Fast learning in action - the Tailboard AAR

Sometimes learning after an event should be instantaneous, as in the "Tailboard AARs" used by fire crews.

The Tailboard AAR

 is a term used by the Fire Service to describe a short Knowledge-sharing session (an 

After Action Review

) that should happen immediately after activity, around the Tailboard of a fire truck, if necessary.

The great thing about this reflective event is that it should happen immediately, while the team are still "present in the moment", before they get back to base, before memories start to shift, and while the shared experience they have just been through is still at it's most vivid.

Here's what the Fire Service says

"For (Goodyear Arizona Fire Department Chief) Russ Braden, AARs provide the first level of  learning for the organization and the best opportunity for constructing a safety-aware working culture. “Quite simply put, this is nothing more than a crew taking a few minutes to review the incident or a recent event. This is the time within the safety of their crew to review what went well, what can be improved, or what didn’t work at all. This type of learning environment will begin to spread lessons to each of the work groups, shifts, and to the rest of the department as it perpetuates.”  

District employees for the Northwest Fire District in Tucson, AZ, recently began carrying AAR pocket cards to facilitate the district wide use of “tailboards.” 

At a recent meeting of district Battalion Chiefs, personnel said the AARs were making impacts on the organization in several different ways. Captain Tim Graves said one of the best features of the four-question AAR that he’s found is its adaptability to the scale of the incident. ..... 

Battalion Chief Mike Duncan said “I think the AARs are a very critical trust piece: people learn that it’s OK to bring out actions that didn’t go as planned. ...   

Division Chief Kelly McCoy said he thought the AAR format was helping to promote the mindset of planning. ...  Other personnel said what they liked about the AAR process was that it was easy to use with a group.”

After Action Reviews have been around for a long time as a Knowledge Sharing tool, and the experience of the Fire Crews reminds us of some of the AAR ground rules.

1. Hold your AAR immediately after activity. For the fire crews, it's round the truck tailboard. For a sales team, it might be the a Back of the Taxi AAR. For a legal team, it might be a Courtroom Steps AAR. For a forestry team, it's still a Tailboard AAR, but the tailboard is a logging truck.
2. Hold your AAR routinely. By tagging it to the tailboard, the taxi or the courtroom steps, you introduce a trigger for review and reflection.
3. Give people support. Give them the Pocket Cards. Allow them to adapt them to the needed scale.
4. Carry the AARs through into planning. 

You may not use trucks with tailboards, but how can your organisation embed the habit of immediate after-the-event pausing, and learning?

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5 first steps to KM success

Here are the first 5 steps in a successful KM journey

Buffalo, NY by JasonParis, on Flickr

At Knoco, we have seen enough Knowledge Management implementation programs by now  to know that there a few key steps every organisation needs to take in the beginning. These steps are as follows;

1. Assess the current state
2. Build a business-led strategy
3. Develop a draft KM framework
4. Create an implementation plan
5. Deliver some early pilots

Here is some more detail around each of these five steps (and if you need even more detail, read my book "Designing a Successful KM Strategy").

Assess the current state. Before you can plan any future KM development, you need to know where you are right now. Knowledge Management is common sense, even it if is not common practice, and most organisations are already doing some elements of KM under different names. Those elements may not yet be effective, and they may not yet be joined up, but you need to know what's working, what's present but not working, and what's missing. We see three types of assessment;

• An assessment of the current KM system (and by system we mean processes, roles, governance, technology) to see what's missing. A gap analysis, if you will, and the KM implementation program will largely seek to fill the gaps, and connect the unconnected elements. 
• A scan of your current knowledge topics, to see which ones need the most urgent attention.
• An assessment of the supporting culture. Do you have the correct culture to become a learning organisation, or is some culture change also needed?

When you are conducting an assessment, make sure you talk to stakeholders at all levels. As my friend Lisandro Gaertner pointed out to me "listen to a lot of people's stories about how they share knowledge and what are the outcomes they get. Sometimes people use cold (but apparently logical) assessment tools, interview mostly the wrong people (middle management and up) and get a fake glimpse about the KM culture. I don't have to say to you that it is the recipe to failure".

