Why you do performance appraisal? Purpose of performance appraisal include elements as follows:
1. Career Development
• This provides an opportunity for discussion of career objectives, and creation of a strategy designed to maximize career potential.
• To provide an opportunity for career counseling
• To help in succession planning.
• To assess training needs
• To plan for career development
• To assess and develop individual abilities
• To provide an objective basis on which to base decisions about training and promotion
2. Feedback
• As well, feedback is encouraged in both directions: as such, employees are encouraged to prepare ratings of their supervisors.
• To provide constructive feedback to the individual regarding how their performance is seen.
• This provides a structured format for the discussion of performance issues
• on a regular basis.
• Feedback either reinforces performance strengths, or provides the opportunity to discuss resolution of performance deficiencies.
3. Administrative Uses of Performance appraisal
• Salary
• Promotion
• Retention/termination
• Recognition of performance
• Layoffs
• Identification of poor performers
4. Performance History
• This provides a performance history which is not dependent upon human memory, and which may be useful in the full range of personnel decisions, including compensation decision-making.
• To review past and present performance, identifying strengths and weaknesses.
5. Organizational Goals
• To clarify, for the individual, organizational expectations
• To set objectives for the next period
• This provides an opportunity to view one’s performance in the context of broader organizational goals.
• To assess future promotion prospects and potential
6. Job Standards
This provides an opportunity for clearer articulation and definition of performance expectations.
7. Documentation use of of Performance appraisal
• Documentation for HR decisions
• Helping to meet legal requirements
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Author: Davi Ngo, hrvinet.com
Published by admin on Jan 18, 2009 under Appraisal overview | Post your comment now
Performance appraisal procedure
PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL PROCESS / PROCEDURE
I / PURPOSE OF PROCEDURE:
• Provide an opportunity for the manager and his/her supervisor to set mutual objectives.
• Provide a fair and effective means for making personnel decisions.
• Recognize the importance of the manager’s contribution to institutional success.
• Provide a forum for open discussion of the manager’s individual strengths and for the identification of areas where improvement is needed.
• Improve the performance of the manager and, consequently, of the unit administered.
• Enhance the credibility of the management process, including the process by which decisions are made, in the eyes of those affected by the process.
II / SCOPE OF PROCEDURE:
• Apply for the evaluation of the entire company.
III / DEFINITIONS:
• No.
IV / CONTENTS OF PROCEDURE:
1. Identify performance criteria:
• The number of appraisal criteria for each position is from 3 – 10 criteria.
• The standards set should be clear, easily understandable and in measurable terms
• The appraisal criteria can be changed but must be the authority for approval and must be implemented for the relevant level before applying.
• HR department and managers/ supervisor will set up weight of each criteria and must be approved directors.
2. Communicating performance criteria:
• HR department should inform this procedure to all level of management and employees.
• The employees should be informed and the standards should be clearly explained in order to help them understanding their roles and to know what exactly is expected from them.
• Performance criteria should also be communicated to the appraisers or the evaluators and if required.
3. Measuring performance
Prepare.
HR dept should prepare all materials, notes agreed tasks and records of performance, achievements, incidents, reports etc – anything pertaining to performance and achievement.
Inform the appraisee:
• To ensure the appraisee is informed of a suitable time and place and clarify purpose and type of appraisal.
• Give the appraisee the chance to assemble data and relevant performance and achievement records and materials.
Review and measure
HR dept and managers / supervisors review the activities, tasks, objectives and achievements one by one, keeping to distinct separate items one by one.
Agree an action plan
• An overall plan should be agreed with the appraisee, which should take account of the job responsibilities and review strengths and weaknesses.
• The plan can be staged if necessary with short, medium and long term aspects, but importantly it must be agreed and realistic.
4. Comparing with desired criteria
• The actual performance is compared with the desired or performance criteria.
• The result can show the actual performance being more than the desired performance or, the actual performance being less than the desired performance depicting a negative deviation in the organizational performance.
5. Discussing results
The result of the appraisal should be communicated and discussed with the employees.
• The results, the problems and the possible solutions are discussed with the aim of problem solving and reaching consensus.
• The feedback should be given with a positive attitude as this can have an effect on the employees’ future performance.
• The purpose of the meeting should be to solve the problems faced and motivate the employees to perform better.
V/ FORMS ATTACHED:
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Problems in performance appraisal
PROBLEMS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
1. Problems with leniency and strictness:
• The leniency bias crops when some raters have a tendency to be liberal in their rating by assigning higher rates consistently.
• Equally damaging one is assigning consistently low rates.
2. Problems with central tendency:
• Some raters appraise all the employees around the middle point of the rating scale and they avoid rating the people higher or lower level.
• They follow play safe policy because of answer ability to management or lack of knowledge about the job and person he is rating or least interest in his job.
3. Problems with personal prejudice:
If the rater dislikes any employee, he may rate them at the lower end and this may distort the rating purpose and affect the career of these employees.
4. Problems with halo effect:
• A person outstanding in one area tends to receive outstanding or better than average ratings in other areas as well, even when such a rating is undeserved
• To minimizing the halo effect, you should appraise all the employees by one trait before going to rate on the basis of another trait.
5. Problems with recent performance effect:
In general, raters remember the recent appraisal of the employee and they usually follow appraisal results last time.
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Performance appraisal methods
(Tools of ) Performance appraisal methods include 11 methods / types as follows:
1. Critical incident method
The critical incidents for performance appraisal is a method in which the manager writes down positive and negative performance behavior of employees throughout the performance period
2. Weighted checklist
This method describe a performance appraisal method where rater familiar with the jobs being evaluated prepared a large list of descriptive statements about effective and ineffective behavior on jobs
3. Paired comparison analysis
Paired comparison analysis is a good way of weighing up the relative importance of options.
A range of plausible options is listed. Each option is compared against each of the other options. The results are tallied and the option with the highest score is the preferred option.
4. Graphic rating scales
The Rating Scale is a form on which the manager simply checks off the employee’s level of performance.
This is the oldest and most widely method used for performance appraisal.
5. Essay Evaluation
This method asked managers / supervisors to describe strengths and weaknesses of an employee’s behavior. Essay evaluation is a non-quantitative technique
This method usually use with the graphic rating scale method.
6. Behaviorally anchored rating scales
This method used to describe a performance rating that focused on specific behaviors or sets as indicators of effective or ineffective performance.
It is a combination of the rating scale and critical incident techniques of employee performance evaluation.
7. Performance ranking method
Ranking is a performance appraisal method that is used to evaluate employee performance from best to worst.
Manager will compare an employee to another employee, rather than comparing each one to a standard measurement.
8. Management By Objectives (MBO)
MBO is a process in which managers / employees set objectives for the employee, periodically evaluate the performance, and reward according to the result.
MBO focuses attention on what must be accomplished (goals) rather than how it is to be accomplished (methods)
9. 360 degree performance appraisal
360 Degree Feedback is a system or process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them.
10.Forced ranking (forced distribution)
Forced ranking is a method of performance appraisal to rank employee but in order of forced distribution.
For example, the distribution requested with 10 or 20 percent in the top category, 70 or 80 percent in the middle, and 10 percent in the bottom.
11. Behavioral Observation Scales
Behavioral Observation Scales is frequency rating of critical incidents that worker has performed.
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Critical incident method of performance appraisal
1. Definition of Critical incident method
• Critical incident is a method used for many sectors.
• Critical incident method- Recording of events by appraiser. An incident is critical when it illustrates what the employers has done or failed to do
• The critical incidents for performance appraisal is a method in which the manager writes down positive and negative performance behavior of employees throughout the performance period.
• Each employee will be evaluated as such and one’s performance appraisal will be based on the logs that are put in the evaluation form.
• The manager maintains logs on each employee, whereby he periodically records critical incidents of the workers behavior.
• At the end of the rating period, these recorded critical incidents are used in the evaluation of the workers’ performance.
• The critical incidents file of performance appraisal is a form of documentation that reflect all data about employee performances.
2. Disadvantages of critical Incident
This method suffers however from the following limitations:
• Critical incidents technique of evaluation is applied to evaluate the performance of superiors rather than of peers of subordinates.
• The supervisors have a tendency to unload a series of complaints about incidents during an annual performance review session.
