Brenton Harty
Director of ICT
Presbyterian Ladies’ College (Melbourne)
© Brenton Harty 2017
Knowledge
Management
Brenton Harty
• Victorian Education Department (6 Years)
• Teacher
• Computer Co-ordinator
• Penleigh and Essendon Grammar (24 Years)
• Teacher
• IT Manager / eLearning Manager
• Copyright Agency (LearningField) (3 Years)
• Presbyterian Ladies’ College Melbourne (Just started)
• Director of ICT
• Business ICT
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AV
Library
eLearning
IT across the curriculum
© Brenton Harty 2017
• National Operations Manager
• ELC to Year 12 Girls School
• 1600 Students
• 183 Full Time + 80 Part Time Staff
• One campus in Burwood Victoria
• Apple School
• Mac Desktop labs
• Mac Laptop trolleys
• Casper MDM
• Windows 2008 back end
• 1 GB AARNET
• Fortigate firewall
• HP Switches
• Mess of fiber
• Mess of UTP
Image Source
http://www.coxarchitecture.com.au/project/plc-learning-resource-centre/#!
© Brenton Harty 2017
PLC Melbourne
PLC Melbourne (Continued)
• Aastra Telephony (Analogue, Digital and VoIP)
• Synergetic
• Denbigh
• GAFE
• Limited O365
• WebHelpDesk
• Access-IT library system
Image Source
http://www.coxarchitecture.com.au/project/plc-learning-resource-centre/#!
© Brenton Harty 2017
• Xirrus Wireless
PLC (Melbourne) – Starting a new job
• Where can I find the information I need?
– scattered everywhere
• Who are the key people that can find
information for me?
– human network nodes
• Who is hoarding knowledge?
– Point dependency
Image Source
http://fulcrumconnection.com/blog/navigating-dangerous-waters-at-work-to-achieve-success/
© Brenton Harty 2017
The problem when starting somewhere new
is you still have your prior knowledge and
experience but you are non-productive:
• School laptops
• Server home drives
• Server shared drives
• Secondary School Intranet
• Junior School Intranet
• Google sites
• Google Docs
• Internet site
• Emailed to teachers
• Paper, paper, paper (noticeboard, Pidgeon
holes etc)
Image Source
https://akungescapades.wordpress.com/category/the-philippines/southern-philippines/
© Brenton Harty 2017
PLC (Melbourne) – Scattered Everywhere
Knowledge Management (KM) Definition
© Brenton Harty 2017
"I need to know what I need to know when I
need to know it; even when I don't know
what I need to know."
Epistemology – the science of knowledge
Image Source https://freethoughtkampala.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/epistemology-part-1-knowledge/
Irony
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The Harty Principle
School world = Business world – 15 years •
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Project Management
Risk Management
Change Management
Knowledge Management
Process auditing
IT Governance
Outsourcing/Insourcing
Strategy
SWAT (Porters)
Research
© Brenton Harty 2017
The main purpose of a school is to assist students to
acquire and use knowledge wisely which we call
education however KM is normally ad hoc because
school leaders are not educated about many modern
business practices and frameworks.
