to know what you know. You need to know what you don’t know. You need to know the business purpose behind your organization’s drive to adopt and implement IPD, BIM, and lean processes.
organization to organization. An effective education program encourages participants to identify and internalize value propositions in their wheel house and to be opportunistic as to value propositions not in their wheel house.
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KNOW WHERE TO FIND ANSWERS Every organization has an institutional knowledge base. Few access that knowledge base effectively. Fewer still index that database and render it accessible to leaders and employees—new and old alike—enabling those individuals, and by extension the organization, to leverage that knowledge base with ease. In fact, in many organizations, much of the institutional knowledge is tucked away inside the heads of senior leaders and shared with others only on a need-to-know basis, as if the organization were a spy agency. While certain intellectual property must be protected, most institutional knowledge needs to be shared. Heron’s odometer was crafted to carefully measure distances.
The institutional knowledge base needs to be identified, indexed, and utilized effectively. In other words, institutional knowledge needs to be “Googlized.” This is true regardless of how much institutional knowledge, if any, relates to IPD, BIM, and lean processes. An educational program that effectively enlightens participants regarding the use of those tools deserves a place in a reservoir of institutional knowledge that can be “Googlized” and leveraged over time.
Internal view of Heron’s odometer. Know where you start. Know where you end.
KNOW HOW TO ADD VALUE An effective IPD, BIM, and lean process education program will constantly prompt personnel to ask, “What do I need to know about IPD, BIM, and lean processes that will enable me to add value for our clients and, ultimately, for us?” Every individual answers this questions in a slightly different way, but an educational program that focuses the learner’s attention on the organization’s core business purpose (see the section above) and prompts learners to repeatedly consider the client’s value proposition will be successful. This concept values and promotes knowledge-based decisions that add value. IPD, BIM, and lean processes provide users with myriad mechanisms for adding value. The value proposition associated with these tools varies from phase to phase, discipline to discipline, and May 2012
SPREAD THE KNOWLEDGE The next key feature of an effective educational program is knowledge of its existence! That means internal and external marketing and promotion of the program. Those within the organization tasked with marketing and education should treat the launch of the program as an opportunity to leverage social media, web-based marketing tools, internal gossip chains, and every other traditional and non-traditional marketing mechanism in their arsenal. Launching and promoting an internal educational program actually represents a great opportunity to procure critical and frank feedback on the firm’s marketing tools as well. In addition to informing personnel of the availability of the educational program, participants and experienced personnel need to be reminded to share the fruit of the tree of knowledge at every opportunity. Teaching moments need to be transformed, as often www.augiworld.com
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