• Negative incidents may be more noticeable than positive incidents.
• It results in very close supervision which may not be liked by the employee.
• The recording of incidents may be a chore for the manager concerned, who may be too busy or forget to do it.
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Weighted checklist
1. Definition of weighted checklist
This method describe a performance appraisal method where rater familiar with the jobs being evaluated prepared a large list of descriptive statements about effective and ineffective behavior on jobs.
2. Process of weighted checklist
• HR department and Managers / Supervisors will set up checklist for each position.
• If the rater believes strongly that the employee possesses a particular listed trait, he checks the item; otherwise, he leaves the item blank.
3. Sample of weighted checklist
• Does he give respect to his superiors? Yes/No
• Does he follow instructions properly? Yes/No
• Does he make mistakes frequently? Yes/No
The value of each question may be weighted equally or certain questions may be weighted more heavily than others.
4. Advantages and disadvantages of weighted checklist
• This method help the manager in evaluation of the performance of the employee.
• The rater may be biased in distinguishing the positive and negative questions. He may assign biased weights to the questions.
• This method also is expensive and time consuming.
• It becomes difficult for the manager to assemble, analyze and weigh a number of statements about the employee’s characteristics, contributions and behaviors.
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Paired comparison analysis
1. Definition of paired comparison analysis
• Paired comparison analysis is a good way of weighing up the relative importance of options.
• A range of plausible options is listed. Each option is compared against each of the other options. The results are tallied and the option with the highest score is the preferred option.
2. Advantages and disadvantages of paired comparison analysis
• It is useful where priorities are not clear.
• It is particularly useful where you do not have objective data to base this on.
• It helps you to set priorities where there are conflicting demands on your resources.
• This makes it easy to choose the most important problem to solve, or select the solution that will give you the greatest advantage.
3. Steps to conduct paired comparison analysis
• List the options you will compare (elements as A, B, C, D, E for example).
• Create a table 6 rows and 7 column.
• Write down option to column and row; A to row second, cell first from left and A to row first, cell second from left; B to row third, cell first from left and B to row first, cell third from left etc; column seventh is total point.
• Identify importance from 0 (no difference) to 3 (major difference).
• Compare element “A” to B, C, D, E and place “point” at each cell.
• Finally, consolidate the results by adding up the total of all the values for each of the options. You may want to convert these values into a percentage of the total score.
4. Paired comparison in performance appraisal
• The term used to describe an appraisal method for ranking employees.
• We use the above model to appraise employee’ s performance.
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Graphic rating scales
1. Definition of the rating scales
• The Rating Scale is a form on which the manager simply checks off the employee’s level of performance.
• This is the oldest and most widely method used for performance appraisal.
• The scales may specify five points, so a factor such as job knowledge might be rated 1 (poorly informed about work duties) to 5 (has complete mastery of all phases of the job).
2. Content of appraisal
• Quantity of work. Volume of work under normal working conditions
• Quality of work. Neatness, thoroughness and accuracy of work Knowledge of job.
• Dependability. Conscientious, thorough, reliable, accurate, with respect to attendance, relief, lunch breaks, etc.
• Judgment
• attitude. Exhibits enthusiasm and cooperativeness on the job
• Cooperation . Willingness and ability to work with others to produce desired goals.
• Initiative.
3. Rating scales
Rating scales can include 5 elements as follows:
• Unsatisfactory
• Fair
• Satisfactory
• Good
• Outstanding
4. Advantages of the rating scales
• Graphic rating scales are less time consuming to develop.
• They also allow for quantitative comparison.
5. Disadvantages of the rating scales
• More validity comparing workers ratings from a single supervisor than comparing two workers who were rated by different supervisors.
• Different supervisors will use the same graphic scales in slightly different ways.
• One way to get around the ambiguity inherent in graphic rating scales is to use behavior based scales, in which specific work related behaviors are assessed.
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Essay evaluation
1. Definition of essay evaluation
• This method asked managers / supervisors to describe strengths and weaknesses of an employee’s behavior. Essay evaluation is a non-quantitative technique
• This method usually use with the graphic rating scale method.
2. Input of information sources
• Job knowledge and potential of the employee;
• Employee’s understanding of the company’s programs, policies, objectives, etc.;
• The employee’s relations with co-workers and superiors;
• The employee’s general planning, organizing and controlling ability;
• The attitudes and perceptions of the employee, in general.
3. Disadvantages of essay evaluation
• Manager / supervisor may write a biased essay.
• Some evaluators may be poor in writing essays on employee performance. Others may be superficial in explanation and use flowery language which may not reflect the actual performance of the employee.
• A busy rater may write the essay hurriedly without properly assessing the actual performance of the worker.
• Apart from that, rater takes a long time, this becomes uneconomical from the view point of the firm, because the time of rater is costly.
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Behaviorally anchored rating scales
1. Definition of behaviorally anchored rating scales (BARS):
• This method used to describe a performance rating that focused on specific behaviors or sets as indicators of effective or ineffective performance.
• It is a combination of the rating scale and critical incident techniques of employee performance evaluation.
2. Classification of behaviorally anchored rating scales:
• Behavioral observation scales
• Behavioral expectations scales
• Numerically anchored rating scales
3. Rating scales
Each behavior can rate at one of 7 scales as follows (you can set scales depend on your requirements)
• Extremely poor (1 points)
• Poor (2 points)
• Below average (3 points)
• Average (4 points)
• Above average (5 points)
• Good (6 points)
• Extremely good (7 points)
4. Advantages and disadvantages of behaviorally anchored rating scales:
• This method are very useful and exactly.
• It is very difficult to develop this method because you need to identify what is “good level” etc.
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Performance ranking
1. Definition of performance ranking method
Ranking is a performance appraisal method that is used to evaluate employee performance from best to worst.
Manager will compare an employee to another employee, rather than comparing each one to a standard measurement.
2. Rating scale of ranking
• Much better – 5 points
• Slightly better – 4 points
• Equal – 3 points
• Slightly worst – 2 points
• Much worst – 1 point
3. Process of ranking
• The scaled comparison asks a rater or evaluator to compare the performance of two individuals.
• Give point to employee, for example: A is Slightly better – 4 points so that B is Slightly worst – 2 points.
• Continue comparison to other two employees.
• Total points to each employee.
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Management By Objectives (MBO)
1. Definition of Management By Objectives (MBO)
• MBO is a process in which managers / employees set objectives for the employee, periodically evaluate the performance, and reward according to the result.
• MBO focuses attention on what must be accomplished (goals) rather than how it is to be accomplished (methods).
2. Classification of Objectives
• Corporate objectives
• Functional objectives
• Individual objectives
3. Conditions of Management By Objectives
An objective must be satisfied SMART conditions:
• Specific,
• Measurable,
• Achievable,
• Relevant, and
• Time-Specific.
4. Advantages of MBO
• It is based on the assumption that the individual (employee) knows more than anyone else about her/his own capabilities, needs, strengths, weaknesses and goals.
• A further advantage of MBO is that the emphasis is on the future rather than on the past. Appraisal thus becomes a means to a constructive end.
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360 degree performance appraisal
1. Definition of 360 degree performance appraisal
360 Degree Feedback is a system or process in which employees receive confidential, anonymous feedback from the people who work around them.
2. Who should conduct 360 degree performance appraisal?
• Peers.
• Managers (i.e. superior).
• Subordinates.
• Team members.
• Customers.
• Suppliers/ vendors.
• Anyone who comes into contact with the employee and can provide valuable insights and information.
3. What’s 360 degree measures?
• 360 degree measures behaviors and competencies.
• 360 degree provide feedback on how others perceive an employee.
• 360 degree addresses skills such as listening, planning, and goal-setting.
• 360 degree focuses on subjective areas such as teamwork, character, and leadership effectiveness.
4. 360 degree appraisal has four components:
• Self appraisal
• Superior’s appraisal
• Subordinate’s appraisal
• Peer appraisal.
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Forced ranking (forced distribution)
1. Definition of forced ranking (forced distribution)
Forced ranking is a method of performance appraisal to rank employee but in order of forced distribution.
For example, the distribution requested with 10 or 20 percent in the top category, 70 or 80 percent in the middle, and 10 percent in the bottom.
The top-ranked employees are considered “high-potential” employees and are often targeted for a more rapid career and leadership development programs.
