SWOT of Workshop Projects: You Project Strength is my Weakness, my Project Opportunity is your Threat.

On day one of our workshop we asked participants to think in groups about their project’s internal strengths, weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats. The findings were written on cards and then grouped and analyzed. As part of the post workshop documentation process we created tag clouds (www.tagcrowd.com) and discover the following patterns:

• Key internal strengths in the projects are: good team work, strong communication, experience and expertise, support (from management), and good level of practice in project teams. Many of our participants have the content ready, and funding assured.
• Participants identified internal weaknesses of their projects: Lack of collaboration among stakeholders and teams, lack of content, connectivity, geographic dispersion of teams.
• Among the opportunities that are external to the projects were mentioned: People who support, collaborate, fund, champion, and adopt your projects. Sharing of information and content creation is growing, willingness to learn together.
• Looking at the threats, connectivity is clearly the primary issue for many of our projects. This relates to possible weak connectivity of our target groups as well as low connectivity in some of our organizations. Then we see a group of threats related to buy-in, support and commitment of teams and stakeholders, and finally issues related to weaknesses in skills, understanding, lack of training of our end use

When we have a look at the below tag cloud that includes all notes on the SWOT session we see how our issues can be read as strength, and opportunities, as well as weaknesses and threats. It also gives a quite good overview of the success factors of any KS project.

 

KS Workshop: Group Photo

Row in the back (left to right): Nadia Manning (ICT-KM), Peter Shelton (IFPRI), Daniel Mwesige (ASARECA), Jean Hanson (ILRI), Grace Ndungu (ILRI), Petr Kosina (CIMMYT)

Middle Row: Yuan Octafian (CIFOR), Alexandra Jorge (ILRI), Nicole Demers (Bioversity), Vanessa Meadu (ICRAF), Selam Alemayehu (ILRI), Maria Grazia Bovo (FAO), Florencia Tateossian (CGIAR Secretariat), Janice Proud (ILRI), Dady Damby (FARA)

Front: Simone Staiger (ICT-KM), Sandra Velarde (Amazon Initiative), Dina Satrio (CIFOR), Gauri Salokhe (FAO), Davy Simumba (ZARI).

 

Participant’s Evaluation: We Want to Learn More Tools!

Last but not least we went through an evaluation of the workshop. As a way to share reflections and to crystallize trends, we asked participants to reflect individually and answer three questions, then to share those answers in pairs and finally in groups of four.
When asked what was useful for them from the last three days, participants highlighted the relational aspects: Learning with peers, meeting and working with people who have similar problems, networking… those have been primary positive and useful aspects of the workshop. Participants also appreciated learning about methods and tools. The Peer assist methodology was mentioned several times, as well as the hands-on sessions about tools.
The second question was about things that our group still wants to learn more about, and this are: tools, tools, and more tools. The use of RSS feeds is a real learning need for many participants. But our colleagues are also intrigued to learn more about some methods, like facilitation techniques, and approaches related to monitoring and evaluation, and impact assessment, specifically of KS approaches.
When asked “What would you do differently in the workshop based on your experience of the last three days?” participants gave us the principle suggestion to have more time to explore tools, and if possible hands-on (which requires internet connection ;-).

 

Have a Look at those Projects!

These are the projects that participants have been working on and where phase 3 can provide opportunities for joint learning:

• Selam Alemayehu (ILRI): Enhancing research through a collaborative approach. Implement a tool that strengthens collaborative research and work.
• Vanessa Meadu (ICRAF): A Web site to support the PRESA Community of Practice.
• Nadia Manning (ICT-KM): Knowledge sharing in research
• Sandra Velarde: Building knowledge together in the Amazon
• Alexandra Jorge (ILRI): Building best practices on gene bank management
• Yuan Octafian (CIFOR): Forestry 2.0
• Jean (ILRI): Developing best practices for forage germplasm management
• Grace Ndungu (ILRI): Global Challenge Dialogue
• Florencia Tateossian (CGIAR Secretariat) : Build a supportive tool for collaborative communication across CGIAR communications and resource mobilization people.
• Dina Satrio (CIFOR): Promote the usage of our Intranet
• Janice Proud (ILRI): KS within the Napier Grass disease resistance project team
• Gauri Salokhe (FAO): The FAO Knowledge Fair
• Maria Grazia Bovo (FAO): A new FAO permanent representatives Web site
• Nicole Demers (Bioversity): A new SGRP Platform on CGIAR genetic resources
• Pete Shelton (IFPRI): IFPRI Intranet 2.0
• Davy Simumba (ZARI): KS within the Zambian research networks
• Dady Damby (FARA/RAILS): Building KS capacity of RAILS learning teams
• Daniel Mwesige (ASARECA): Development of a project management and information system