Build a business-led strategy. Time and again, experience has shown that the most successful knowledge management initiatives are those which are business-led, and which solve business problems. Your KM strategy needs to be closely aligned to the business strategy, to focus on the critical knowledge needed by the business, and to deliver practical ways of managing that knowledge better. Elements of the strategy include

• Vision 
• Scope 
• Business drivers 
• Value proposition 
• Critical knowledge areas 
• Change and stakeholder management 
• Potential business-led Pilot areas

Sometimes the strategy can be driven by one overriding business need, such as the risk of Knowledge loss, and in this case a Knowledge Retention Strategy may be needed.

This blog contains plenty of guidance on getting your KM strategy correct.

Develop a draft Knowledge Management Framework. As Knowledge Management has evolved over the last two decades, the need for an integrated Knowledge Management framework has become apparent. With a Management Framework, KM can take on the aspects of other management systems, and be made part of normal business, rather than relying on a disparate set of tools.

A Knowledge Management Framework ensures that all necessary KM elements (Accountabilities, Processes, Technologies and Governance) are in place, and interconnected. This ensures that there are no gaps in the system, and that knowledge flows freely through the organisation.

Your Assessment (Step 1) should have been planned with a Framework in mind, and will have identified the gaps which need to be filled.  we are calling this a "draft framework" at the moment, as the framework will not be finalised until after piloting.

This blog contains plenty of guidance on building an effective Knowledge Management Framework.

Build an implementation plan. Implementing Knowledge Management is not easy. You really only have one attempt, and if this fails, you may find that the concept has become irrecoverably tarnished. An excellent Implementation Plan is needed, based on lessons from successful (and less successful) implementations in other companies, and tailored to your own context.

The plan will be based on

• the results of assessment and benchmarking 
• the Knowledge Management strategy 
• the draft Knowledge Management framework
• the potential pilot areas, and
• a staged, change management approach.

This blog contains plenty of guidance on Knowledge management implementation.

Start some business-led proof of concept pilots. A key component of your knowledge management strategy involves running some pilot projects. A pilot project is a project where knowledge management can be applied within the business, to solve a specific and important business problem, to deliver measurable results (and therefore prove the value), and also to act as a proving ground for Knowledge Management within the business.

Choosing the right pilots can be a massive springboard for your eventual KM implementation. A spectacular success early in the journey can give you some real momentum.

This blog contains plenty of guidance on Knowledge management pilots.

There are plenty of ways to get Knowledge Management wrong, and a few principles you need to follow to get Knowledge Management right.

Follow the five steps listed here and, with advice and guidance from a good experienced consultancy, your road to Knowledge Management success is clear.

Contact Knoco if you need more help.

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The three Cs

I recently wrote a post about the potential for systems to be self organising and the way that we compromise this ability by attempting to exercise control over the world around us. In order for systems to become self organising the networks that make them up have to be comprised of healthy cells.

It occurred to me yesterday that in order to become healthy the cells need to be encouraged to work on the following three characteristics.

Curiosity

Wondering why things are the way they are. A willingness to relax their grip on fixed ideas and to consider alternatives. An inclination to tinker. This is what allows kids to adopt new technology so quickly. We have driven curiosity and playfulness out of the workplace in our attempts to be "businesslike" and in the process have compromised our collective ability to adapt and be effective.

Critical thinking

Constantly thinking about where information is coming from, who are its sources, and who has vested interests in its propagation. Working out the likely truth of the things we consume measured against our other experiences and with a healthily sceptical attitude. Considering the consequences of onward sharing of the information we take in.

Conversation

Adopting a more conversational tone in how we share ideas and discuss the world around us. Avoiding dogma and dogmatic attitudes. Engaging in a to and fro with equals. Recognising that we are conversing with another human being who shares our challenges and is also struggling to make sense of the world. This last principal needs to be applied just as much online as off.

These three Cs are just as important as the traditional three Rs and we should consider teaching them in school.

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