In contrast, those ranked at the bottom are denied bonuses and pay increases. They may be given a probationary period to improve their performance.
2. Application of Forced Ranking
GE, Ford Motor, Conoco, Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, EDS, Enron and a host of other U.S. corporations have adopted similar policies of this method
3. Advantages and disadvantages of forced Ranking
Advantages:
• They create and sustain a high performance culture in which the workforce continuously improves.
• They force reluctant managers to make difficult decisions and identify the most and least talented members of the work group.
Disadvantages
• They increase unhealthy cut-throat competitiveness;
• They discourage collaboration and teamwork;
• They harm morale;
• They are legally suspect giving rise to age discrimination cases.
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Behavioral Observation Scales
Behavioral Observation Scales
1. Definition of Behavioral Observation Scales (BOS)
• Behavioral Observation Scales is frequency rating of critical incidents that worker has performed.
• The BOS was developed by Latham & Wexley (1977) who believed that both graphic rating scales and BARS require supervisors to make vague judgments.
• The BOS is a list of critical incidents behaviors which the supervisor has to rate in terms of frequency.
2. Rating scales
We use 5 scales as follows to identify frequency of behavior.
• Never
• Seldom
• Sometimes
• Generally
• Always
3. Identification of critical incidents
Items indicate either desired or undesired aspects of work performance, for examples :
• Worker misses workdays ________
• Worker never needs her/his work to be double checked _______
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Performance appraisal examples
Samples / examples of performance appraisal are popular in staff / employee appraisal with organizations, human resource department, managers.
This information will help you develop effective Performance appraisal.
You can use free sample / example job specifications as follows:
1. Performance appraisal form
This is general form for performance appraisal.
2. Manager performance appraisal form
This form is a performance appraisal sample used for manager position.
3. Employee performance appraisal form
This form is a performance appraisal sample used for staff position.
4. Essay evaluation form
This form is based on essay evaluation method of performance appraisal.
5. Forced Choice form
This form is a performance appraisal sample based on forced choice method of performance appraisal.
6. Weighted checklist form
This form is based on weighted checklist method of performance appraisal.
7. Rating scale form
This form is a performance appraisal sample based on rating scales method of performance appraisal.
8. Employee self appraisal form
This form is a performance appraisal sample based on appraisal self by employee.
Related documents
• Purpose of performance appraisal
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Performance appraisal form
I/ RATING SCALES OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL FORM:
We can use scales as follows for this performance appraisal form.
1. Unsatisfactory: Major improvements needed.
2. Needs Improvement: Less than Satisfactory, could be doing better.
3. Meets Expectations: Performing duties as directed with minimal Supervision.
4. Excellent: Performing all duties in a cost-effective manner with positive, measurable results.
5. Outstanding: Performing at a level above and beyond the duties of the current position’s requirements.
II/ CONTENTS OF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL FORM:
1. Quality of work
• Consider accuracy, thoroughness, effectiveness.
• Pressure, ability to meet standards of quality.
• Use of time and volume of work accomplished.
• Work output matches the expectations established.
2. Quantity of work
• Competence, thoroughness, and efficiency of work regardless of volume.
• Neatness and accuracy.
3. Teamwork:
• Establish and maintain effective working relationship with others.
• Shares information and resources with others
• Follows instructions of supervisor and respond to requests from others in the team in a helpful manner.
• Contributing work and effort to group performance to meet agreed upon objectives and achieve team success
4. Job knowledge
• Application of appropriate level of technical and procedural knowledge in specific field
• Degree of technical competence
• Understanding of job procedures, methods, facts and information related to assignments.
• Perform duties with minimal supervision but seek guidance where and when appropriate to the job, consults the appropriate staff
5. Initiative
• Consider the extent to which the employee sets own constructive work practice and recommends and creates own procedures.
• Self-starter, develop and implement new methods, procedures, solutions, concepts, designs and/or applications of existing designs or procedures.
• Accepts additional challenges and responsibilities and willingly assist others, self-reliant.
• Completes assignment on time.
6. Interpersonal relations
• Consider the extent to which the employee is cooperative, considerate, and tactful in dealing with supervisors, subordinates, peers, faculty, students and others.
7. Health and safety compliance
• The degree to which he or she complies with or over sees the compliance with university safety rules.
• The following are also to be completed for supervisory personnel and members of the administrative staff.
8. Communications abilities
Performance appraisal of communications include elements as:
• Ability to listen and understand information;
• Presents information in a clear and concise manner.
• Knows appropriate way of communicating with immediate superiors and the management
• Demonstrates respect for all individuals in all forms of communication
• Regardless of their background or culture;
9. Planning and organizing :
• Adapting to changes and using resources effectively;
• Maintains confidentiality as appropriate.
• Setting objectives, establishing priorities, developing plans ;
• Arranging work schedules and prioritizing work to meet deadlines.
• Know when to ask for clarification before proceeding on a work project.
10. Problem analysis and decision making
• Anticipating problems and facilitate problem resolution.
• Willingness to make necessary and immediate decisions given incomplete information.
• Understanding practical and workable solutions.
• Recognizing when a decision is necessary, asking for input, making decisions and providing information and feedback in a timely manner.
11. Staff development
• The extent to which the individual provides guidance and opportunities to his or her staff for their development and advancement in the university.
12. Dependability
Performance appraisal of dependability include elements as:
• Consider the extent to which the employee completes assignments on time and carries out instructions.
• Starts work at appropriate time;
• Respects time allowed for breaks and lunch;
• Follows policies for requesting and reporting time off;
• Helps ensure work duties are covered when absent;
• Employee’s presence can be relied upon for planning purposes.
• Attendance and punctuality meets supervisor’s requirements.
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Manager performance appraisal form
MANAGER PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL FORM
I / MANAGER INFORMATION:
• Name
• Date
• Job Title
• Date of Last Review
• Department:
• Appraiser Name
II/ PERFORMANCE ACHIEVEMENT
• You should design table with columns as No, agreed objectives, weight, result, total score.
• This table is used for objective performance.
III/ COMPETENCIES
1. Identify competencies needed for job, for example:
• Technical skills
• Financial skills
• Decision making ability
• Analytical ability / problem solving
• Initiative/perseverance/enthusiasm
• Flexibility
• Written communication skills
• Oral communication skills
• Customer focus
• Teamwork
• Organizational ability.
• Negotiating skills
2. Rating scales can be:
• 1 = Exceptional
• 2 – Strong
• 3 = Fully Competent
• 4 = Continued Development
• 5 = Poor
• N = Not Applicable
IV/ MANAGEMENT SKILLS
1. Staff Development/ Mentoring
2. Influencing Skills
3. Analytical/Conceptual Thinking
4. Ability to Lead a Team
5. Using Business Acumen
6. Coaching skill etc
V/ DISCUSSIONS
1. Strengths (examples of where individual has excelled).
2. Developmental needs (areas that need strengthening, additional experience/exposure).
VI/ OVERALL RATING
1. Rating scales
• Exceptional
• Strong
• Fully Competent
• Continued Development
• Poor
• New to Position
2. Definition of each element:
• Exceptional (clearly outstanding performance). Performance falls within top 5 – 10 % of employees at his/her level.
• Strong (excellent performance). Performance falls within top 15% of the employees at his/her level.
• Fully Competent (solid performance). Consistently meets expectations. Two-thirds of your employees should fall within this category.
• Continued Development. Needs development in current position. Overall performance is somewhat lower than expected for the current position.
• Poor (unsatisfactory performance). Performance is clearly below what is expected at current position/level.
• New to Position. Employee has been in position for less than six (6) months.
VII/ MANAGER COMMENTS
VIII/ SIGNATURES:
The employee’s signature below indicates that a performance development discussion was conducted on the specified date, but does not necessarily indicate agreement with the content of the session.
Manager / Supervisor Signature Supervisor Signature
Date Date.
Distribution: (1) Copy to HR departmental Personnel File (2) Copy to line manager. (3) Copy to Manager / Supervisor.
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Employee performance appraisal form
EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL FORM
I / EMPLOYEE INFORMATION:
• Name
• Date
• Job Title
• Date of Last Review
• Department:
• Appraiser Name
II/ PERFORMANCE ACHIEVEMENT
• You should design table with columns as No, agreed objectives, weight, result, total score.
