KM & Pratice Implementation Workshop

The Good Experience:

Internal Country Office Knowledge Sharing The Country Office has numerous systems in place to ensure knowledge sharing and capturing among different staff members, units and with projects and programmes. These various tools have helped create synergies and linkages between different units and programmes and ensure that all staff members have up-to-date information on initiatives both inside and outside the office. Our experience with four mutually reinforcing knowledge-sharing tools stands out as being particularly helpful to this end:

Bi-monthly Learning Hours: The last hour of every second week is devoted to an informal learning session presented by different staff members as well as CTAs. More recently, other UN agencies, non-UN experts, visiting missions, and NGOs have also been invited to present at these meetings, thereby sharing knowledge of non-UNDP activities in Yemen. By covering both operations and programme issues, and keeping presentations brief and followed by a Q&A, these learning hours have been very well attended and have also helped strengthen linkages between different units in the CO as well as with other organizations in Yemen.
Local PACs: Every time a project or programme is formulated, and prior to it having an external PAC, all CO staff is invited to attend a Local PAC. The document in question is distributed prior to the PAC, during which the relevant PO makes a presentation on then project. This is then followed by a Q&A session. These LPACs are therefore an excellent mechanism for getting staff to read and comment on project documents and are geared not only towards improving the document but also towards identifying linkages with other programme areas and ensuring that these are included in the final document.
Bridging Unit and Staff/Project Divide: The CO has been making a big effort to minimize the operations/programme and office/project staff divides and ensure that all are informed about the goings-on of others. To this end, operations staff is increasingly accompanying programme staff on field visits. A CTA email group has been established to facilitate easy communication with CTAs and projects, and joint CO staff-CTAs and project manager retreats are held. Staff meetings are held once a month, to which CTAs are also invited.
Intranet: A CO intranet was recently developed to replace the shared-drive that was difficult to use and not used very often as a result. The intranet, by contrast, so far contains over 250 uploaded documents ranging from project documents, latest news in the form of newsflashes and press releases, a directory for the whole UN system in Yemen as well as access to forms for operations and other services. This has helped ensure that all necessary documents are easily accessible by all staff. One improvement that is soon going to be introduced is to allow CTAs ad project staff access to the intranet via the internet. Addressing these issues requires commitment from all staff to knowledge sharing activities and from senior management.

Overall, these four knowledge management tools have been instrumental in bringing the CO to a point whereby a great deal of knowledge and information is shared between all CO and programme staff in the Yemen CO on a daily basis. It is worth pointing out, however, that there have been some problem areas with these tools, For example, not all staff, especially POs, attends LPACs always read the document in question. Likewise, it is still difficult to ensure that operations staff always accompanies a PO on a field visit or that all documents are updated on the intranet. However, with current incentive schemes in place such as the reward and recognition plan that has a specific category for “Best Knowledge Sharer of the Year”, strides are being made in overcoming these issues, most of which require an even greater shift towards a knowledge sharing culture.

The Bad Experience:

Operations Community of Practice UNDP Yemen has so far established three national Communities of Practice- in the areas of the MDGs, Governance, and Operations. To date, there are about 100 members of the MDG CoP from all UN agencies, government, CSOs, and bilateral agencies, and the CoP continues to expand. Discussions have assumed a life of their own and it has been widely acknowledged as a useful tool for communicating between counterparts as Yemen prepares a MDG-based PRSP. In contrast, the Operations Community of Practice has yet to get off the ground and it is not being used. Formed as a means of enhancing knowledge sharing between operations staff from different UN agencies, and also to demonstrate that knowledge management tools apply equally to operations staff and their activities, there are two main reasons for the lack of success with this CoP:

Inter-agency issues to be discussed: There are fewer inter-agency issues to discuss, since in most cases each agency takes care of most of their own operations activities. This in turn means that there are fewer lessons to be shared and less room for joint problem solving. For example, UNDP uses ATLAS. Aside from UNFPA, every agency has their own finance system. Members of this community therefore see less reason for communicating with others when almost all of their problems, which also tend to be very discrete, can be solved in-house.
Limited membership: Similarly, CSOs, bilaterals and government ministries have less information of relevance to share with outside parties on issues relating to operations given the uniqueness of the conduct of each actor’s operations activities. As a result, there has not been much interest beyond the UN to join this CoP.

Despite this, there are three ways in which the Operations CoP can be strengthened and improved upon, even if membership remains limited to UN agencies:

Further advertise the Operations CoP amongst other UN agencies and send out reminders to encourage use of the CoP email group.
Highlight the possible areas for discussion in the CoP and establish even further linkages with the inter-agency Operations Management Team.
Identify a focal point who can act as a resource person for stimulating discussions

Libya
Click the picture to enlarge it UNDP Libya
Positive Experience: P ower Point Presentations - The idea of having each staff member make a PPP presentation upon their return from missions or workshops has been viewed as the most successful knowledge sharing experience. Negative Experience: Practices – The inability to properly use the Practices Tool Kits by the office staff that stems from an already existing mechanism of insufficient Knowledge Sharing is viewed by this office as the least successful experience.

Sudan
Click the picture to enlarge it UNDP Sudan
There is a lack to clear policy, directives and modalities to KM. The concept of KM is confused and levels of understanding among the staff are unevenly distributed There is a differential access to knowledge among the staff. This has created an obstacle to national capacity development and a tendency towards internationalization of jobs and monopoly of knowledge. Knowledge for national capacity development needs to be considered as a guiding principle for KM and practices. The concept of KM needs to be problematized. For. E.g who has the right to knowledge and how such rights is secured? What is the quality of that knowledge and who decided that? What is legitimacy and who legitimates it? Who is to lead KM? What capacities and time availability to lead? What is the role of the staff members? How KM is to be institutionalized as part of the daily culture of the organization? The concept of focal points is an empowering KM tool, however there is the potential possibility of increasing the gap in access to knowledge among staff. COs operating under conflict situation, like Sudan are highly over-stretched and KM is accordingly impeded by burden of work and pressures to responds to conflict, exerted by HQ and donors. Setting of an advisory group that brings knowledge and experience to promote effectiveness, provides meaningful technical and strategic policy advice, enriches the consultation process and facilitates partnership and networking is envisaged as an important tool for promoting KM.

