lot of
people away from, oh, it's just afad. It's just a blah, blah, blah,
and we're not gonna do it because itbecame more substantial with the I S O.
Yeah. Is it being adapted to,
and I think you said in your surveyit's not really had a huge effect,
but has it changedanything in the market? I.
(11:20):
Don't know, and I can't answer thatyet. Okay. If I do another survey,
I think I will be ableto answer that. But I,
I think what it does isit changes the focus.
KM knowledge management.
Most of us focus on the K ISO3 0 4 0 1 focuses on the m
So it's approaching knowledge managementfrom a different direction. Okay.
(11:42):
And it's that a directionthat we seldom address.
If you go and do a Google searchfor knowledge management process,
knowledge management, technology,knowledge management roles,
knowledge management, governance,you'll get loads of hits for process,
loads of hits for technology,
(12:02):
and few on roles and almostnothing on governance. Hmm.
ISO 3 0 4 0 1 is 70%governance, 15% roles,
a tiny bit on process and almost nothingon technology because ISO is not going
to mandate what technology you use. Itmandates the management framework Yeah.
That you set around it. Andthat's why I think, Edwin,
(12:24):
I think this is revolutionary for manypeople because it's bringing half of the
phrase, bringing the management ofthe phrase back into prominence.
Do you think it ever was in prominence?
Wasn't the management piece always kindof the weak link in this? Yeah. Yeah.
It was. Yes. You know, if peoplewrite knowledge management well,
they're generally using a 48 font forthe knowledge and a 10 font for the
(12:46):
management
Yeah.
I mean, not literally. That'shilarious. Not literally, but hilarious.
You know, I like it.
And then there seems to be a good focusin this ISO about the leadership. Yeah.
You, you say it's heavy to governance,it's heavy to setting up the how. Yep.
Uh, and that's been a,a weak link, I think.
(13:09):
And even in my formal educationof knowledge management at the master's degree
level, the how was still not clear.Mm-hmm.
I get it. And I I see thevision. I see the light. Yeah.
But I still don't understand the how,how, how, how, how do I do all this?
So this I s o is the how and itshould be on everybody's shelf.
(13:31):
It's the how and it,
it's the how this how startswith the leader comes down,
through the policy comes down,
then through delegated authority comesdown through plans and objectives,
resources, the resourceshave to be trained.
And then I think chapter eight is aboutthe operational processes that are
(13:51):
applied.
And then nine and 10 are about how youreview and improve the system going
forward. So not onlydo you define the how,
but you define how you're going to learnfrom operations and how you're going to
improve the how. If peoplefollow that philosophy, it's,
it's a much firmer way to go.
(14:11):
It has always been, and I hear again, I,
when I was so excited to hearthat this was coming out,
because there seems to be a bitof quicksand that most KM is
operated on, and it's eitherpersonality base, you know,
somebody's a firecracker and you're doingstuff and blah. Mm-hmm.
But it's always been a, in my view,
it's been a bit of a challengeto sustain resources for equal
(14:35):
KM parts. And that'salways been a challenge.
And this gives at least to theoperator, to the CAM operator,
the, the owner of it in anorganization to start building a,
a more sound foundationfor that going forward.
And to be part of that resource poll, uh,
at the C-suite to say, you know, Hey,we, we need, we need this stuff because,
(14:59):
so it brings a lot of weight and gravity.
It's an unfamiliar document to,um, many knowledge managers.
So last year in the UK we came up with a
second standard, which is aguide to the ISO standard.
It's a British standard 3 4, 4 0 1.But I think it's useful to anybody,
(15:19):
you know,
for each of these 54 shalls to giveexamples of how you might actually meet
them, things you can think about,things you could do. It's got no shalls,
it's not a requirement standard,it's an advisory standard. Hmm. I'm,
I'm pleased with that one. Again, Iwas on the drafting team for that one,
and I think it fills a bit of a gap,
a bit of a conceptual gapfrom the knowledge management world and the standards
(15:43):
world.
So where is the biggest payoff?
The biggest payoff is starting your KMprogram in the right way and not hitting
one of these blind alleys.
The biggest payoff is knowledge managementimplementations that work and work in
a sustainable way thatavoid the trap that you've,
you've mentioned just now the trap ofpersonality of the charismatic leader.
(16:04):
When the charismatic leader goes,everything collapses.