• This table is used for objective performance
III/ COMPETENCIES
1. Identify competencies needed for job, for example:
• Written communication skills
• Oral communication skills
• Customer focus
• Teamwork
• Organizational ability.
• Negotiating skills
• Technical skills
• Financial skills
• Decision making ability
• Analytical ability / problem solving
• Initiative/perseverance/enthusiasm
• Flexibility
2. Rating scales can be:
1 = Exceptional
2 – Strong
3 = Fully Competent
4 = Continued Development
5 = Poor
N = Not Applicable
IV/ DISCUSSIONS
1. Strengths (examples of where individual has excelled).
2. Developmental needs (areas that need strengthening, additional experience/exposure).
V/ OVERALL RATING
1. Rating scales
• Exceptional
• Strong
• Fully Competent
• Continued Development
• Poor
• New to Position
2. Definition of each element:
• Exceptional (clearly outstanding performance). Performance falls within top 5 – 10 % of employees at his/her level.
• Strong (excellent performance). Performance falls within top 15% of the employees at his/her level.
• Fully Competent (solid performance). Consistently meets expectations. Two-thirds of your employees should fall within this category.
• Continued Development. Needs development in current position. Overall performance is somewhat lower than expected for the current position.
• Poor (unsatisfactory performance). Performance is clearly below what is expected at current position/level.
• New to Position. Employee has been in position for less than six (6) months.
VI/ EMPLOYEE COMMENTS
———————–
———————–
VII/ SIGNATURES:
The employee’s signature below indicates that a performance development discussion was conducted on the specified date, but does not necessarily indicate agreement with the content of the session.
Employee Signature Supervisor Signature
Date Date.
Distribution: (1) Copy to HR departmental Personnel File (2) Copy to line manager. (3) Copy to Employee.
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Author: Davi Ngo, hrvinet.com
Published by admin on Jan 21, 2009 under Performance appraisal form, Sample performance appraisal | Post your comment now
Essay evaluation form
Essay evaluation form
HR department can design questions as follows and send to line manager for appraising.
1. Please give examples of the employee’s ineffective behavior
——–
——–
2. Please give examples of the employee’s effective behavior
——–
——–
3. What steps have been taken (or will be taken) to modify ineffective behavior?
——–
——–
4. Does the jobholder’s job description need revision? And how to?
——–
——–
5. What are additional comments related to the conditions and circumstances of effective/ineffective behavior?
——–
——–
6. Jobholder’s comments
——–
——–
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Forced Choice form
Forced Choice form
1. Design question Forced Choice
Requirements of questions: both statements in the pair may be positive or negative.
• Quality of work: ____quality is good____
• Absent too often: ____works hard____
• Learns quickly: ____work is reliable____
• Performance is exemplary: ____usually tardy____
2. Deployment of Forced Choice form
• This form is conducted by line manager.
• The rater is required to choose the most descriptive statement in each pair of statements.
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Weighted checklist form
Weighted checklist form
1. Identify question:
Based on elements of job performance, you can design questions as follows (for example)
• Employee cooperatively assists coworkers who need help
• Employee plans actions before beginning work
• Employee works overtime when asked to
• Employee keeps work station well organized
• Employee listens to advice but seldom follows it
2. Design table of checklist
• You should design a table with 5 columns: No, Question, Yes / No, Weight.
• Then, Using benchmarking to identify weight of each question.
• Send this form to employees for answer (stick yes or no).
• Identify result by summarizing all points at weight column.
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Author: Davi Ngo, hrvinet.com
Published by admin on Jan 20, 2009 under Sample performance appraisal | Post your comment now
Rating scale form
1. Elements of the rating scale
Elements for performance appraisal can includes as follows.
• Quality of work
• Quantity of work
• Dependability
• Initiative
• Overall Output
• Attendance
• Attitude
• Cooperation
For each element, you can ask some questions.
2. Rating scales:
Rating scales of each element above can include scales as follows:
• Excellent – 5 points
• Good – 4 points
• Acceptable – 3 points
• Fair – 2 points
• Poor – 1 point
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Self appraisal form
EMPLOYEE SELF APPRAISAL FORM
Review period: from ___to___
Name:
Department:
Position:
Job code:
Based on your job description and current work assignments, please answer questions as follows:
1. Please list your most significant accomplishments or contributions during this appraisal period.
2. Describe any factors, positive or negative, you feel may have helped or hindered in meeting your formal or informal goals or objectives.
3. Have you successfully performed any new tasks or additional duties outside the scope of your regular responsibilities? If so, please specify.
4. What skills do you have that you feel could be used more effectively?
5. Describe the areas you feel require improvement in terms of your professional development. List the steps you plan to take and/or the resources you need to accomplish this.
6. In your opinion, how does the work you perform align with or support the objectives of the University Mission Statement?
7. List 2-4 of your career goals for the coming year and indicate how you plan to accomplish them.
8. Please evaluate yourself on the following factors: outstanding, very competent, satisfactory, needs improvement
• Interpersonal Skills
• Time Management Skills
• Teamwork
• Innovation/Creativity
Please use this space to provide any additional comments.
Please attach additional sheets if necessary.
Employee Signature:
Date:
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2. Self evaluation form
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4. Self appraisal questions
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6. Self performance appraisal
Published by admin on Jan 20, 2009 under Performance appraisal form, Sample performance appraisal
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
UNDERSTANDING THE KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
No hyperbolae about 'knowledge management' here.
'Knowledge management' does not appear in the syllabus of the MBA at the London Business School although a seminar is offered at the Doctoral level. At the Manchester Business School, a Google search on the site revealed no information on courses on 'knowledge management' in the MBA programme, and the subject does not appear in the lists of core and elective courses.
The Said Business School at Oxford University appears to have no core or elective course in 'knowledge management' in its MBA programme' However, one of the core courses, 'People and organizations' includes "managing knowledge and change', and 'Managing knowledge-based organizations' has been offered as an elective.
At the Cass Business School, City University, London, there are about twenty links to 'knowledge management' on the site, but none link to core or elective courses in the MBA programme. Most of them link to research topics: for example, a team working on 'Operations management and quantitative analysis', refer to 'Information and knowledge management - model building skills, management learning', as a key topic. The usual confusion between 'information' and 'knowledge' can be seen: the main paragraph on this page refers to '…applying innovative systems thinking and information management to improve business performance and learning.'
Warwick University Business School, which is another leading UK institution and the joint home (the other institution is the University of Oxford) of the ESRC Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organizational Performance, does not have a course on 'knowledge management' in its MBA programme. It does, however, have a course on 'information management'.
One's overall impression, from this review of business school sites is that the most prestigious steer well away from 'knowledge management', other than in the statements of interest of faculty. Nor does the subject appear to enter significantly into the teaching programmes. The sites often include documents in the form of reports, working papers, or draft papers and these reveal the same difficulties with the concept as shown in the review of journals.
Introduction
The growth of 'knowledge management' as a strategy of consultancy companies is one of a series of such strategies dating from Taylor's (1911) 'scientific management' of the early part of the last century. 'Time and motion study' developed directly out of scientific management and continued into the 1970s as a widespread industrial engineering technique. In the late 1930s, the 'human relations school' emerged out of research between 1927 and 1932 at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago (Mayo, 1933) and had a considerable influence in the emerging consultancy companies after the Second World War.
In the second half of the last century, the pace of new techniques quickened considerably: we have seen (not in chronological order and not a complete list):
'the repertory grid' 'management by objectives'
'theory X and theory Y' 'T-groups'
'the matrix organization' 'Planning Programming Budgeting System'
'zero-based budgeting' 'organization development'
'total quality management' 'downsizing'
'organizational learning' 'systems thinking'
'team-building' 'cultural change'
'strategic information systems' 'benchmarking'
'ISO9000 certification' 'the balanced scorecard'
'core competencies' 'business process re-engineering'
'enterprise resource planning' 'customer relationship management'
and now
'knowledge management'.