 

Parallel Sessions to Fill Knowledge Gaps

On our last day and before lunch we hold a session based on the needs and knowledge gaps that we had identified the day before, and that participants considered as important for their projects. We used the session to introduce the Open Space Technology, even if we used it only to a certain extent. Participants could add session topics to those that we had previously identified. They were then asked to sign up for a maximum of two sessions. A short review of the numbers of sessions and the sign-ups, the group decided to go for two rounds of parallel sessions on 4 different topics:

• Monitoring and evaluation of KS
• How to choose a KS tool or method
• How to identify user needs
• Learning more about RSS, CMS and Yellow Pages

Here is a summary of the M&E discussion:

Two types of M&E have been discussed among Selam, Pete, Gauri, Petr, Maria Grazia, Nadia, Grace, and Sandra:
1) M&E of Web resources
2) M&E of KS

1. On the first topic Pete Shelton pointed us to a blog he wrote on that topic where he lists a few potential indicators for measuring impact on the web while commenting their overall value and utility: Page views/visitors, downloads, citations, mentions in the media, RSS feeds, Search Engine rankings. Pete would like to identify IFPRI’s different audiences and perhaps use a planning, and M&E method to reach them more effectively.
2. On the second topic we mentioned and briefly introduced some possible methods, like the Impact Pathways, Outcome Mapping, Innovation Histories or Most Significant Change. Those methods have in common that they provide ways to look at behavioral changes through SNA, storytelling, interviews, and more.

Gauri mentioned an effort at FAO to measure the usefulness of Communities of Practice at FAO. The number of members of s CoP (they are run on Dgroups) is not an indicator of success. Gauri asked for ways to find out more about their impact. The group suggested doing a survey combined with a set of interviews. Nadia raised the issue of the need to always combine different methods in order to cover different aspects of M&E.

 

How to get buy-in for KS? Using the Peer Assist Method to gather ideas

This week I have been attending the Face-to-Face part of the Knowledge Sharing Workshop at ILRI in Addis. The F2F part builds upon a month of online discussion on KS tools and methods. Today I had the opportunity to benefit from the collective knowledge of colleagues working at various CG institutions, FAO and FARA and at the same time, learn about an extremely useful KS Method called  Peer Assist.

We started off the session by watching and getting introduced to the Peer Assist Method. As we were more than 10, we were divided into two different groups. As a Peer Assistee, the person or team facing a challenge or problem, I had the opportunity to discuss the issue of getting buy-in from the Staff members of the Rome-based agencies (Bioversity International, IFAD, FAO, WFP) to participate in the upcoming Knowledge Fair. The discussion was facilitated by Vanessa.

 

During the first group discussion, I had the opportunity to detail out my issues and gather feedback from the colleagues. Once we finished the first session and moved to the second, the task of explaining the problem seemed much lighter. I detailed out the problem, refining it slightly based on the feedback I received in the first group. Vanessa then read out the points we had gathered from the first discussion. Because we already had covered some of the ideas, the participants felt that in the second round, they had the opportunity to build-on the ideas and give additional suggestions.

Here are just few of the ideas that surfaced during the two rounds of discussions we had:

• Prepare a strong marketing strategy to raise awareness and build interest
• Ensure that the event is perceived as a collaborative effort rather than led by just one organization
• Show examples of cross organizational, multi-disciplinary and multi-lingual knowledge sharing
• Involve staff from different departments from participating organizations who are currently doing activities that demonstrate knowledge sharing.

I thought the role of the facilitator was crucial in ensuring that the discussion stayed on track and that important points were well captured.

More information on the Peer Assist Method is available from the KS Toolkit Wiki.

 

How Do We Get Buy-in and Commitment to KS? How Do We Engage our Target Groups?

