Reflections on Knowledge Management Practice(15 months into a KM start up project related to Victoria’s

agricultural industries)

20th March 2012

Richard Vines

Knowledge Management Specialist

Victorian Department of Primary Industries

Hon Fellow: eScholarship Research Centre, Uni of Melb

Where are we talking

about?

Victoria

Melbourne

An introduction to knowledge management in Australia

Shared context = working across complex (cultural) boundaries

Overview

– Produces goods worth around $9 billion– Export contribution of 26% of the total national value– Dairy, beef, horticulture, poultry, sheep meat and wool industries etc– Pioneered the “Landcare Movement”

Victoria’s agricultural industries

The changing role of Government in agricultural extension– Victoria’s commitment to Agricultural industries via extension– Better Services to Farmers strategy (BSTF)– Underdeveloped capability in knowledge management – Inconsistent client & stakeholder management systems – National Research, Development & Extension Framework– The equivalent context on the US (the land grant institutions,

www.eXtension.org etc)

Context of KM project

National R, D and E Framework:Encouragement of greater collaboration and promotion of continuous improvement in the investment of RD&E resources nationally.

National industry strategies for Dairy, Beef etc

Three overarching deliverables

– Consolidation of disparate approaches to client information – Knowledge hubs across different industry sectors– Capability development in relation to KM

KM project (Dec 2010-)

Discussion of five inherent boundary tensions**(boundary tensions - between nodes of competition and complementarity)

1. Indicators of success Customer intimacy < - > Product service leadership < - > Operational excellence

2. Domain focus KM < - > Other

3. Process Knowledge < - > Business

4. Control Agency < - > Value network

5. Support system reform Organisational < - > Inter-agency / national

ConclusionDeveloping capability around KM involves mediating the tension: Learning based on the familiar < - > Learning by accessing the unfamiliar

Learning could be personal or organisational in nature ** I acknowledge the influence of a KM colleague of mine – Dr Tony English - with whom I appreciated a collaboration in the 1990’s on matters to do with cross cultural eductation. I refer to material outlined in his book “Tug of War: the tension concept and the art of international negotiation” .

<-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up

1. Indicators of success

Example to be discussed

Example to be discussedEstablished initiative here will not be discussed

** I thank Stephen Northey, DPI for bringing this general framework to my attention

Harmonising client data

Discussion • Approach • Semantics• Tacit culture

Common scaffold for capturing client related information whilst retaining

diversity of industry social languages

• Privacy

< - > < - > < - > < - >

< - >

< - >

< - >

This, in principle is the same challenge as creeping regulatory burden

Print based culture

Visualisation of five different quality standards

Department of Planning and Community Development

Then mapping areas of semantic equivalence across these documents- an example of a visualisation not visible via print-based work cultures

This represents only around 40% of the complexity This is the face of burden creep

Farmers work within increasingly complex operating environments

resource constraints such as water rights, increasing input costs, erosion of the ability to enhance productivity gains, increasing and

uncoordinated regulatory compliance intrusions or uncertainty about market access requirements etc

Knowledge hubs: Providing client information as a service

Knowledge

hubs

Discussion • Search • Authority• Fragmentation

User’s perspective and experienceWhat’s the reality of accessing relevant information?

• Spatial relevance

What might a farm centric approach to service support look like in say 5 years?In relation to public knowledge and benefit can the noise be reduced?

Up-to-date, on demand, information

Business decision support

tools

Profitability & sustainability

information

Seasonal climateinformation (localised)

Soil health data(localised)

Farm business data

(de-identified)

Hot topics of interest

Farm & catchment planning tools

Infrastructure for carbon

assurance systems

Communities of interest support

systems

This approach will require innovation across the information publishing and the spatial services industry sectors

KM should allow users to filter out the noise

Filtering based on modularknowledge system

KM should allow users to filter out the noise

Current focus

Near farm networks, service providers, wholesalers, farm groups etc

Research organisations such as DPI, Dairy Australia, Grains Research and Development Corp

User (farmer, service provider etc)

Up-to-date, on demand, information

Service support systems, infrastructure and networks

2. KM <-> other domains

Discussion • Organisational case study

<-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up

Adapted from Aujirapongpan, S. , Vadhanasindhu, C., Chandrachai, A., Cooparat, P. 2010, Indicators of knowledge management capability for KM. The Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems. Vol. 40 No. 2, pp. 183-203

3. Knowledge Process < - > Business Process

Discussion

• Business Excellence Framework

• Capability development program developed

Customer intimacy

Operational excellence

Product service leadership

<-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up

4. Agency control < - > value network collaboration

Discussion • Context with the National R, D and E framework

• Constraints

Publicly defined problem context

Impact monitoring and public

benefit

<-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up

5. Organisational <-> Inter-agency / national reform

<-> Boundary tensions associated with KM start up

National and statement Government policy framework

<->Practice change outcomes are shaped by highly local or contextual factors

Policy statements from the Primary Industry Ministerial Council* (2009, p 3) and the Australian Productivity Commission Report 2011**, p 123)