These have sometimes been called management fads and fashions, but it would be wrong to assume that, for that reason, they all lacked effectiveness when applied in organizations. Some, however, have been disastrous: Stephen Roach, Chief Economist at Morgan Stanley, was a strong protagonist for downsizing, arguing that it was the cure for any company's problems, but in 1997 he reversed that opinion, arguing that, on the contrary, it could be a recipe for industrial disaster. Jenkins (1997) reports Cameron, a researcher in organizational behaviour, as saying that, "downsizing [is] the most pervasive yet unsuccessful change effort in the business world". Some techniques fail, or at least are dropped from the repertoire, because they are Utopian in character: organizations are told that the technique must be applied throughout the organization for the full benefits to be achieved. This was the case with business process re-engineering, but businesses quickly realised that the costs of carrying out BPR throughout the organization would be crippling and, because they attempted to apply the technique to only part of the company, the results were less than satisfactory - in fact, two thirds of BPR efforts are said to have failed (Hall, et al., 1994). Knowledge management (whatever it is) also shows signs of being offered as a Utopian ideal and the results are likely to be similar.
'Knowledge' and 'information'
In management consultancy it is, perhaps, not too serious to fail to distinguish between related concepts (although I suspect that management researchers would not be happy with this proposition), but for the fields of information science and information systems, it is clearly necessary for us to distinguish between 'information' and 'knowledge'. Failure to do so results in one or other of these terms standing as a synonym for the other, thereby confusing anyone who wishes to understand what each term signifies.
Happily, it is quite easy to distinguish between 'knowledge' and 'information' in such a way as to remove ambiguity and, at the same time, demonstrate the fundamental nonsense of 'knowledge management'.
'Knowledge' is defined as what we know: knowledge involves the mental processes of comprehension, understanding and learning that go on in the mind and only in the mind, however much they involve interaction with the world outside the mind, and interaction with others. Whenever we wish to express what we know, we can only do so by uttering messages of one kind or another - oral, written, graphic, gestural or even through 'body language'. Such messages do not carry 'knowledge', they constitute 'information', which a knowing mind may assimilate, understand, comprehend and incorporate into its own knowledge structures. These structures are not identical for the person uttering the message and the receiver, because each person's knowledge structures are, as Schutz (1967) puts it, 'biographically determined'. Therefore, the knowledge built from the messages can never be exactly the same as the knowledge base from which the messages were uttered.
In common usage, these two terms are frequently used as synonyms, but the task of the academic researcher is to clarify the use of terms so that the field of investigation has a clearly defined vocabulary. The present confusion over 'knowledge management' illustrates this need perfectly.
The consequence of this analysis is that everything outside the mind that can be manipulated in any way, can be defined as 'data', if it consists of simple facts, or as 'information', if the data are embedded in a context of relevance to the recipient. Collections of messages, composed in various ways, may be considered as 'information resources' of various kinds - collections of papers in a journal, e-mail messages in an electronic 'folder', manuscript letters in an archive, or whatever. Generally, these are regarded as 'information resources'. Thus, data and information may be managed, and information resources may be managed, but knowledge (i.e., what we know) can never be managed, except by the individual knower and, even then, only imperfectly. The fact is that we often do not know what we know: that we know something may only emerge when we need to employ the knowledge to accomplish something. Much of what we have learnt is apparently forgotten, but can emerge unexpectedly when needed, or even when not needed. In other words we seem to have very little control over 'what we know'.
Most of the time when I ask myself what is knowledge management you know lot many ideas flux into my memory to explain the meaning and dimensions of its very significance. Once I asked my professor who was known for his much philosophical approach explained the psyche of knowledge management .He narrated a small case that –once there were two products Product A and Product B .Both had a silent setback that none of them be able to capture the substantial demand in the market .The company was lining the products A and B in beverages where the bottle shape of product A was much larger than the size of product B but the beverages contained in both were same except the color and taste. Lot many research was initiated against such differentiation of product as to their demand but no point was prominent that could explain the possible downfall of demand as such. At last the company decided to replace the size of product A with the product B’s bottle and let product B remain intact with its falling what ever demand. After some time it was observed that the product A started its slight momentum? Now at this he posed a question now you tell me my dear student why it is gaining momentum .I cannot explain it was just passed off my stringent knowledge and creativity to assemble the root cause but I cant explain in any way rather than my dear professor was there to explain the phenomenon and it was so- “just now because the consumers cannot afford the taste because they were not able to consume its entire content in one go. Which other wise become a spoiled and remained no where to be consumed as it is too little in the proportion that remained for the next try at the customers wish and the customer remained unsatisfied and hence they never tried for that product any way for they believed that if they try for once more they again had to face the same experience a little for the next go but to no avail”.
After this he asked me now tell me what is the reason for the fall of product B I just thought with a trend followed up in the former context that they were not be able to quench the satisfaction of theirs and hence buying one more may be costing much for them and they must not be buying the next bottle B anyway. Immediately he perplexed at this thought and said well my philosopher student to acknowledge that you have said a crux where the exact knowledge management starts into this and you must know now that it is nothing other than standardizing the size of bottles to fit the exact range of satisfaction of consumers as to their quench level. So where is this knowledge management lies it lies into the depths of evoking the thoughts surmised by creative discoveries and hence establishing the benchmarks to follow the domain result and expected trend.
In the case it is where knowledge is no more without management. Knowledge to discover the fluctuations of proposed intake ratio of beverages and the management to standardize the bottle sizes according to the crux of knowledge discovered. Hence in knowledge management the element of knowledge strikes at first to assist reasons, rationale, wisdom of the probable cause and effect relationship and the management in turn synthesizes out of assisting reasons, rationale, wisdom of the probable cause and effect relationship to benchmark the identity of discovered facts.
Hence knowledge and management cannot be distinguished any way one establishes reasons (viz.knowledge) and other builds standards to commiserate the effective thought (viz. management) of the very knowledge management idea.
I managed to survive the Formula Fifties, the Sensitive Sixties, the Strategic Seventies, and the Excellent Eighties to exist in the Nanosecond Nineties, and for a time I thought I was headed for the Learning Organizational Oh's of the next decade. The misdirection I was caught up in was a focus on Knowledge Management not as a means, but as an end in itself. Yes, knowledge management is important, and I'll address reasons why shortly. But knowledge management should simply be one of many cooperating means to an end, not the end in itself, unless your job turns out to be corporate knowledge management director or chief knowledge officer. I'm quite sure it will come to this, for in some ways we are predictably consistent.
Without associations we have little chance of understanding anything. We understand things based on the associations we are able to discern. If someone says that sales started at $100,000 per quarter and have been rising 20% per quarter for the last four quarters, I am somewhat confident that sales are now about $207,000 per quarter. I am confident because I know what "rising 20% per quarter" means and I can do the math.
Yet, if someone asks what sales are apt to be next quarter, I would have to say, "It depends!" I would have to say this because although I have data and information, I have no knowledge. This is a trap that many fall into, because they don't understand that data doesn't predict trends of data. What predicts trends of data is the activity that is responsible for the data. To be able to estimate the sales for next quarter, I would need information about the competition, market size, extent of market saturation, current backlog, customer satisfaction levels associated with current product delivery, current production capacity, the extent of capacity utilization, and a whole host of other things. When I was able to amass sufficient data and information to form a complete pattern that I understood, I would have knowledge, and would then be somewhat comfortable estimating the sales for next quarter. Anything less would be just fantasy!
In this example what needs to be managed to create value is the data that defines past results, the data and information associated with the organization, it's market, it's customers, and it's competition, and the patterns which relate all these items to enable a reliable level of predictability of the future.What I would refer to as knowledge management would be the capture, retention, and reuse of the foundation for imparting an understanding of how all these pieces fit together and how to convey them meaningfully to some other person.
Tacit knowledge
Mention has been made more than once of the idea of 'tacit knowledge' and the idea of 'capturing' such knowledge is often presented as central to 'knowledge management'. However, what is 'tacit knowledge'? The term originates with Polanyi (1958), chemist turned philosopher of science, and has been described as:
'the idea that certain cognitive processes and/or behaviors are undergirded by operations inaccessible to consciousness' (Barbiero, n.d.)
This is the key point about Polanyi's concept: 'tacit' means 'hidden', tacit knowledge is hidden knowledge, hidden even from the consciousness of the knower. This is why Polanyi used the phrase 'We know more than we can tell.' A phrase parroted even by those who mis-use the idea and believe that this hidden knowledge, inaccessible to the consciousness of the knower, can somehow be 'captured'.