Exactly. Not a very goodsustainment model. No.
Or the chief executive whose,whose baby it was, right.
Who then leaves and nobody wantsthe baby. They're like, put.
'Em out. What's the bestadvice from Nick Milton?
For anyone that wants toknow more about knowledge
(16:26):
management.
this is where I plug the book thatI wrote with Patrick Lamb
because as.
Just by my book, and you'll have allthe answers. Is that what you're.
Saying? In a way, because likeI said in the previous podcast,
(16:46):
this is the book that I wish I'd had 20,
30 years ago because it would'veanswered all of my questions.
We deliberately wrote itin that format and it's,
it's like a journey throughknowledge management.
It's a bit light on the strategy piecebecause I wrote a previous book with
Stephanie Barnes called Designingan Effective KM Strategy. So me,
(17:07):
maybe you wanna buy thatone as well.
If they come armed withthe I S O in your texts,
there should be absolutelyno reason they fail.
There should be no reason. Absolutely.
Okay.
Well that's all I needed to hear becausethat's the first time I've ever heard
any guarantee for, uh, kms. Sothat's a helpful thing. Thank you.
(17:30):
You are very welcome. You're verywelcome. The next book is going to, uh,
be a little bit more specific aboutthe different context. In that one,
you'll be able to see, okay,I'm a kmr in in an N G O,
what's it gonna look like for me?
But also what does it look like in othercontexts and what can I draw from those
(17:50):
other contexts?
Well that's exciting. When'sthat coming out? Next.
Year? February maybe. All.
Right.
Well we will definitely have you backon the show to talk about all of that.
As it kicks off, what's10 years gonna bring?
What's 10 more years gonna bringto the world of the formal sense
of knowledge management?
Is that a question
Asking you. You're the co you're theguru, you know stuff. Yeah, I, come.
(18:15):
On, I don't know the future. I think it,I can think it can go a couple of ways.
Okay.
I think it can continue tobe consolidated as a robust
management discipline or Ithink it can follow the various
technological hype curves.
And there's always that push for novelty
(18:36):
in the tech world because there'salways some new technology that
promises to completely overturnkm. Uh, first it was SharePoint,
then it was enterprise search, then itwas, you know, knowledge engineering.
Now it's chat G P T and theseare all focusing on the 20% of
(18:56):
the knowledge that's codified anddocumented. And the rest, the 80%, is.
The 80 20 still a valid number?I don't know. Even now I,
I know that's been a rule of thumb, butI don't know where it came from. So I'm.
Just asking, I dunno whereit came from. Either.
Uh, I dunno, what would.
(19:18):
You say it is now?
What would you guess from your experiencein all these surveys and everything
you've written and read,what would your guess be?
I think it depends very much on what thesort of knowledge you're talking about.
The sort of knowledge you're talkingabout. Oh, interesting. If it's, you know,
knowledge of the, um,knowledge of the Crimean war,
then all of that's documented.If it's knowledge about how to,
(19:42):
how to combat covid,
it wasn't more than two years ago wehad zero documented knowledge. Even now,
I'm not sure that there,
I think there are some reports goingaround in the uk there's reports still
being created about how thegovernment handled Covid,
but they will be so politically situationthat whether they'll be useful in the
(20:04):
next pandemic or not, I don'tknow. Mm-hmm.
it depends on the knowledge. Is itold static knowledge? Is it new?
Continually evolving knowledge?If it's continually evolving,
then maybe 95% of it is in the heads.
If it's old static knowledge,all of it's in the books.
You look at your context andyou decide what is the balance.
(20:25):
That will vary by industry.Um, for example, you know,
if you're writing customer manuals foruh, Chevrolet Jeeps, that's, you know,
that's pretty old knowledge andyou can write that all down.
But if you are writingknowledge about how to build ai,
I bet none of that's written. Alright.
How does that feel?
Excellent. Okay. Right. Well, Iguess we're pretty well done, aren't.
(20:49):
We? Well, thanks for being here today,Nick. It's been a very enjoyable journey.
Thank you very much for inviting me.
If your company or organization wouldlike to help us continue this mission and
sponsor one of our shows, email,
B Y N T k@pioneerks.org.
(21:22):
You have just finished our latest becauseyou need to know a public service of
Pioneer Knowledge Services.
Please join us on LinkedInand find us@pioneerkss.org.
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