tfpl blog

Knowledge Management - Guides to help with key techniques

Author: Claire Valentine
TFPL, Training Manager

We have been looking at ways to further add value to the services we provide and are pleased to be able to tell you about a new addition to the website called KM Tools.  These tools come in the form of a set of free knowledge management ‘How to…’ guides.  These guides aim to give you a starting point for implementing several different knowledge management techniques within your organisation.  The guides have been put together by our team of knowledge management experts and utilise the knowledge that has been developed over 20+ years of  working closely with clients across many industry sectors, to implement and teach knowledge management in all its forms.  We hope that these guides prove useful to you and that they will demystify some of the techniques available.  For further information please see http://www.tfpl.com/consultancy/knowledgetools.cfm

Temps Training: Networking, a note from Kristel Petru

Author: Kristel Petru
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Candidate

First of all, thank you to both you and Virginia for organising the networking training event tonight - It was really excellent, and very worthwhile.  It is funny, I have been to a lot of networking events, but never a networking event on Networking itself.  I wish I had gone to this training session before I started going to networking events as I'm sure, with some of the hints and tips Virginia gave us tonight, I would have made my networking much more effective!

I am grateful for Virginia's pearl of wisdom about there being 'a reason why we were born with TWO ears and ONE mouth' and the importance of listening when networking.  My other favourite point from tonight was the advice to know what we want to get out of a networking event before we go.  I for one have never really thought too much about this and have just turned up to networking events and talked (mostly about myself I'm sure!) and never really gave much thought to what I wanted to achieve at the event. 

Again, thank you, Virginia and TFPL for a great event - I'm off to update my LinkedIn account and to design my personalised business card for future networking events!

Networking: how to make it work for you

Author: Susanne Osterlund
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Consultant

Last night, we continued with our temps training events.  The topic was Networking.  Virginia Henry, Making Knowledge Work Ltd, was our trainer and what an event she hosted.

Never before has the boardroom at 160 Queen Victoria Street been so alive.  Virginia kicked-off with an open discussion as to what we think networking is and why do people do it.  She offered invaluable tips on how to become a successful networker and then put us all to practice.

The group was full of lively conversation and the room was buzzing with excitement.  We took Virginia’s advice and not only asked questions, but also listened to what was being said. 

Following on, Virginia made suggestions of what to do after an event. She also let us know why and how she had jointly set up LIKE (London Information & Knowledge Exchange).

Many thanks to Virginia for giving up her time to host the temps training session, it was a fantastic event and thank you to the attendees, you really made the session an excellent one!

TFPL tries to run a temps training event once a month.  The event is free to registered temps.  Any ideas of what topic(s) you would like us to cover are very welcome.

Health Libraries Group (HLG) Conference 19/20 July, Manchester

Author: Vivienne Winterman
Senior Knowledge and Information Management Consultant

The theme of the conference ‘keeping information centre stage amid changing scenery’ was an apt title in the current climate. Pauline Blagdon, Chair of HLG, stressed in her opening remarks that ‘information is essential’ and the conference and individual presentations illustrated a variety of ways how information professionals were contributing to the work of front line-staff to show this. Dr Gillian Leng, Deputy Chief Exec. from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) opened the conference by talking about the aims of NICE to develop quality standards and guidance on specific topic areas, using NICE Pathways to map all of this, and the vision for NICE Evidence to be a single portal for health information to integrate both the ‘evidence’ data and the information-rich electronic resources (e-journals, bibliographic databases) previously available from the National Library of Health (NLH). The value from NICE would be measured in terms of the outcomes for patients by providing this knowledge and information to staff, patients and the public in a meaningful way. 

The conference programme consisted of several parallel sessions with papers and case studies showing:

• Development of LIS at a strategic level.
• How Library and Information Services (LIS) were working to raise and keep a high profile, develop the right skills, using the drivers for change as opportunities for LIS and not threats.
• Introduction of web 2.0 into the daily work of NHS staff and the use of IT.
• Development of e-learning platforms, coaching sessions to introduce information literacy, with an example of where clinical IT trainers had been brought into the LIS group.
• Examples of collaboration in delivering public health information by bringing together: surveillance data and the literature, - analysts and LIS.
• Successful toolkits that had been developed, including those for: measuring the impact of LIS; strategies for LIS professionals.
• How change could be managed.

Overall the impression is that there are so many examples of good practice where information professionals are demonstrating their value to, and working with, clinicians and other front line staff. This learning and good practice needs to be proactively shared across Trusts, SHAs, public health and social care organisations so that our specialist knowledge and value is unquestionable and the impact on patient treatment evident and measurable.

TFPL Connect - Depaul UK Update!

Author: Nina Benscher
TFPL, Networks and Events Manager

Following up the outcomes of our last Connect meeting (see here) we held the first meeting of the Steering Group for the Depaul UK Knowledge Management (KM) Challenge at TFPL this week. As agreed at Connect, we are looking to pull together a package of support and advice that address some of the key information and knowledge challenges currently facing Depaul UK.

Over a working lunch, we had a very informative discussion that set into the context the challenges that Paul Marriott, CEO Depaul UK, had identified as the major areas for attention for taking his knowledge strategy forward.  This discussion lead to a decision that in order to create projects that are tangible and actively support Depaul UK, a visit to the charity to experience first hand how it works would be necessary. Therefore John Davies, TFPL Consultant and Connect member, Iain Simpson will be visiting both the London and Newcastle offices of Depaul UK next week.