Polanyi equates tacit knowledge with 'acts of comprehension':
'tacit knowing achieves comprehension by indwelling, and... all knowledge consists of or is rooted in such acts of comprehension' (Polanyi, 1958)
In other words, 'tacit knowledge' involves the process of comprehension, a process which is, itself, little understood. Consequently, tacit knowledge is an inexpressible process that enables an assessment of phenomena in the course of becoming knowledgeable about the world. In what sense, then, can it be captured? The answer, of course, is that it cannot be 'captured' - it can only be demonstrated through our expressible knowledge and through our acts.
How did the idea that tacit knowledge could be 'captured' arise? The guilty party appears to be Nonaka, (1991) and Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995), who appear to have either misunderstood Polanyi's work, or deliberately distorted it to enable them to construct the well-known two-by-two diagram.
Having cited Polanyi as the source of the idea of 'tacit knowledge' and having noted that Polanyi refers to the process of 'indwelling', whereby people create knowledge of the world around them, Nonaka and Takeuchi go on to state that:
While Polanyi argues the contents for tacit knowledge further in a philosophic context, it is also possible to expand his idea [my emphasis] in a more practical direction. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995: 60)
They then note that:
Mental models, such as schemata, paradigms, perspectives, beliefs and viewpoints help individuals to perceive and define their world. (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995: 60)
and include such models within tacit knowledge. However, if such models can be expressed by the person they constitute not tacit knowledge, which, as noted earlier, is inexpressible, but expressible knowledge, which, when expressed, becomes information. Such previously unexpressed but expressible knowledge may be termed 'implicit' knowledge.
In fact, the example cited by Nonaka & Takeuchi (1995:63-64) makes it clear that implicit knowledge is being talked about here. The case of bread-making is discussed and the fact that the head baker of the Osaka International Hotel twisted the dough as well as stretching it, is given as an example of 'tacit' knowledge - but no-one appears to have asked the baker how he made the bread! I have no doubt that (as a bread-maker myself) that he would have been able to describe his bread-making process in detail, including the process of twisting. The approach appears to be, "If I see something I hadn't noticed before, or knew of before, then those actions, or whatever, must constitute tacit knowledge." As a research approach this is somewhat lacking, nor is it very helpful as a guide to discovering practice. One must also bear in mind the cultural context of this example: I asked a Japanese colleague whether someone acting the role of apprentice in Japan would think of questioning the 'master' and, of course, she shook her head and smiled. The 'apprentices' in the example would never have thought of asking.
Nonaka and Takeuchi put forward the proposition, embodied in the diagram, that 'tacit knowledge' is somehow derived from explicit knowledge and, by other means, is made explicit. However, it is clear, from the analysis above, that implicit knowledge, which is not normally expressed, but may be expressed, is actually intended here. Implicit knowledge is that which we take for granted in our actions, and which may be shared by others through common experience or culture. For example, in establishing a production facility in a foreign country, a company knows it needs to acquire local knowledge of 'how things are done here'. Such knowledge may not be written down, but is known by people living and working in the culture and is capable of being written down, or otherwise conveyed to those who need to know. The knowledge is implicit in the way people behave towards one another, and towards authority, in that foreign culture, and the appropriate norms of behaviour can be taught to the newcomers. Implicit knowledge, in other words, is expressible: tacit knowledge is not, and Nonaka would have saved a great deal of confusion had he chosen the more appropriate term. The critical reader might ask him/herself: 'Does it make any difference to the argument if, in the diagram, we replace "tacit knowledge" with "knowledge" and "explicit knowledge" with "information"?'
SOME MORE CONTENT ON KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
"Knowledge management will never work until corporations realize it's not about how you capture knowledge but how you create and leverage it."
Etienne Wenger
"In an industry with its entire foundation built upon R&D, I can’t think of anything more compelling than a solid KM strategy. It’s what will differentiate the winners from the losers in both the short-term and the long-term."
Claire Hogikyan
Knowledge management will never work until corporations realize it's not about how you capture knowledge but how you create and leverage it."
Etienne Wenger
Definition of Knowledge Management
There are several different, and sometimes quite confusing statements that claim to be a definition of Knowledge Management' and there are different perspectives on what Knowledge Management is. For example:
▪ KM is about systems and technologies
▪ KM is about people and learning organisations
▪ KM is about processes, methods and techniques
▪ KM is about managing knowledge assets
▪ KM is a holistic initiative across the entire organisation
▪ KM is not a discipline, as such, and should be an integral part of every knowledge workers daily responsibilities
What is most important, is for you to have your own definition of Knowledge Management; what KM is to you and your organisation. What is even more important is that you and your colleagues have a 'common shared understanding' of what KM means for you all.
To help you get started, we have included immediately below a few definitions of what KM means to some organisations. We suggest you consider them, together with any other definitions you may have, and see if there are any words or phrases that particularly 'resonate' with what you are trying to do. This will help you formulate your own definition of knowledge management.
At the end of this page, we invite you to share with us all, any definitions you have discovered and/or formulated. We can then all comment and rate the usefulness of each definition as we wish. This then provides us, at the bottom of this page, with a list of KM Definitions, listed in highest rated/ranked order, to help us even further. So please share your definitions and/or any comments or rating to definitions.
Some well known KM Definitions
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"If only HP knew what it knows it would make three times more profit tomorrow"
Lew Platt, ex CEO Hewlett Packard
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"Knowledge Management is the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organisations to collectively and systematically create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their objectives"
Ron Young, CEO/CKO Knowledge Associates International
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"Most activities or tasks are not one-time events. Whether its drilling a well or conducting a transaction at a service station, we do the same things repeatedly. Our philosophy is fairly simple: every time we do something again, we should do it better than the last time".
Sir John Steely Browne, BP, Harvard Business Review, 1997.
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"The capabilities by which communities within an organisation capture the knowledge that is critical to them, constantly improve it and make it available in the most effective manner to those who need it, so that they can exploit it creatively to add value as a normal part of their work"
GlaxoSmithKline
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"Knowledge management will deliver outstanding collaboration and partnership working. It will ensure the region maximizes the value of its information and knowledge assets and it will help its citizens to use their creativity and skills better, leading to improved effectiveness and greater innovation".
West Midlands Regional Observatory, UK
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"We recognise that our most important asset is people and their knowledge. We understand Knowledge Management (KM) as the cultivation of an environment within which people are willing to share, learn and collaborate together leading to improvement".
Care Services Improvement Partnership (CSIP)
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"Knowledge Management ('KM') comprises a range of practices used by organisations to identify, create, represent, and distribute knowledge. It has been an established discipline since 1995 with a body of university courses and both professional and academic journals dedicated to it. Many large companies have resources dedicated to Knowledge Management, often as a part of 'Information Technology' or 'Human Resource Management' departments. Knowledge Management is a multi-billion dollar world wide market.
Knowledge Management programs are typically tied to organisational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage innovation, lessons learnt transfer (for example between projects) and the general development of collaborative practices. Knowledge Management is frequently linked to the idea of the learning organisation although neither practice encompasses the other. Knowledge Management may be distinguished from Organisational Learning by a greater focus on specific knowledge assets and the development and cultivation of the channels through which knowledge flows"
Wikipedia
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Why Knowledge Management – the importance
There are several very major reasons why knowledge management should be very high on the agenda for 2009 for everyone.
The Knowledge Economy is the next booming economy in a world of recession
In a world that is facing economic recession many are starting to ask ‘What is going to be the next booming economy, what are its characteristics and, how will it help us to grow out of recession?’
At knowledge-management-online.com we strongly suggest that the next booming economy is already here! It’s the rapidly growing global knowledge economy!
More individuals, teams, organizations and inter-organizational networks will be restructuring and renewing themselves with the primary purpose of profitably trading their knowledge to add even higher value.
Already we see more enlightened organizations developing and applying the knowledge they have about their industry, customers, partners and stakeholders, as their prime asset, and at the highest point in the value chain. And many are becoming less involved, and more open to profitably outsourcing the other business operations.
Around the world we hear automobile companies talking far more about their critical and key knowledge ares of design, knowledge of manufacturing , knowledge of distribution, knowledge of service and support etc as their ‘crown jewels’ or ‘master recipe’.
