Talk:Success factors for development and management of Knowledge Sharing Platforms

Jessica Robbins, 2010/3/13

Hi KM4Devers,

I have been putting together a list of success factors for development and management of knowledge platforms. In looking over the KM4Dev Knowledge base it appears that one does not yet exist? (I might not have looked hard enough!)

I would therefore like to ask your feedback, thoughts and opinions on the following list. Let me know what you think…

Cheers Jessica

1. Demand driven

• What is the need?

2. Clearly defined parameters

• What is the problem? (Objectives)
• What is the solution? (Services/Tools)
• Who is it for? (Target Audience)
• What is the scope? (Global, Regional, National)

3. Be community owned

• Must engage users
• Focus on user needs
• Need champions

4. Build on the organizational strengths

• What are your organization’s strengths? (Comparative advantage)
• Are you in best position to provide solution? (Resources)
• Who else can or is doing it better? (Competition)
• Who has the mandate to do it? (Responsibility)

5. Be integrated with broad framework or strategy

• Important part of M&E (Sustainability)

6. Be value added

• Users will promote via word of mouth if they see true value
• Communicate member benefits
• Communication and outreach necessary

7. Not duplicate what already exists

• What else is being done? (Don’t duplicate existing)
• Who else is doing it? (Can lessons be learnt?)
• How can add value and not duplicate effort?

8. Must have a human face

• Not just technology, it is about people and relationships

9. Focus on the community of practitioners

• What is the glue?

10. Be sustainable

Joel Muzard, 2010/3/13

Hello Jessica,

Please, can you tell me what you mean by «knowledge plateform»?

Thanks

Joel

Charles Dhewa, 2010/3/13

Jessica,

For me KM4Dev is a Knowledge Sharing Platform. May you clarify your questions? It looks like you are looking at KM4Dev from a Logical Framework perspective.

Regards,

Charles

Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta, 2010/3/13

Charles

I agree with you. Jessica is right to look into the business from LFA perspectives. That makes every point increasingly transparent. I have given an attchment in the early afternoon of 13 March about my primary understanding about what Jessica wanted to mean and I have also added something in blue. You can have a look into it. But my feedback is aboslutely my primary understanding.

Thanking you and with best regards to all.

Sincerely yours

Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta Development Specialist (Independent) Dhaka, Bangladesh

Mireille Massue, 2010/3/13

Hi Jessica

I like your list especially #8:

8. Must have a human face

• Not just technology, it is about people and relationships

You did a great job. I personally think it's quite complete.

Mireille Massue

Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta, 2010/3/13

Dear Jessica   The following is my primary feedback to your attempt but I will appreciate if it comes through UNDP for all its country offices and other UN Agencies for the New World Culture for Future UN System. This will be unique piece of work. Moreover, perhaps you need to work with major indicators and sub-indicators. We can enter into new domain of discussion.   Thanking you, and with very best of regards.   Sincerely yours   Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta Development Specialist Dhaka, Bangladesh

1. Demand driven

• What is the need?

(Demand from target audience, so the demand will change with the characteristics of the audiences and at the same time of level audiences in within the same group)

2. Clearly defined parameters

• What is the problem? (causes and effects)

What are the objectives?

• What is the solution? (Services)

Uses of services and tools are confusing. In order to make it easier, ‘services’ are preferred. Services will come from means-end relations

3. Be community owned

• Must engage users
• Focus on user needs
• Need champions
  • What community can give (feeling community ownership also requires sacrifice from community in any form)
• What actions supply side (the agency) shall take to bring community resources?

This will take some form of participants’ analysis.

4. Build on the organizational strengths

• What are your organization’s strengths? (Comparative advantage)
• Are you in best position to provide solution? (Resources)
• Who else can or is doing it better? (Competition)

Should we define it as competition or should we look from collaborative attitude. I would suggest to change the word “competition” by “collaboration”.

• Who has the mandate to do it? (Responsibility)

This part is not clear. Could you explain it?

5. Be integrated with broad framework or strategy (Rephrase: Integration with broad framework or strategy)

• Important part of M&E (Sustainability)

6. Be value added

• Users will promote via word of mouth if they see true value
• Communicate member benefits
• Communication and outreach necessary (Rephrase: outreach necessary)

  7. Not duplicate what already exists

• What else is being done? (Don’t duplicate existing)
• Who else is doing it? (Can lessons be learnt?) (duplicating with point 4.)
• How can add value and not duplicate effort?

Jessica Robbins, 2010/3/13

By knowledge platform I was referring to any online portal, website, social networking or other type of site to support a community of practice.

To give a little more background, I have been working on a number of different platforms for knowledge storage and sharing across a broad range of development sectors (DRM, Microfinance, Climate Change etc). Hence my use of the broader term knowledge platform. Quite often the host organisation is having trouble due to not properly addressing a number of factors at the start of the project, which is what I was trying to capture in a “critical success factors list”.