Once they have seen how knowledge and information is shared through the organisation and spoken to a range of staff members and young people, an interim report will be put together to detail the best way to manage this moving forward. It should make for a very interesting and insightful read!

We would like to thank Emma King and Iain Simpson for their time this week and next, it was greatly appreciated by all.

Connecting our knowledge to make a difference

Author: Claire Valentine

TFPL, Training Manager

This was the topic of our latest TFPL Connect meeting which we held last night.  In a change to the usual format we invited Paul Marriott, CEO of Depaul UK, the largest charity for homeless young people in the UK to present his company and his challenges for developing an information and knowledge management strategy.  Our members were then asked for their ideas and advice on how he could meet these challenges.

The group broke out with enthusiasm into several different teams and each were assigned a particular challenge which ranged from providing staff and volunteers with a shared vision to addressing how to encourage information sharing in an environment where confidentially brings much needed trust to relationships and information sharing is not the norm.

Key themes to come out of the evening were:

• development of partnerships with like minded organisations to share best practice and obtain help with providing more services such as temporary accommodation
• a rating system for information posted to understand what is useful and what isn’t
• use of social media in various different forms for communicating with the homeless
• use of mentors to work closely with new staff to share knowledge more effectively

Paul was keen to consider each and every suggestion and promised to feedback later in the year with what they had taken from the evening and been able to implement.

The evening ended with a chance to network and share ideas further over a glass of wine and nibbles, with further ideas being added to the documentation which we will present more formally back to Paul.

Feedback from those that attended was that they had felt the session was immensely positive and liked the idea of contributing to an organisation that needed advice.

We will be in touch soon with further details on the report which will be made available on the TFPL Connect members’ area.  On a final note many thanks to all that attended and contributed to making the meeting a success last night.

2nd meeting of the TFPL Health Special Interest Group

Author: Vivienne Winterman
TFPL, Senior Consultant

• Shared ‘joined-up’ services to reduce duplication and fragmentation of KIM/LIS work;
• collaboration with other areas, in particular the voluntary sector;
• developing new gp/patient customer bases;
• collecting patent experience;
• showing the value of KIM;
• working closely with IT.

These were just some of the outcomes buzzing from the lively and well attended meeting of TFPL’s Health Special Interest group held last night. Linda Wishart (Head of Knowledge & Information Management, Department of Health) addressed some of the challenges ahead for the health sector in times of the worst financial cuts and how the KIM community could respond. Wayne Sime (Director of Library Services, Royal Society of Medicine) hosted and chaired the meeting in the beautiful olde worlde surrounds at the RSM. A full report of the meeting will follow on the TFPL website.

The past, present and future

Author: Luisa Jefford
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Director - Public Sector Recruitment

I can't believe how quickly the last week has flown by.  It's 7 days since  I delivered a presentation for my colleague Angela Abell . I was asked to  talk about Knowledge Management Competencies "Past, Present and Future" to NetIKX (Network for Information and Knowledge Exchange).

My presentation (which  I'm happy to share if anyone is interested) covered some of the previous outputs of the research which TFPL has undertaken over the past decade.  It highlighted that "Knowledge and Information Professionals" should position themselves as "Knowledge Strategists and Knowledge Specialists" to enable organisations  to become fully engaged and knowledge mobilised. This is a world away from the one of the very first  roles I ever dealt with as a recruiter at TFPL which was the cataloguing of McCarthy cards! How things have evolved in 15 years.

Does the effect of the economy have any bearing on this?  Most certainly, and whilst today I don't think "Knowledge and Information Professionals" should disregard positioning themselves as  "specialists " or indeed "strategists " it is increasingly obvious in my day job that they need some additional skills  to offer as and when required.   

The research outputs showed that as well as KIM and ICT expertise these additional skills include personal attributes and interpersonal, organisational and business  knowledge and having an understanding of what your organisations objectives and core strategies are. A melting pot or perhaps,  to paraphrase more effectively, a  'kit bag'  of tools that will ensure your profile and your value remains aligned to your organisational needs and requirements.

An enjoyable afternoon for me and I will definitely be putting NetIKX on my networking radar . 

Project Planning: back of an envelope to Prince 2

Author: Susanne Osterlund
TFPL Intelligent Resources, Consultant

Many thanks to John Davies, Senior Consultant, TFPL for delivering a very insightful temps training session; last night’s event covered project management/planning.

The one hour session started off with the definition of project management and took us through Prince 2, Project Management Institute (PMI), STP, Gannt charts, high-level project plans, task and activity plans and finished off with a reminder of change and how we should consider that attitudes to change are individual and personal.

“Change is not a thing to be managed, although we can create the conditions for change.  Our mental models of organisations condition the way we think change happens within organisations.”

Temps training is free to all registered temps.  We try to hold a session each month.  Our consultants are experts in their field and it is a great chance for temps to not only learn something new, but also to network with fellow professionals and exchange ideas.

SharePoint offers new opportunities for information specialists

Author: Martin Sanderson
TFPL, Senior Consultant

Remembering Ralph Poole’s reflection in his past blog post that the days when IT developers managed (often with little or no success) all the processes for systems and user requirements analysis may be coming to an end with the arrival of SharePoint platforms.  With SharePoint much of the functionality is preconfigured and the most important prerequisite (and challenge) is deciding how to organize and present information to support users in their day to day operations and tasks. Poole concluded that “Unfortunately, for developers, this means MOSS 2007 needs configuration rather than development”.  Perhaps this is even more so with the introduction of SharePoint 2010.  So move over developers and move in information specialists who are well equipped to deal with information architecture, content types, metadata, search configuration and site navigation.