Based on applying this key knowledge they then outsource the other business components. We hear the same from the aerospace industry, the oil and gas industry, the information technology industry, the food and agricultural industry, the healthcare industry, in fact most, if not all, industries.
Our knowledge mantra is 'know what you know the best, and link to the rest'
Knowledge has become the key asset for the 21st Century and for every organization that values knowledge it must invest in developing the best strategy for identifying, developing and applying the knowledge assets it needs, to succeed.
Every organization needs to invest in creating and implementing the best knowledge networks, processes, methods, tools and technologies. This will enable them to learn, create new knowledge, and apply the best knowledge much faster.
Every individual who wishes to successfully participate in the rapidly growing global knowledge economy must now consider the development of their personal knowledge management competencies as an ‘essential life skill’ for the 21st Century.
It has been said many times, ‘knowledge will radically and fundamentally transform economies’.
One thing is absolutely certain in this rapidly changing world. The best knowledge will always be in demand.
In, say, fifty years time you can be certain of one thing.Leaders of economies, industries and organizations will always be very interested in finding new and better ways to create and apply knowledge.
Knowledge is a timeless and changeless principle.
The strategies, methods and tools will undoubtedly change, but timeless principles will, of course, remain unchanged.
And to survive and succeed in the new global knowledge economy, we must become far more effective and more productive. We must always strive for the best relations and highest quality.
To do that, the successful organizations and individuals will not allow themselves to keep ‘re-inventing the wheel’ or ‘repeating the same mistakes. This is so costly and, we suggest that good leaders will simply not tolerate, nor be able to afford, such cost inefficiencies caused by knowledge gaps and bad knowledge flows.
Would the global financial crisis have been prevented or minimized with far more effective global knowledge management?
Finally, those individuals and organizations that can best sense, become quickly alerted to, find, organize, and apply knowledge, with a much faster response time, will simply leave the competition far behind.
All of this can only be achieved through good knowledge leadership that understands the unchanging timeless principles for knowledge, that transforms individuals and organisations to become far more responsive and effective players in a growing knowledge economy.
Then there needs to be proper implementation of the very best strategies, networks, processes, methods and tools for very effective knowledge working.
Knowledge Management is for everyone.
Global and/or Planetary Knowledge Management is becoming a reality.
It is our belief that the knowledge economy is rapidly becoming the largest and most successful and sustainable economy in the world.
Why knowledge management?
Today, some see it as a choice. Today, those that work with knowledge very well are considered extraordinary.
Those that fail to understand it will consider it as ‘extra effort’ to our main work, or consider it a passing fad. They will ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’.
We predict that effective and extraordinary knowledge management, at all levels, for the individual, team, organization and global community will naturally become mainstream and ordinary, as the only way to successfully develop and grow.
More articles and reports on the importance of knowledge development to the national economies, and knowledge management to organizations and individuals, can be found as follows:
More articles on knowledge management
Report from World Bank Institute -'Measuring Knowledge in the World's Economies'
Ron Young
Knowledge Management - Back to Basic Principles
In this article, I would like to present some of my most recent thoughts, ideas and developments concerning Knowledge Management. It is based on a keynote conference presentation that I gave in New Delhi in February 2008 hosted by the Asian Productivity Organization and the National Productivity Council of India.
I wish to discuss Knowledge Management in the 21st Century by first going back to some basic principles, and then briefly outline some simple strategies for identifying, creating, storing, sharing and using knowledge. I then give some views on the future of knowledge management.
I would very much welcome reviews, comments and feedback and I will undertake to continually update and improve this KNOL as a result.
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I will start this article by quoting the late Professor Peter Drucker and I will end it by quoting Nova Spivack, the grandson of Peter Drucker. It seems to me that Peter Drucker provided much original insight, inspiration and common sense in the founding age of Management science, and also to the start of Knowledge Management, and Nova Spivak is now taking some of this forward with his work on the Meaningful Web 3.0.
Peter Drucker said, “The most important, and indeed truly unique contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker in manufacturing”. This is indeed a great achievement and a great accolade for the development of Management science.
Drucker went on to say that “The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker”. Herein lies our first challenge. How can we dramatically increase the productivity of knowledge work?
I propose that the answer is to implement effective knowledge management at all levels, for individuals, teams, organizations and communities, locally, nationally, regionally, and across the globe.
So let me first start with my definition of knowledge management, and then present the case for going back to some basics of business. There are, of course, many good definitions of knowledge management that I would point you to, that consider many different perspectives of knowledge management, but as a starting point:
A Knowledge Management Definition
“Knowledge Management is the discipline of enabling individuals, teams and entire organizations to collectively and systematically capture, store, create, share and apply knowledge, to better achieve their objectives.”
Although there is nothing new in managing knowledge as such, there is something totally new about doing this ‘collectively’ and ‘systematically’ using some new strategies, new innovative knowledge processes, knowledge communities/networks, with some new supporting and enabling tools and technologies. This has never been possible before, and for those organizations that implement effective knowledge management, the benefits can be substantial. The benefits to the organization can be highly strategic and transformational, as well as operational.
So what are these new strategies, processes, knowledge networks, tools and technologies that have enabled a new and much better way of knowledge working?
Well, first of all, the new technologies have provided us with totally new ways of working across the globe and offer tremendous potential.
Web based tools and technologies, especially the new Web 2.0 Social Computing technologies, the read/write participatory web, now enable us to communicate, collaborate, learn and share knowledge in very 'disruptive' yet highly beneficial ways. These tools and technologies are significantly challenging traditional management science and strategies for organizational development and renewal. Across the world, we now know much better what the world is searching for. We are rapidly evolving from the age of global and multi-national organizations to now include the global individual. We can self-publish our own thoughts, ideas and opinions, through blogs and websites, and share knowledge with the world. We can enable mass collaboration through wiki’s, as inspired by pioneers like Wikipedia and, recently, the Encyclopedia of Life. Through the blogsphere, we can capture our new learnings, insights, ideas and opinions and much better know, and better influence, what the world is thinking and feeling. And now, of course, we also have the Knol from Google.
In many ways this is simply stupendous!
If we then add mobile wireless working technologies, like, for example, the Apple iphone, we have the ‘potential’ to dramatically increase knowledge working, and more rapidly move towards Peter Drucker’s productivity challenge.
But are we doing that well now? Is knowledge management, as some are now saying, simply about seizing and using these new exciting communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing tools and technologies as fast as we can? Of course not.
The tools will, undoubtedly, provide very great improvements indeed in the way we work, but there is an even greater potential for those who step back for a moment, and go back to business basics.
Back to Basics
I respectfully suggest to you that if we consider our progress in the last thirty years, we will conclude that many, if not most, knowledge workers are today even more confused, even more stressed, and far less proactive in achieving objectives. In workshops that I conduct around the world, I am told by many people that they are totally reactive to the incessant daily demands and performance pressures and have very little time to think and act pro-actively. People are suffering even more so from high stress and lack of creativity as a result of email overload, information overload, attention overload, new application and new initiative overload!
Why is this?
As remarkable as the new technologies are, they are not the total answer, but provide great potential. They need to be enabling new innovative knowledge processes across rich knowledge communities. These new knowledge processes and knowledge communities need to be strategically aligned to the objectives of the organization. And most importantly, they need to be aligned to the principles of organizational success. We need to go ‘back to basics’.
We need to remind ourselves, from time to time, and teach each new generation of management, what these ‘principles’ are. Technologies change over time. The principles are timeless. The effective application of timeless business principles are to my mind ‘Business Wisdom’.
So my formula for effective 21st century knowledge management is to restate the timeless and changeless business principles in the modern context, and then align and apply the best of the emerging and changing strategies, methods, processes, tools and technologies. This will result in extraordinary performance and value.
Historically, our problem seems to be that we immediately seize on the new technologies too fast. This is putting the ‘cart before the horse’.
So let me take a few moments to remind us of the timeless principles, in the context of knowledge management, and then briefly discuss the best aligned strategies for identifying, creating, storing, sharing and using knowledge.
1. Timeless Business Principles
A principle should be scaleable. It can be equally applicable to an individual, team, organization or community. In other words, it can apply to all sizes of organization, all types of organization, and can be applied anywhere. Principles are beyond time and space.