References:* National Primary Industries Research, Development and Extension Framework, Statement of Intent, 17 June 2009.** Productivity Commission, Rural Research and Development Corporations, Productivity Commission Inquiry Report No 52, Final Inquiry Report, Commonwealth of Australia, 10 February 2011.*** Public Records Office of Victoria, 2011. Victorian Public Sector Information Release Framework (PSIRF) DRAFT Principles. http://tinyurl.com/6p5fzsj. Site accessed on 23/01/2012.

Public utility is enhanced if information created by Govt departments is made accessible to its citizens through open access release frameworks***

Public Records Office of Victoria

Conclusion: What has not emerged yet in any coherent way is the need to think about both these policy developments in relation to each other

Contextual information management

… this is understood as the representation of

complex networks consisting of entities (people, organisations, committees, divisions, events etc.) published resources, archival resources and digital objects linked by

relationships. All entities, published resources, archival resources, digital objects and relationships are dated so that both are understood within a time continuum

Context entities act as surrogates for real life objects, events, ideas, document structures etc.

CSIR(short description)(Dates: 1926-1950)

CSIRO(short description)

(Dates: 1950-present)

was previous to

Based on the principles of the Encoded Archival Context (EAC) standard

Example of EAC installation in the US: http://socialarchive.iath.virginia.edu/

Lamb innovation network2003-

Property Identification

Code

Loddon value chain project(2002-2008)

Gippsland value chain project(2008-)

is member of

Farmer Bob’s Farm(2010-)

was preceded by

Is member of

Fictitious case study

GippslandLocated in

Context entity networks in agriculture

is ascribed

Information publishing < - > spatial services

Example of inter-agency contextual information network: Who Am I? project and Pathways website

http://www.pathwaysvictoria.info/

eScholarship Research Centre

‘Manages the records of’

Govt Dept

CSO Archival

centre

State Library

The sector as a context entity network

Source available here

.. can help visualise inter-relationships between entities that guide the administration of regulatory interventions at particular points in time

Family Services and Out of Home Care Standard

Legislators

Contextual information

Source available here

Use of EAC as a means of reducing regulatory burden

Reducing the burden - increasing the impact: final reports prepared for the Office of the Community Sector , Better Integrated Standards and Quality Assurance Systems (BISQAS) Project 1 and 2. eScholarship Research Centre, University of Melbourne, Department of Planning and Community Development, June 2009, http://repository.unimelb.edu.au/10187/9041 (Vines, Richard; McCarthy, Gavan; Jones, Michael)

Cities, human well-being and the environment: conceiving national regulatory knowledge systems to facilitate resilient knowledge, knowledge based development and inter-generational knowing. In Knowledge Cities World Summit, Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre, Victoria, Australia. 2010 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1764605 (\Vines, R., McCarthy, G., Kirk, C., & Jones, M.

Other standards concerned with context-based metadataISO/TS 23081-2:2009 establishes a framework for defining metadata elements consistent with the principles and implementation considerations outlined in ISO 23081-1:2006. One of the purposes of this framework is to enable standardized description of records and critical contextual entities for records,

Registry Interchange Format for Collections and Services (RIF-CS)RIF-CS is a data interchange format that supports the electronic exchange of collection and service descriptions.

Open Archives Initiative – protocols for metadata harvesting (OAI-PMH)OAI‐PMH is a low‐barrier mechanism for repository interoperability. Data Providers are repositories that expose structured metadata via OAI‐PMH.

TROVE as a national aggregation serviceThis forms part of the National R, D and E framework

http://trove.nla.gov.au/general/contribute/

Department of Primary Industries – Sitemap (Detail)[1]

…. in contrast to web publishing approach

"The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom Bomb, not corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, nor the morals of the young. It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of human knowledge. We own an enormous 'encyclopaedia' - which isn't even arranged alphabetically. Our 'file cards' are spilled on the floor, nor were they ever in order. The answers we want may be buried somewhere in the heap, but it might take a lifetime to locate two already known facts, place them side by side and derive a third fact, the one we urgently need."

Thanks to Michael Jones from the eSRC (Uni of Melb) for bringing this quote to my attention

Robert Heinlein, 1950

Thank youRichard Vines

Knowledge Management SpecialistFarm Services Division

Department of Primary Industries

richard.vines@dpi.vic.gov.au+61 - 417 104144

Concluding remarks:

Being a KM specialist covers a very diverse practical and intellectual territory. It is still going to take time to develop a coherent domain of practice called

KM and any traction will continue to be hard earned.

This domain requires sustained commitment.