Corporate Podcasting Expressway

The latest Know-wow show is now available through i-tunes and over the next few days through Videopodcasts.TV

This month you will notice the Christmas Decor in the background!
I wish all the viewers all the Best for Christmas and the new Year.

This month we look at the concepts and strategies for effective Corporate Content Remediation Strategies, for example renewing corporate knowledge in the context of eLearning, compliance, knowledge Management, governance, branding  and standardising competencies.
Just imagine when corporations merge or the products and services change. Then, dependent knowledge assets must be reviewed too:

Popularity: 72% [?]

The latest Know-wow show is now available through i-tunes and over the next few days through Videopodcasts.TV

This month we review Quality Assurance and Control:

* How can one define Quality in a project
* What is the difference between Quality Assurance and Quality Control?
* How can we construct comprehensive quality criteria.

NB this podcast can also be downloaded onto your video ipod.

All The Best
Dr Savi S Arora

Popularity: 42% [?]

Recently I was asked about the issue of content remediation.
Surprisingly there is limited information on this subject.

Therefore, I suggested and developed the following approach…

There are a number of reasons why an organisation would wish to perform content remediation, especially in the context of learning content. Firstly, to update courses, for example, due to compliance issues or because a learning management system’s (LMS) core functionality has changed. Or, to rationalise, harmonise or refine skills. The latter, could be due to a change in course structure or awareness of synergies between different courses, i.e: gaining greater value by bringing them together. This is natural as over time it can surface that new improvements can be achieved post experience. Sometimes companies change and that may mean new core-competency frameworks have to be put in place.

A typical approach for content remediation project would be to:

* Define players
* Define project scope
* Understand internal expectations
* Review the possibility to structure the project into phases
* Create a contact list
* Assemble project dashboard items (inc: capturing success criteria)

Organisational
* Structure plans
* Create timelines showing milestone markers
* Categorise issues
* Run a risk analysis workshop
* Establish Risk and issue log

Technical
* Perform a technical analysis (inc: risk assessment)
* Categorise as many content areas as possible, both initially and and on-route
* Develop a content matrix with the following initial headings:

- New
- Conversion (low, medium, high or re-develop)
- Reusable
- Update needed
- Screens version code
- Assessment data parsing capability
- Replace audio?
- Use web 2.0 features to enhance - Opportunities
- Re-record audio / video and then check the Learning Management system to understand if it can include podcast versions of these media types.
- Check for Packaging compliance - especially important for SCORM integration.
- Build a cross-reference document to document exactly what changes have been performed on the content.
- Accessibility Reviewed Y/N?
- Estimated cost of conversion
- Components to be changed (state content type and time per item)
* For example, building a Priority Course list for cleansing or conversion. The latter matrix could be used in conjunction with a 3rd party vendor to assess their capability of actually delivering each course for conversion.
* Build a test lab (need to spec this first!)
* Immediate skills assessment of 3rd party provider(s)
* Agree SLA with the latter
* Pilot a series of course’s to identify the most common migration  issues.

Team Assembly
* Identify roles
* Lobby strategy for Project board (Strategic Advisory Team)
* Suggest stakeholders for Project Assurance Team (Business, Technical & User assurers)
* Define reporting structure / schedule

Project specific
* Agree a project brief
* Agree a project approach (Specs, documentation and remediation approach)
* Commence Project initiation with agreed stage charts
* Agree PRINCE 2 products
* Agree signoff criteria
* Agree plan & update process
* Assemble a project support office (sized as required)

Finally, as per most project it is important to phase expectations to achievements!
To help the latter, a wiki could be set-up as a bridge between content cleansers, developers and user acceptance test personnel. Wiki’s are great for informing progress.

Popularity: 60% [?]

Recently I was taking to a director of a major division of a communications organisation. The director was interested in deveoping Knowledge Management approaches for staff that did not involve the use of systems to store essential tactical data. Effectively, he was talking about the neural nature of knowledge or corporate knowledge stores. Maybe he was looking for complementary methods to traditional system based approaches?

I believe that inherent organisational knowledge can be defined as knowlege not written down but based on experience. It can also become established over years and not from one person. From a business risk perspective, the implication is huge if key members of this undocumented knowledge environment depart.

I remember 3 years ago we were working on a large public sector organisation that were keen to outsource a large part of their Information Systems division. However, years of experience and procedures needed to be formalised first! I suggested the using the UK Underground map (seriously!) as a way of initial identification of key decision points. This map was brainchild of Harry Beck and can be adapted for process design.

Here is my reply to the director…

Dear….

An article I wrote for a Knowledge Management Wiki on defining tactical Knowledge Management for organisations can be found at:
http://kh-2.com/mediawiki-1.5.8/index.php?title=Defining_Knowledge_Management

A recent videopodcast that I performed to explore the power of knowledge management based wiki’s, especially for projects performed by commercical organisations can be found at:

http://kh-2.com/khliptv-Know-wow-ep1.mp4

Although these examples refer to the use of systems, specially retaining and imparting knowledge held in neural networks (knowledge inside people’s heads) can be a different matter. A traditional non-systems approach can involve implementing…

1. Paper based procedures
2. Technical walk-throughs and a ’show-me’ approach

If non-technical areas is also an initial requirement, I suggest a good place to start is by implementing:

1. Effective induction methods
2. Development of core-competency frameworks but with team based bench marking of standards (both positive and negative behaviours)
3. Building a manual resource centre (centralising a list of critical ‘to do’ items.)
4. Brown bag lunches ! - These are typically lunch period sessions with no agenda but a debating shop on a specific issue. Similar to the ‘old style’ quality circles, the difference being that tactical data is discussed around a given business problem.
5. Business games to expose and record knowledge gaps.

I hope this helps.
Best Regards

Popularity: 31% [?]