Data, Information and Knowledge
• Data
• Raw unprocessed
• Difficult to understand on its own
• Facts and figures
• Easily stored and transmitted by a computer systems
• Information
• Processed data
• Data converted into tables, graphs, summaries
• Value added eg context, relevance
• Can be processed by a computer system
• Awareness gained when judgement or experience is applied to
information
• The Human element is added
• Information is considered in reference to all prior knowledge. Judgement
and experience are applied to create new knowledge (Learning) and
behavior changes (application of knowledge – wisdom)
Data
Processing
Eg Graph
Awareness
Information
eg Judgement
and
Experience
Knowledge
© Brenton Harty 2017
• Knowledge
Types of Knowledge
• Explicit
• Can be captured, stored and communicated by a computer
system
• Knowledge Base
• Human to Computer
• Computer to Human
• Might be able to capture and communicate by a human system
• Computers are no help here
• Tacit
• Hard to capture and communicate by a human system
• Judgement
• Intuition
© Brenton Harty 2017
• Implicit
© Brenton Harty 2017
Recommendations (First Lot)
Knowledge Management Tools
Knowledge Tool
Type
More Detail
Explicit
Documentation especially best
practice in Wikis, Google Drives etc
Collect, centralize, store, share and
allow collaboration of domain
knowledge
Explicit
Lessons Learned
Document project completion
lessons
Implicit
Peer Presentations
Mentoring and best practice
Implicit
Yellow Pages
Map of internal knowledge
Implicit
Workplace Design
Foster serendipitous interactions
Tacit
Teams
Collaborate on problem solving and
best practice
Tacit
War Stories
Socialize best practice
Tacit
Communities of Practice (CoP)
CoP enable problem solving and best
practice
Communities of Practice (CoP)
Communities of Practice (CoP)
Networks of Practice
• people sharing a work interest, but operating largely at arms
length
• may well be geographically dispersed and involve remote
interaction with strangers
Communities of Practice
• groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a
passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and
expertise by interacting on an ongoing basis
Ref 1
Communities of Practice (CoP)
CoP Attributes
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Joint enterprise
Not just a shared goal, but shared understanding
Mutual engagement
How people bind together and function as a group
Shared repertoire
All the community’s capabilities and accumulated
knowledge
CoP Benefits
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Vehicle for specialist knowledge
Help avoid reinventing the wheel
Cross boundaries
More flexible than other kinds of unit
Warning of threats/opportunities
Vehicle for cultural change
Largely self-organising
Ref 1
Communities of Practice (CoP)
How CoP add value
• They help to drive strategy
• They innovate
• They solve problems quickly
• They transfer best practices
• They develop professional skills
• They help you to recruit and retain talent
Cultivating CoP
• Design for evolution
• Open dialogue between inside and outside perspectives
• Invite different levels of participation
• Develop both public and private spaces
• Focus on value
• Combine familiarity with excitement
• Create a rhythm for the community
Ref 1
© Brenton Harty 2017
Recommendations (Second Lot)
Recommendations (Processes)
Why or Further Information
P2 Whole School Approach
All staff must adopt KM practices.
Promotes a KM culture.
P3 Knowledge Manager
Eg Director of Teaching and Learning
Eg Deputy Principle
Make it formally someone’s job once
they are trained in KM. Position would
include coordination and promotion of
KM practices.
Mentors can share best practices
P4 Mentors
Buddy up staff to support knowledge
transfer (teaching and non-teaching)
P5 Internal Knowledge
Create staff Yellow Pages
Finding and acknowledging internal
interests and domain experts will
incentivize staff to share.
P6 Incentivize
Use non-monetary rewards to
incentivize sharing such as conferences
Reward knowledge sharers and penalize
or other visible rewards
knowledge hoarders
P7 Embed KM
Embed KM into all school processes to
Make KM a target for Professional Learning make it a part of the culture
and yearly Professional Reviews
© Brenton Harty 2017
P1 Leadership
Leadership is a critical success factor
Management must support KM along with
other school strategies.
Recommendations (Processes)
P8 Best Practices
Eg TellTalks
Why or Further Information
Create some excitement, promotes best
practices and acknowledge knowledge
sharers through short interesting
presentations
P10 Measure Effectiveness
Survey student
Students are stakeholders so seek their
feedback, which is commonplace in
universities but not in K-12.
P11 Communities of Practice (CoP)
Create more opportunities for teachers to
form ad hoc interest groups
Eg MITIE
P12 Resource Allocation
Reduce the number of printers and replace
with photocopiers in common spaces.
Help to facilitate serendipitous
interactions and cross domain
knowledge sharing. Ensure staff are
connected to the professional networks
P13 Building Design
Design new buildings to facilitate teacher
interaction.
Increase teacher serendipitous
interaction and help build CoP through
better office design and provision of
Facilitate serendipitous teacher
interaction to build CoP
© Brenton Harty 2017
P9 Measure Effectiveness
Obtain metrics on the progress of KM
Survey staff about their job satisfaction and and other strategies and react as
appropriate.
get feedback on school strategies
Why or Further Information
T1
Knowledge Transfer
Most meetings allow only a small
Reduce administrative meetings by using a amount of time for discussions. Use
information technology to deliver
portal to disseminate information
information efficiently and reclaim
meeting time for teacher conversations.
T2
Content Management
Provide Pedagogy and Administrative
Wikis or similar
Eg Google departmental drives
Wikis can capture and share explicit
knowledge such as worksheets and
policies.