How do we get buy-in and commitment to KS, how do we engage our target groups?
This is an issue that came up over and over again as a principle challenge for KS during phase 1 of the workshop and also now in our meeting here in Addis. That is why we decided to give us an extra opportunity to tackle the issue in our first morning session. We choose the Peer Assist methodology and provided space for two groups: Grace Ndungu from ILRI wanted to get feedback on possible ways to engage participants into ILRI’s upcoming dialogue on climate change and health. Gauri Salokhe asked in her group for ideas and suggestions on how to get broad buy-in at FAO for the Knowledge Fair planned for December this year. Here is a summary of the two discussion rounds around Grace’s challenge:
IlRI and partner organizations have identified climate change and its consequences on human and livestock health as a niche for further research. Google provided funds to undertake a broad consultation in order to define pertinent research questions and be able to formulate proposals. ILRI has set up a working group composed by “champions” who represent the various actors. The following consultation process has been designed:

• A “challenge paper” has been written by scientists that lay out the overall framework and challenges
• An invitation has been sent to 200 stakeholders for participation.
• Their feedback on the paper will be taken into a count and build the starting point for an online dialogue to be held between June and August.
• A face to face meeting will be held in September.

Grace’s issues were summarized by the group and with the help of the facilitator, Florencia as follows:How to get buy-in from researchers from the climate change, health, and livestock sector, people who are not used to work together? How can we reach a level of trust that motivates participation? How could we address different types of participants with different levels of knowledge and different perspectives?

Here are some examples of feedback that Grace got from the two groups:

• Strengthen the group of champions (conference calls, pre-meeting) and promote the event through the champions to attract attention from stakeholders. Create short podcast with champions who could share the importance of the topic and consultation process.
• Don’t start from scratch, build on what you have (people, resources).
• Multiply the communication channels to address multiple publics and information consummation habits: A Web site with basic information resources, e-mail invitations that are forwarded by champions, a blog that could help diffuse the content of the challenge paper by small bits and cover the whole event.
• Create perhaps a linkage to the high-level conference on climate change in Rome in September.
• For the online dialogue, pay attention to the platform (e-mail or web based or both), the need of a facilitator, the rythme and structure over the weeks. Give options to time-poor participants to digest the dialogue.
• Look at materials, existing experiences and evaluations of on-line events.

 

Day 3 Agenda

 

Working Again on our projects and identifying KS Knowledge Gaps

In the afternoon we went back to our groups and worked further on our projects. We asked participants to think about the following: What are the next steps? What do you need to explore further? What are the gaps and what are your needs? When we came back into plenary, we asked participants to write each need or gap on cards and we sorted them into groups.

The following overall topics emerged and will be further discussed tomorrow morning:

• Identifying user needs
• How to choose the right tool?
• Get buy-in, commitment and engagement from the people we need to make KS work
• M&E of KS
• Peer Coaching
• RSS Feeds
• Communities of Practice Best Practices
• More Tools (Delicious, Dgroups, blogs, yellow pages)

Here are Grace, Gauri, and Sandra sorting the cards into thematic groups:

 

Pete: How Did you like Day 1 of our Workshop?

A short talk during the morning break with Peter Shelton from IFPRI about his perception of yesterday:

“Our small group discussions worked really well where we went through our projects and we identified pertinent questions, and issues related to each others projects and then from there we went through the SWOT analysis. Doing that collectively was a great exercise.
So far the workshop has been really good. The time for preparing our project posters and 2-minute presentations was too short. We focused then mostly on our posters to get the finished and couldn’t really listen to the other presentations. But so far I really enjoyed it.“

 

Tools, Tools, and More Tools

Before launch we did a 2 hour session on KS tools. Participants had identified previously a set of tools that they wanted to get to know better and discuss further.

We used the Commoncraft Show videos as an introduction and than shared our experiences, questions and answers. Here are some examples:

Wikis

• Can two people edit a wiki at the same time?
• What does History meanand what is it good for?
• SPAM is often a problem. It is better to have login and password protection.
• A specific version of Tiki Wiki allows you to work offline which is useful for those with bad connectivity (like our colleagues at ILRI campus in Ethiopia Also Google just released a service.
• Is the administrator is the only one who can change and go back to previous version?
• What are the weaknesses of wikis? Formatting issues, not easy to see tracked changes.
• Wikis focus on content and not on the voices of the contributor. Not good for conversations.

