Digital White Papers

45 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Transforming Tacit Knowledge: Making the Most of What You Know A wealth of knowledge is being shared at these meetings already, so designating someone to record it is the first step. Next, KM should help practice leaders add to every agenda one or two provocative questions that require people to draw on and share their experiences. Ask the group's junior lawyers to help set this part of the agenda to bring out the most immediately useful and needed knowledge. Anything KM can do to help get a good mix of associates and partners at a range of levels to aend each meeting will foster beer discussions drawn from diverse perspectives. Finally, a good writer must summarize the knowledge shared and post it where others can comment to keep the conversation going. Investigative Journalism: Perhaps because I come from a long line of journalists, I like nothing beer than asking questions, and I consider a good interview to be one of the best ways to learn. Interviewing people and writing interesting summaries others will want to read are fairly easy ways to capture and share tacit knowledge that many organizations overlook. In a law firm, prime candidates for interviews include: » Laterals joining the firm » People about to leave, including partners approaching retirement » Associates returning from secondments to a client Any interview, with even the most intriguing person, is only as good as the interviewer. People enlisted to conduct interviews must be naturally curious, good listeners skilled at designing compelling questions and immediately recognizing where the real stories are so they can take the conversation in that direction. Roundtables: Our KM group held and recorded a virtual firmwide discussion on a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that could have a profound impact on our corporate practice in all jurisdictions. Though targeted to litigators and corporate transactional lawyers, we invited all lawyers to connect through videoconference rooms in all our offices. The event was well-aended and generated much enthusiasm and requests for more. Dubbed KM Roundtables, these have quickly become a staple of our KM. We start by selecting a multi-practice and cross-jurisdiction emerging or requested topic. We find one or two speakers to set the stage and open the discussion. We record the roundtable and post it on a dedicated intranet page with related materials (articles, case law, commentary and presentations) and periodic updates from KM. The centerpiece of these pages is a discussion board where we invite people to post their comments and practical experiences to stimulate further discussion and learning. We originally preferred using videoconferencing to simulate natural conversation, believing this would build trust and make people more inclined to share. We also saw it as a way to beer acquaint ourselves with people in our other offices, making them more likely to call upon each other in the future. Aer experiencing technical glitches with a few videoconferencing technologies, mostly in response to too many requests to connect from home or individual offices, we abandoned video for audio only or webinar, depending on whether visual materials will be used. We also circulate relevant materials beforehand so those who wish to can prepare for the discussion. In the few instances where we have arranged no conference rooms, we learned that small groups of people gathered on their own initiative to dial in together. KM should help practice leaders add to every agenda one or two provocative questions that require people to draw on and share their experiences.

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