Thanks Tarit for your comments they are useful. Regarding the query about “Mandate”, I was meaning that if an organization has the mandate to coordinate X focus area for the region, the objective of any solution should be to support this. Often this is not the case and organisations extend beyond the scope of their roles instead of collaborating with the relevant stakeholders with the mandate for that area. This can lead to ‘turf’ issues.

Other thoughts welcomed.

Thanks Jessica.

Sam Lanfranco, 2010/3/14

I have just returned from two months of association with human rights education and development efforts in South Asia. I would like to comment on Jessica's statements about "...if an organization has the mandate to coordinate X focus area for the region, the objective of any solution should be to support this. Often this is not the case and organizations extend beyond the scope of their roles instead of collaborating with the relevant stakeholders with the mandate for that area. This can lead to "turf" issues."

I often start with the old IBM company project proposal format that simply said "What?, Why?, How?". For NGOs that has to be modified. The (a) "How to do it" and has an additional (b) "How to fund it" - since unlike IBM NGO projects cannot be funded from within. Also, there is an additional (c) With Whom? - since collaboration should be integral to NGO efforts. Within the brief [What? Why? How Funded? How done? and With Whom?] are the markers for success and for the problems that beset NGO efforts.

Grass roots level organizations tend to be passionate about their cause and spend much of their effort expanding on the What and the Why. Frequently they expand on the importance of the What that drives their Why, but are impatient with the How. The How is central to both funding and success. The result is that they may fail to secure adequate funding because of lack of attention to How they are going to do What they want to do, How they are going to Monitor and Evaluate efforts, How Financial Management will be handled, etc. They are impatient with these "minor details". This can be particularly difficult for outsiders who are working with them and understand these funding and implementation challenges.

The problems of collaboration and turf wars impact on both poor NGOs and well funded NGOs. Poor NGOs are frequently too resource poor to afford the time and resources for developing collaborations, and may see collaborators as competitors for funding, or recognition. Scope creep may reflect a broadened search for resources. Well funded NGOs are only well funded "for the moment" and can behave in a similar fashion with regard to scope creep. They may also focus on (more enjoyable?) collaboration between NGOs (at prep cons, etc.) at the expense of (more difficult?) collaboration with stakeholders.

What are the lessons in this? First, the How and With Whom are central to successful funding and implementation. Second, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Fiscal Accountability are central to successful implementation and subsequent funding. Third, Collaboration with Stakeholders is central to implementation. Fourth, Collaboration with Sister NGOs is important for synergies and for avoiding turf wars.

Within the complexities of implementation and organizational development, returning to these basic principles helps an NGO, or a project, keep its focus, and contribute to success and sustainability.

Sam Lanfranco Distributed Knowledge Project

Jaap Pels, 2010/3/14

Hi Sam,

Nice analysis. Now, are NGO's being MBA-ed, commercialised? What do you think.

Best, Jaap

Sarah Cummings, 2010/3/14

Hi Jessica and everyone

I thought you might be interested to see the 2007 study of Dgroups - a platform of, at that time, approx. 2300 online networks/communities - that deals, to some extent, with success factors identified by users: http://www.kit.nl/smartsite.shtml?id=SINGLEPUBLICATION&ItemID=2505 This study also made some findings in terms of male-female distributions of facilitators which might be of interest to those who took part in the recent discussions on that subject here. Of 695 'key users' (a category of technical administrators and facilitators) who responded to the survey, there was a fairly equal distribution between men and women. This may slightly over represent the number of women as women appear to more cooperative in responding to online surveys.

Best wishes

Sarah Cummings

Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta, 2010/3/14

Hi Jessica, Sam, and Japp

I am really encouraged to see the presence of Japp in every discussion though we are unknown to each other. However, I do not find anything Sam's letter that he has given any smell about the commercialization of NGOs. Rather, what Sam has talked about, to my understanding is about NGOs transparency and accountability, and more clearly to say about the gaps in their organized behavior. I agree with him. What Sam has talked about monitoring, evaluation and fiscal, couple of days ago in one of my discussion I talked about Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and Impact Analysis what both the corporate and non-corporate sector has very and very poorly developed. What Jessica has proceeded is more through a logical relations – a good analysis for either corporate or non-corporate. I will request you to have a look in my article Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation and Impact Analysis where I have suggested UNDP can assume a leading role on behalf of the developmental partners for the New World Culture for Future UN System to develop more organized behavior by the corporate and non-corporate sector reading their more professionalism. However, Sam I would like to request you to clear your understanding about commercialization because now-a-days commercialization is used with too much distortion to distort the image of the developmental partners to whom almost the total credit goes for the emergence of NGO sector all over the world as a social sector. To note that commercialization does not mean the use of commercial capital.

With regards

Sincerely

Tarit Kumar Datta Gupta Development Specialist (Independent) Dhaka, Bangladesh

Sam Lanfranco, 2010/3/14

Tarit,

You have hit a very sensitive nerve with your comment about commercialization and NGOs. I have difficulty every time I type "NGO" knowing full well how many sins that term now covers. I run the International Society for Third Sector Research list (ISTR-L@yorku.ca) and have trouble with that term (Third Sector) as well. In my own work I prefer the term civil society organization and link it to social justice...full stop!