T3
Collaboration
Use IT to help connect dispersed faculties
Instant Messaging and Video
Conferencing can allow dispersed
faculties to “meet” more often.
T4
Collaboration
Use social media to create online forums
where teachers can collaborate
Supports CoPs and help develop outside
Networks of Practice with teachers at
other schools.
Eg Vic Ning IT Forum
Eg MITIE on Discourse
© Brenton Harty 2017
Recommendations (Technology)
Initiatives Taken at PLC
© Brenton Harty 2017
and The Copyright Agency
and PEGS
• All departments get a departmental Google drive ie
English, Science, IT, Mathematics, Administration, AV,
Library, IT Management, …
• Use Google native document format as much as
possible to facilitate full text search and collaboration
among peers
• Shared with departmental staff, Principal, Deputy
Principals etc
• Would use the new Google Team drives but they
currently cannot use Spanning to allow cloud backups
• Centralized, shared, searchable, managed and backed
up with Spanning
© Brenton Harty 2017
Google Departmental Drives - Explicit KM
IT Management Google Drive - Explicit KM
• Network Information
• Renewable services – eg Domain registration, Casper license
• Account Information – SurveyMonkey, Skype, Adobe Creative
Cloud
• Surveys – IT Portfolio analysis
• Policies and Procedures
• Projects
• Printers / Copiers
• Software licenses
• Cyclic activities
• Meetings
• Weekly meetings
• Planning Days
• Telephony
• Generic Maps
• Risk Register
© Brenton Harty 2017
• LAN - eg Fiber, UTP
• WLAN
• Active Equipment
Document Everything and Share – Explicit KM
© Brenton Harty 2017
• Notes
• Pictures
• Videos
Termly Planning Days Meetings – Implicit KM
Risk management
Help Desk review (Pareto and root cause)
Cyclic activities review
Policies and Procedures review
Action Research presentation
Show and Tell presentations
© Brenton Harty 2017
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Weekly Meetings – Implicit KM
© Brenton Harty 2017
• Provide all the explicit knowledge early in a
Google Doc so there is less time given to a
briefing
• More time allowed for discussion and war stories
The IT technicians are now all required to take part
in
• School IT steering committee (ICTCC)
• MITIE
• Victorian Independent school’s forum
• Network meetings
• Vendor user groups
• Starting to encourage membership of ACS,
visiting other schools, attending conferences
with a plan to present
© Brenton Harty 2017
Communities of Practice – Implicit KM
Morning Tea Briefings – Various KM
© Brenton Harty 2017
• The school requires all staff to attend a 10 min
morning tea briefing each day
• Set seating but rotated termly
• Seating plan designed to mix staff
• Allows for quick explicit knowledge briefing
• Facilitates serendipitous contact that leads to
CoP membership and increases in Implicit or
Tacit knowledge
Job Sharing or Teamwork – Implicit and Tacit
© Brenton Harty 2017
• IT Technicians sometimes work in pairs.
• Nominated primary technician for things eg VoIP
and nominated secondary technician
OneNote – Explicit KM
© Brenton Harty 2017
• OneNote is being used this year for storing and
sharing confidential Pastoral Care notes
• Interim plan until better system is available
© Brenton Harty 2017
Initiatives I’d like to take at PLC
Future Initiatives
© Brenton Harty 2017
• HOD IT Buddy / mentors
• Regular Tell Talks
• Build ICTCC committee into a proper CoP
Barriers to KM
KM Barriers
• Knowledge Hoarding - knowledge is power
• Reinventing the wheel - people will not ask for
help
• The not-invented here syndrome
• Rigidity - where organizational routines, even
best practice, can stifle innovation
• Silos
• Resistance to change
• Change fatigue - where it happens all the time
• Technological determinism
Ref 1
Thanks for your time
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/brentonharty
Twitter: @brentonharty
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
© Brenton Harty 2017
If you liked the presentation I’d appreciate your
KM endorsement on LinkedIn
Major reference
© Brenton Harty 2017
1. Knowledge Management (RMIT INTE2397) – By
Dr Vanessa Cooper (2012)
2. Various research conducted by Brenton Harty
in the course of completing RMIT INTE2397)