Curiouser and Curiouser!

Curiouser and Curiouser! on effectiveness http://matt.blogs.it/ RSS feed for topic effectiveness Copyright 2006 Matt Mower Squib/0.1 self@mattmower.com self@mattmower.com en-gb Learning for yourself or the company (or in my case both) Tue, 17 Sep 2002 19:27:33 +0100 <BLOCKQUOTE><A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/2002/09/16.html#a298">Learning for yourself, or for the company?</A>. In her introduction, <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110051/">Janice Reid</A> raises an interesting point about what happens if you focus too much on learning about the company you work for. I'll let Janet's words explain. <BLOCKQUOTE> One thing that I've learnt recently is that there's a limit to what one's learning when working with a corporate.  After a couple of years you start to capture more about the company, rather than building your own functional knowledge.  You create a personal database of information which is very valuable to your work colleagues, but worthless to you once you move on.  In hindsight I would recommend 'job hopping' in order to develop your personal knowledge of different environments, ways of doing things, attitudes etc, rather than a prolonged period at any one firm, even if you are frequently changing roles.</BLOCKQUOTE> [<A href="http://www.thoughthorizon.com/2002/09/03.html#a46">thought?horizon</A>] [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/">Seb's Open Research</A>]</BLOCKQUOTE> One more characteristic of knowledge workers - they go to find more learning. Would be interesting to study how knowledge workers work and what motivates them next to how one <A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109961/2002/09/17.html#a230">becomes a knowledge worker</A>. [<A href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0109961/">Mathemagenic</A>] <BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"> » A strong motivator in wanting out of my last job was that I'd reached the point where I wasn't learning anything new.  A strong motivator for starting my own company was that it put me on a path of constant learning (and how!) Now I have the best of both worlds I am learning for myself and for my company at the same time. When my company grows to the point that I take on staff one of the things that will be most important to me is to ensure that we create, together, a learning culture.  I've experienced it before so hopefully I'll know it when we hit on the right formula. Example: In a previous company my manager used to like to ensure, when we weren't in fire-fighting mode, that we always had some time to persue our own interests and follow things that weren't strictly on the critical path.  Quite often we would later discover that these topics came up, centre stage (Windows NT, Java and LDAP are cases that spring to mind) but I don't think that was really the point.  He was interested in us, and letting us grow. Apart from the obvious potential benefits of learning, and of potentially discovering new things before they become important, I believe this to be a great way to motivate without acting.  I also think that, as an employer, it pays you back fourfold in psychic dividends.  But it does require flexibility, a long term view and courage (to take the flak from those above who still believe in 100% efficiency).</BLOCKQUOTE> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000556.html Heading into knowledge metrics Mon, 28 Oct 2002 13:07:18 +0000 One of my key challenges right now is to work out how to measure the impact of knowledge-logging.  How does it impact the effectiveness of a person, of a team/project and of a business.  How can we measure this?  How can we evaluate it? Anyone have any good stuff? This 1994 U.S. Army paper on <A href="http://www.cecer.army.mil/kws/tho_lit.htm#fw">evaluating productivity</A> looks like as good a place to start as any.  The Summarizer summary is very poor for this one but here it is anyway: <UL> <LI>The U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratories (USACERL) is developing a computer-based performance support environment intended to improve the productivity of Army knowledge workers.</LI> <LI>This product, the Knowledge Worker System (KWS), is designed to help work groups enhance their performance while documenting and distributing business process information.</LI> <LI>The literature suggests organizations categorize work by content, then select the most appropriate measurement technique based on implementation costs.</LI> <LI>Sardina and Vrat say those who measure productivity should have three objectives: (1) to identify potential improvements; (2) to decide how to reallocate resources; and (3) to determine how well previously established goals have been met.</LI> <LI>It is most simply Output divided by Input."</LI> <LI>The literature review shows that productivity measurement is discussed from a wide variety of viewpoints.</LI> <LI>"Structured" is inversely related to "Complexity," so these two components are at opposite ends of the graph.</LI> <LI>It can be seen from the above discussion that any proposed productivity measurement technique should be examined to determine what it requires to function well.</LI> <LI>Bridges, Bernisha M., "To Measure or Not to Measure, That is the Question," Productivity and Quality Improvement in Government, edited by John S.W. Fargher (Institute of Industrial Engineers, 01/92), pp 412419.</LI> <LI>Shell, Richard L., and O. Geoffrey Okogbaa, "The Effect of Mental Fatigue on Knowledge Worker Performance," Issues in White Collar Productivity (Industrial Engineering and Management Press, Institute of Industrial Engineers, 1984), pp 224231.</LI> <LI>Sink, D. Scott, and S.J. DeVries, "An InDepth Study and Review of 'StateoftheArt and Practice Productivity Measurement Techniques,' " (Institute of Industrial Engineers 1984 Spring Conference Proceedings, 01/84).</LI></UL> http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00000786.html Cutting the dead wood Wed, 16 Mar 2005 13:07:53 +0000 Following <a href="http://www.corante.com/getreal/archives/2005/03/14/unlinking_from_social_networks_part_7_noaccounts.php">Stowe's lead</a> I've begun a process of removing myself from useless social network applications. Though I was initially very positive about these services long acquaintance has lead me to conclude that they really haven't grown my social network, merely created some kind of reflection of it. I would meet someone, either face to face or through my blog, and then we'd go "let's join networks" but I can't say I ever experienced significant second order effects. Maybe I just don't network that way. So in the spirit of if it isn't working -- stop doing it I've terminated my accounts with Ecademy, Ryze, and Orkut. LinkedIn was the service I've had the most positive experience with so I'm going to ponder that one a little. Since I've re-introduced comments on C&C you know where to find me if you want me -- right <a href="http://matt.blogs.it/">here</a>. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002463.html Bring on the joy Tue, 05 Jul 2005 11:07:23 +0100 <blockquote>Remove barriers that rob people of joy in their work. This will mean abolishing the annual rating or merit system that ranks people and creates competition and conflict.[<a href="http://minimsft.blogspot.com/2005/07/microsoft-stack-ranking-is-not-good.html">Deming quoted at MiniMicrosoft</a>]</blockquote> There is quite a lot more about the trouble managers face at Microsoft (and presumably many other organisations too) with having compensation competition and the fall-out this brings. http://matt.blogs.it/entries/00002723.html