There is ample evidence of how commercialism and ideological agendas have used the NGO cover for their non-social justice agendas. Apparently, in the United States, a non-profit is registered about every 9 minutes. Of course, there is a long history of ideological "think tanks" playing the non-profit card to enhance their legitimacy. Only greater transparency will expose those practices to the light of day.

Your comments hint at another unfortunate element of commercialism in the NGO sector, and that is the growth industry of training people with undergraduate and graduate degrees designed specifically for NGO management. In my view, what started out as a good idea is quickly turning into a disaster. While many have spent their entire life in this sector, in pursuit of social justice, there is a new careerist tendency in the sector.

The study of this tendency has a name: "Critical Management Studies" and CMS tends to see such developmental careerism as almost a managerial class unto itself, answerable only to itself, and where career advancement is based on self-defined internal norms, practically fully detached from monitoring and evaluation of NGO outcomes. Sounds a lot like bankers in the United States.

This CMS approach is taken in Jonathan Murphy's 2008 Routledge book, "The World Bank and Global Managerialism" (Hint: the book is most easily read by reading the last chapter first). Unfortunately, there may be a Gresham's Law of human resources here, where bad HR drives out good HR.

Sam Lanfranco Distributed Knowledge York University

Teobaldo Pinzas, 2010/3/15

Sam,

As seems to be the norm with your messages, in the last two you raise and discusss two key issues in the thinking about so called NGOs. I fully agree with your comments on the What Why and How questions when adapted to the NGO context. Also, I agree with the preferred denomination civil society organizations -CSO, that I link to citizen participation in addressing issues of societal importance, often neglected by all forms of state, perhaps more so in underdeveloped countries. Perhaps. But I think it is with this your latest message that you deal with something that has increasingly important impact on the management of CSO, the development of "social managers" and the disproportionate power they in many cases are gaining over crucial decisions. This is not an entirely new tendency, it can be traced I think to the early 90's and as you say at the moment it seemed to be a good idea. Currently the impronta of managerialism can be found in the prevailing thinking of most international development organizations that I would say are not fully detached of M&E of outcomes but have instead redefined the meaning of outcomes.

Teobaldo Pinzas

Jessica Robbins, 2010/3/14

Sam, I couldn't agree more with you. They are simple questions that often aren't fully considered however if fully considered there are usually greater opportunities and likelihood of success. Thanks Jessica

Amina Singh, 2010/3/15

Dear Sam and Tarit, Thanks for your conversation. Sam wrote: What are the lessons in this? First, the How and With Whom are central to successful funding and implementation. Second, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Fiscal Accountability are central to successful implementation and subsequent funding. Third, Collaboration with Stakeholders is central to implementation. Fourth, Collaboration with Sister NGOs is important for synergies and for avoiding turf wars. Tarit, In trying to identify good practices, I would include the above from Sam as well. 1. How and with whom of the process of the practice are equally and sometimes more important than the "what" of practice output 2. Monitoring, evaluation and fiscal accountability very important for a practice to be considered 'good practice" - also the "how" and "who" of these. Monitoring evaluation not just as regular "things to do" by project implementers ( usually pushed by donors) but one that engages all stakeholders. For me nowadays fiscal accountability - the key thing...mostly cos of what Sam and Tarit have insinuated in their discussions. Public audits/social audits important.. 3. Collaboration - mostly to do with the "how" of the project activities 4. About the "turf war" - conflict sensitive implementation, do no harm - again "how" of the project implementation.

thanks amina

Joel Muzard, 2010/3/16

Hi Jessica,

Today I will be presenting our knowledge platform @ the Knowledge-Net Event Webinar and Knowledge-Lab :: http://www.a-i-a.com/k-net

You are welcome

See you soon online

Joel http://www.a-i-a.com/k-net

Tom Zeppenfeldt, 2010/3/16

Hi Joel,

I am sorry to have missed the online presentation. Is there documentation or webcast available ?

Thanks in advance,

Tom Zeppenfeldt

Jessica Robbins, 2010/3/16

Hi Joel,

Thanks for letting me know. I would be interested in participating in future events. Please do circulate any post-event overviews.

Cheers Jessica.

Joel Muzard, 2010/3/16

Thanks Jessica,

Are you working in Suva, Fidji?

I am thinking of adapting the webinars hours maybe

We are going to publish a post event report and share it with you.

Be well

Joel

Jessica Robbins, 2010/3/17

Yes, I'm here is Suva, Fiji... even after cyclone Tomas attempted to take us offline over last few days. It would be great if they could start even at 8am - although I do understand that it is difficult to find times suitable to all time zones. Colleagues and I always really appreciate if a report or some sort of follow up can be shared when possible.

Thanks!

Cheers Jessica