Blogs

• Stories: hard to keep up.
• It is useful to use plugins to send the same blog post to different blogs.
• When we have project blogs we tackle the problem of writing our personal thinking versus institutional messages. We need to get language right.
• Blogs don’t need to be a discussion forum, they can be used as an announcement mechanism.
• Difference between discussion forums and blogs. As far as blogs are concerned, there is a main blogger and the comments are secondary. In discussion forums everybody is on the same level which is better for equally distributed conversations.
• It is difficult to promote blogs when the center restricts access.

RSS

• With RSS feeds we subscribe to content and take it from one place to another.
• Does the use of RSS limit our spirit of discovery?
• RSS allows knowing quickly when our organizations are mentioned in the news.
• Gauri shared www.agrifeeds.org with the group which is a services where feeds from different web sites have been aggregated. It allows us to subscribe to selected feeds related to our specific interest.

Social Bookmarking

• How can I see what others are bookmarking?
• Being rigorous with tags is important.
• Recognition of tags in different languages will help to create multicultural bridges.

 

Learning More about Fishbowls

Fishbowls involve a small group of people -usually 5 to 8- seated in an inner circle, having a conversation in full view of a larger group of listeners sitting in a larger circle around the discussants. Fishbowl processes provide a creative way to include the “public” in a small group discussion. Fishbowls are useful for ventilating “hot topics” or sharing ideas or information from a variety of perspectives. Although largely self-organizing once the discussion gets underway, the fishbowl process usually has a facilitator or moderator. The fishbowl is almost always part of a larger process of dialogue and deliberation.

How did we apply it? For a general discussion to tackle an issue that participants of phase 1 identified as important (What are our challenges for KS within and among our organizations). We used a variation called the Samoan Circle, that offers others a chance to speak only if they join the ‘inner circle’.

After the discussion, we did a debrief on the method. Participants highlighted that it is not easy to get started. It seemd to many as being a good dynamic for brainstorming discussions, but not really for reaching conclusion. Participants thought that it could be used as a starting point for a meeting and in combination with other dynamics. We made the point that Fishbowl is a method that opens up (divergent) and does not lead to conclusion (convergent).

During coffe break Davy Simumba from the Zambian Agricultural Research Institute mentioned how much he liked the fishbowl: “ It helps to bring out issues and everybody was trying to jump in. I have to try to bring this into my organizations, within my group.”

See the KS toolkit on Fishbowl: http://kstoolkit.wikis.cgiar.org/Fish+Bowl

 

What Are the Challenges for KS Within and Among our Organizations?

We started day two of our workshop with a conversation about KS within and among development organizations: What are the challenges? We used a fish bowl dynamic for this session and here are some of the issues that came up:

• How can we know what Knowledge we need to share in order to “get it right” and avoid information overload?
• The importance of partnerships to reach farmers
• The potential of FAO / FARA collaboration to facilitate use and access of information
• KS with farmers: Most of us work for level of extensionists and policy makers, or universities. Dady from FARA shared their beginning experience with Innovation Platforms, CIFOR on conflict resolution
• How to measure impact of KS? Partially through SNA
• What are the incentives for KS and the important role of KS champions.
• Obstacles to KS: Evaluation and impact measurements based on publications, internal competition. There is a paradox with our mission to produce Global Public Goods.
• About creating a KS culture: We share more outside our organizations than inside (result of a FAO study)

 

Forming Groups of Related Projects

In the afternoon we spend some time sorting out the project posters to come up with a number of groups that could work together on their projects throughout the workshop. This was not an easy task: Should we group the projects by tools, by audiences, by themes?

We ended up with 5 groups who’s participants defined their area of common interest as follows:

1. Best KS practices. KS about KS
2. Intranets
3. Web sites for interactive information sharing
4. Get buy-in and make most out of communities
5. Foster communities based on regional priorities

Those groups then looked deeper into their commonalities through conversations and individual reflections on their project’s strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT). Here we see Vanessa, Nicole, Jean and Yuan using the project posters for their conversation:

 

Formulating Our Projects

Phase 2 of the KS Workshop is dedicated to the planning of KS activities that we will incorporate into our work and existing projects. To get the planning process started participants paired up, worked on their ideas and prepared posters that were then shared in plenary in 2-minute presentations.

Here is a Grace presenting her project. It is about constructing a dialogue between climate change and health communities. The dialogue will have an on-line and a face-to-face component, and aims to involve more than 200 participants from CG Centers and stakeholder organizations. Grace wonders for example how to assure to get buy-in from participants, and what platform to use for the on-line phase.