I remember, in the 1980’s I first learned from Claus Moller, an international management consultant and founder of Time Manager International, in Europe, that there are, at least, three ‘evergreen principles’ for organizations – they are Productivity, Relations and Quality.
He said “For how long do you think Senior Management will be interested and absorbed in finding better ways to increase productivity? The answer is for ever, of course. Productivity is an evergreen.
“For how long do you think Senior Management will be interested and absorbed in improving relations? That is, relations with customers, employees, suppliers, partners, in fact all the key stakeholders? The answer is for ever, of course. Relations is an evergreen”
“For how long do you think Senior Management will be interested and absorbed in developing quality? That is product quality, service quality, team quality and even personal quality? The answer is for ever, of course. Quality is an evergreen.
Productivity, relations and quality are timeless principles, or evergreens, and must be perennials on the board room agendas around the world.
But what underpins these evergreens? Fundamentally, I maintain it is knowledge.
It is strategic and operational knowledge, for increasing productivity, improving relations and developing quality that underpins what the organization does.
Knowledge Management strategies must be aligned to productivity, relations and quality. Why?
Because, all senior management are ultimately interested in increasing sales and or service; reducing costs; and optimizing the delivery of value and/or profit. That’s what effective productivity, improved relations, developing quality and knowledge management delivers.
There is no rocket science here! This is, surely, common sense! But I suggest to you that it is not as common a practice around the world as it could be. We need to go ‘back to basics’ from time to time, and certainly, from generation to generation of managers.
2. Identifying Knowledge
I remember working with a Container Port in Asia. They certainly had the best operational knowledge, the best logistics knowledge in Asia. They are world class.
They thought that codifying this logistics knowledge was all they needed to do to practice effective knowledge management.
But when we worked together they realized that effective knowledge management is also about transforming themselves to meet future customer needs. Although they were the best in moving containers on/off ships, and this had served them well in the past, this was not good enough for surviving for the future. They needed to know why customers would wish to use containers, and what they would put in them, for the future. They needed to transform from operational to customer focused knowledge management.
The key question to ask, when embarking on a knowledge management initiative is:
‘What key areas and types of knowledge, if they could be much better managed, would make a big difference to achieving and/or exceeding the objectives over the next few years’
Identifying key knowledge areas for the future is critical to successful knowledge management.
3. Creating Knowledge
People often say to me, ‘we would like to be a more creative and innovative organisation’.
When I look around most organizations, I see no shortage of new learnings, new ideas, and new insights. They are bubbling up all around, all the time.
The problem, I believe, is not so much a shortage of new learnings, ideas and insights, but a shortage of ‘collective and systematic’ methods, processes and tools to capture them and do anything meaningful with them. Most organizations practice what we call ‘episodic learning’ and ‘episodic innovation’. What is the point of trying to review a project six or twelve months down the line? By then most of the best ideas and learnings, that always tend to happen at the beginning of the project, are forgotten!
Effective knowledge management can provide new innovative continuous daily and weekly processes that take the organization from episodic learning and innovation to continuous learning and innovation. Learning, or regular after action reviews can answer the questions ‘Why were there differences?’ and ‘What can we really learn from this and do better next time?’
4. Storing Knowledge
This is the easier part. The Web has radically and fundamentally changed the economics, processes and tools of information and knowledge. Storing is easy. In fact, too easy. What is more difficult is deciding, from all the choices, the best strategy for storing.
5. Sharing Knowledge
This is the most difficult part. We are told that 70% of the knowledge management effort is concerned with culture. That is not to say that the strategies, processes and technologies are less important at all. It is simply to say that they are relatively easy to implement.
There are several strategies for bringing about a naturally flourishing knowledge sharing culture. In this few minutes let me simply make a few points about a ‘virtuous process’ towards a natural knowledge sharing culture.
• Trust is the lifeblood of any organization. People naturally work together at their best when they trust one another
• When there is sufficient trust, people will naturally communicate and naturally collaborate
• This leads to an increased natural learning, at all levels.
• Learning increases confidence and competence and this leads to natural knowledge sharing
But beware. The other side of the coin is that there is no trust, or not sufficient trust.
If unattended, this leads to a vicious downward spiral of doubt and fear.
6. Using Knowledge
So, if we apply all the best strategies, processes and tools to identify, create, store and share knowledge, are we practicing effective knowledge management?
Unfortunately, no.
What is the point of being even more knowledgeable, if we never use it? In other words, if we do not apply our knowledge effectively. I do know some very knowledgeable people, but unless new knowledge acquisition is your business, like academics, it will not help.
The most important step is to effectively ‘apply’ the best knowledge to achieve your objectives. This is where effective and highly productive knowledge working really pays off.
7. The Future of Knowledge Management
Although there are some who believe that knowledge management is a fad, or simply yet another management initiative that is past its sell-by date, I firmly know that senior management will always be interested and absorbed in better ways to create and apply knowledge. Maybe the term or label knowledge management may be misleading, or may go out of fashion in certain parts of the world, but knowledge always has, and always will be, the most critical resource, and can be the most strategic asset for any individual, organisation, region and, of course, for the entire Planet Earth. Knowledge working is also very eco-friendly and it provides the new opportunity for everyone on this planet to improve their quality of life.
I am one of those individuals who agree with the global knowledge evangelists and knowledge capitalists, and see knowledge as THE wealth creator for the 21st century. To survive and to succeed we need to become, as quickly as possible, effective knowledge workers in effective knowledge driven organizations, to be able to develop and grow in a sustainable global knowledge economy.
8. Semantic Technology and the Meaningful Web 3.0
I started this article by quoting the late Professor Peter Drucker and his challenge to substantially increase the productivity of knowledge working.
I now find myself coming towards the end of this article by quoting his grandson, Nova Spivack, CEO of Radar Networks in San Francisco. He says:
"Semantic Web 3.0 is about making all this technology and content (on the Web) smarter -- by adding semantics to the data and by adding more smarts to applications so that they can do a better job of helping humans”
This interests me greatly.
I do like the notion of the Web becoming increasingly more helpful, as an intelligent assistant, to humans, so that we can spend more time doing what only humans can do best – be more creative and innovative. It is continued creativity and innovation that promises true business sustainability. The source is infinite. Our challenge is to make knowledge management one of the key drivers and facilitators of creativity and innovation.
Even NASA, in their 25 year knowledge management road map, have recognized the importance of making knowledge management principles part of their culture now, and are looking for the development of knowledge systems to collaborate with experts by 2025!
9. The Next Ten Years – Key Challenges
May I respectfully build on the words of Peter Drucker, Claus Moller and Nova Spivak and suggest the following key challenges for the next ten years:
• substantially increase the productivity of knowledge working, at least, 50 fold
• exponentially develop global knowledge sharing networks & relations
• dramatically improve quality
• enable continuous radical knowledge creation and innovation
• provide leadership aligned to the timeless principles
• apply the best principle driven strategies, processes, methods, tools and technologies
If you are further interested in my work, you may wish to read my knowledge management consulting blog, and visit my website that is committed towards Open Source Knowledge Management at:
Blog: http://km-consulting.blogspot.com
Web: www.knowledge-management-online.com
Book: Knowledge Asset Management, Springer 2003
What is more important between KM and IS?
Could you let us know about a question, what is more important between knowledge management (KM) and information science (IS)? Up to know, information science has been a basis of our business. Most important examples are MS and Intel. However, I'm wonder that in the near future, how knowledge manangement business can replace information science business? Remind that there are big differences between knowledge management and information science. To find an answer, we can divide questions step by step. First, could knowledge management business help inforamtion sceince business either directly or indirectly? If not, knowledge manangement should wait so long time to replace information science business since out society has been already too much coustmized to information science and its business. Second, is it still possible to have a monopoly in knowlege management business as well? Moreover, we should ask that a monoploy is still right way in developing the future knowledge mangement socieity? Money should be redefined in the future knowlege management society as Toffler mentioned the importance of understanding non-money based business. Hence, it is great wonder whether still a monopoly works for knowledge management business. If it is yes, the company should be the cooperation post of other information science business companies with managing and servicing knowledging. Thank you in advance
http://knol.google.com/k/ron-young/knowledge-management-back-to-basic/1emn5abyls393/2#
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David
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