UAE
Click the picture to enlarge it UNDP UAE
* Effective use of CoPs: 1) Creating ownership 2) Sharing knowledge 3) Capacity Building “Dead-end” – Negative experience COs overloaded with info-hard to find what is relevant Don’t know/ not sure where to look (intranet, websites, portal, Knowledge networks..) Supplied with various consultants / info but no quality control Fat COs (many) with small feet (limited support) & no hair (limited time) !!

Yemen
Click the picture to enlarge it UNDP Yemen
The Good Experience: Internal Country Office Knowledge Sharing The Country Office has numerous systems in place to ensure knowledge sharing and capturing among different staff members, units and with projects and programmes. These various tools have helped create synergies and linkages between different units and programmes and ensure that all staff members have up-to-date information on initiatives both inside and outside the office. Our experience with four mutually reinforcing knowledge-sharing tools stands out as being particularly helpful to this end: Bi-monthly Learning Hours: The last hour of every second week is devoted to an informal learning session presented by different staff members as well as CTAs. More recently, other UN agencies, non-UN experts, visiting missions, and NGOs have also been invited to present at these meetings, thereby sharing knowledge of non-UNDP activities in Yemen. By covering both operations and programme issues, and keeping presentations brief and followed by a Q&A, these learning hours have been very well attended and have also helped strengthen linkages between different units in the CO as well as with other organizations in Yemen. Local PACs: Every time a project or programme is formulated, and prior to it having an external PAC, all CO staff is invited to attend a Local PAC. The document in question is distributed prior to the PAC, during which the relevant PO makes a presentation on then project. This is then followed by a Q&A session. These LPACs are therefore an excellent mechanism for getting staff to read and comment on project documents and are geared not only towards improving the document but also towards identifying linkages with other programme areas and ensuring that these are included in the final document. Bridging Unit and Staff/Project Divide: The CO has been making a big effort to minimize the operations/programme and office/project staff divides and ensure that all are informed about the goings-on of others. To this end, operations staff is increasingly accompanying programme staff on field visits. A CTA email group has been established to facilitate easy communication with CTAs and projects, and joint CO staff-CTAs and project manager retreats are held. Staff meetings are held once a month, to which CTAs are also invited. Intranet: A CO intranet was recently developed to replace the shared-drive that was difficult to use and not used very often as a result. The intranet, by contrast, so far contains over 250 uploaded documents ranging from project documents, latest news in the form of newsflashes and press releases, a directory for the whole UN system in Yemen as well as access to forms for operations and other services. This has helped ensure that all necessary documents are easily accessible by all staff. One improvement that is soon going to be introduced is to allow CTAs ad project staff access to the intranet via the internet. Addressing these issues requires commitment from all staff to knowledge sharing activities and from senior management. Overall, these four knowledge management tools have been instrumental in bringing the CO to a point whereby a great deal of knowledge and information is shared between all CO and programme staff in the Yemen CO on a daily basis. It is worth pointing out, however, that there have been some problem areas with these tools, For example, not all staff, especially POs, attends LPACs always read the document in question. Likewise, it is still difficult to ensure that operations staff always accompanies a PO on a field visit or that all documents are updated on the intranet. However, with current incentive schemes in place such as the reward and recognition plan that has a specific category for “Best Knowledge Sharer of the Year”, strides are being made in overcoming these issues, most of which require an even greater shift towards a knowledge sharing culture. The Bad Experience: Operations Community of Practice UNDP Yemen has so far established three national Communities of Practice- in the areas of the MDGs, Governance, and Operations. To date, there are about 100 members of the MDG CoP from all UN agencies, government, CSOs, and bilateral agencies, and the CoP continues to expand. Discussions have assumed a life of their own and it has been widely acknowledged as a useful tool for communicating between counterparts as Yemen prepares a MDG-based PRSP. In contrast, the Operations Community of Practice has yet to get off the ground and it is not being used. Formed as a means of enhancing knowledge sharing between operations staff from different UN agencies, and also to demonstrate that knowledge management tools apply equally to operations staff and their activities, there are two main reasons for the lack of success with this CoP: Inter-agency issues to be discussed: There are fewer inter-agency issues to discuss, since in most cases each agency takes care of most of their own operations activities. This in turn means that there are fewer lessons to be shared and less room for joint problem solving. For example, UNDP uses ATLAS. Aside from UNFPA, every agency has their own finance system. Members of this community therefore see less reason for communicating with others when almost all of their problems, which also tend to be very discrete, can be solved in-house. Limited membership: Similarly, CSOs, bilaterals and government ministries have less information of relevance to share with outside parties on issues relating to operations given the uniqueness of the conduct of each actor’s operations activities. As a result, there has not been much interest beyond the UN to join this CoP. Despite this, there are three ways in which the Operations CoP can be strengthened and improved upon, even if membership remains limited to UN agencies: Further advertise the Operations CoP amongst other UN agencies and send out reminders to encourage use of the CoP email group. Highlight the possible areas for discussion in the CoP and establish even further linkages with the inter-agency Operations Management Team. Identify a focal point who can act as a resource person for stimulating discussions