However, delivering personalized content introduces a specific set of Quality Assurance (QA) considerations. Quality Assurance (QA) is defined as the maintenance of a desired level of quality in a service or product, especially by means of attention to every stage of the process of delivery or production. It is vital to the success of application development and product delivery that QA and User Acceptance Testing (UAT) are carried out as an ongoing part of the release cadence of an application. QA and UAT help eliminate accrued technical debt by raising any and all issues throughout development while ensuring the application is being built with personalization in mind through the continuous feedback loop of QA. 

That said, there should be a clear set of standards in a QA test plan to capture and evaluate how personalization is implemented throughout development. In this blog, I’ll highlight some key tenets for a development team to follow to ensure personalization is continuously captured and reinforced through the thoughtful use of QA.

Agile Release Cadence and QA Scripting

When developing an application, releases are structured to follow a set cadence as defined by a release period. Each release will contain the features, patches, and other deliverables to the application developed by the team’s engineers during that release period. It is important to ensure proper UAT is carried out during each release period and accepted before the application is released to production. This starts with defining a QA script for users to follow when executing UAT and exhaustively testing the code contributions and their associated use cases within the application. Moreover, when personalization comes into play, criteria must be included in that UAT script to not only ensure code contributions are accepted but to validate that what’s delivered achieves personalization.

Criteria that evaluate personalization or personalized content delivery must be properly defined within these QA scripts and in a way that is easily executable by the users testing proposed changes to the application. These criteria should be translated from the business requirements and personalization goals the engagement tries to solve. For example, consider search engineering for a complex technical resource center for a large business with many departments. Without personalization, UAT could be passed by searching multiple facets and seeing results that are tagged or belong to said facets. With personalization in the QA script, UAT for those same search results is extended to cover things such as boosting results based on a user’s location and content findability based on a user’s role.

A successful development team knows the business requirements, personalization efforts, and use cases implemented by ongoing development. As a result, they will have an increased understanding of how to structure QA scripts so that proper evaluation of personalization is fully and accurately defined. In this way, the team will be able to better provide users with a testing plan to uncover more possibilities of bugs in the application, shortcomings of the feature(s) developed, and overall integrity of the application’s end-to-end functionality; all the while ensuring personalization is measurable and fully understood by the entire team. Uncovering and understanding these shortcomings early can eliminate technical debt by reducing the chance of discovering them after the application has gone live.

QA Processes and Execution

After QA scripts have been properly defined and distributed to users, it is time to carry out QA and ensure UAT is successful for the application to move to production. 

As stated above, the development team has a much deeper understanding of the features proposed in the release, which could negatively impact the integrity of QA execution. An engineer, for example, executing QA scripts could produce a false sense of a feature being intuitive, given their foundational understanding of how it works. Instead, execution should be left to the users as they will offer the most critical and valuable feedback. There should also be a well-defined place for users to indicate a pass or fail status, along with a dedicated space for feedback and replication steps of any issue.

Suppose an engineer has developed a feature that maps content metadata to user roles after publishing the content. The code involved has been vigorously unit-tested and functionally tested by the engineer, giving them a biased lens of an intuitive feature because of their familiarity. A user will provide unbiased feedback on the feature, as they will be exposed to it with a fresh set of eyes. This will allow the user to evaluate the feature for accurate personalization, allowing for a continuous feedback loop of business goals being properly accomplished for the entirety of the QA process.

Meaningful Results and Feedback

Upon completion of QA and UAT, it is time to review the feedback that users left throughout their execution process. While it is imperative that analysts on the development team track, assess, and record feedback and success statuses of QA scripts, engineers should also be directly involved in this review process. Engineer involvement with a QA review is similar to user-driven story development. User-driven story development builds and estimates work from the viewpoint of those using the application. Engineer-driven QA review analyzes the work from the viewpoint of those familiar with the acceptance criteria of the work. As a result, engineer-driven QA increases the likelihood of an application’s success by fulfilling the needs of the use case, business goals, and quantifiable measurements of successful personalization. 

Similarly, an engineer’s involvement in reviewing feedback and UAT results takes this principle further. By reviewing feedback, an engineer will have the opportunity to surface more thorough use cases given by actual users throughout the QA process. 

Consider a subscription-based web form that allows users to subscribe themselves and their colleagues to content being delivered by an application. This feature has just been developed, and users have finished their acceptance testing. While nothing indicated a failure or blocker to move code into production, multiple users had left feedback asking for this web form to handle distribution lists and other types of pre-defined mailboxes. Since the engineers were heavily involved with the QA execution of this release, they can quickly refine and estimate new work so that it can be pulled into future sprints. Not only will this save planning time, but it also presents a learning opportunity for the engineers to better understand the process of user-driven development and business cases being solved by the application.

Conclusion

User Acceptance Testing and Quality Assurance plans are foundational to building and delivering an application that fully aligns with the business goals that drive personalization. It allows users to get the most out of the product and ensures the integrity of the application as a whole. This is especially important when considering how personalization affects improvement in content delivery. EK’s advanced content team has experience in a wide range of different areas regarding personalized content delivery. Through our thoughtful approach to QA, we ensure that no use case is left behind and the correct audiences are met with the correct content. Contact us if you see opportunities for personalization in your business! 

The post QA for Personalized Content appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Next, the presenters walked through three EK case studies demonstrating how the application of its principles could have saved significant time in those initiatives.

First, we described how a global non-profit approached EK to address duplicate and outdated content, and the lack of content creation standards.  

Next was a discussion of how national nuclear research laboratory struggled to share and discover knowledge from retiring employees and compartmentalized silos.

• Applicable AKM principle: “Tacit knowledge and expertise should be proactively and formally captured and stored in the same manner as explicit knowledge.”

Finally, the presenters described how one of the largest multinational athletic apparel companies struggled to help geographically separated teams collectively and collaboratively reuse knowledge and create content across the globe, even functionally similar focus roles.

Ultimately, this presentation served to introduce The AKM to the broader community, demonstrate its value, and solicit input from across the industry. View the complete Agile KM Manifesto here and provide your feedback using the form found at the bottom of the page.

The post Introducing the Agile KM Manifesto appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

In Part I we discussed how to leverage Agile values to retain employees during the Great Resignation. Now let’s talk about turning the Great Resignation into an advantage. With 44% of the workforce looking for new opportunities, this is perhaps the best pool in decades from which to draw new talent. To be successful, you’ll need to embrace Agile values in your hiring process. As in Part I, we define Agility as a mindset expressed in a core set of values. Of particular focus in Part II are the values of collaboration, transparency, and fun. Sure, you can tell candidates about many of the great things about your company that we describe in Part I, but why not show them too?

Collaboration

Inevitably, job candidates will ask about your company culture; you should be prepared to highlight the ways your organization collaborates. At EK, most of our internal initiatives are driven by small groups collectively working through ideas and details using virtual whiteboards and collaborative document creation. For example, we have several Communities of Practice formed from the bottom up where we address relevant topics. No one person “owns” these CoPs; instead, ideas are discussed, and an approach is collectively agreed to. Additionally, blogs such as this one are written, critiqued, and edited using Google Docs in real-time. This enables collaborative discussions, which would be slower and more difficult in traditional, waterfall publication pipelines. It’s also worth noting that collaboration often leads to consensus, another core Agile value. Together, these characteristics lead to a greater sense of ownership and job satisfaction. When interviewing candidates, discuss collaborative opportunities where your candidates might enjoy contributing in a non-hierarchical manner.

Secondly, don’t just tell candidates about how collaborative you are; show them. At Enterprise Knowledge (EK), many of our roles require strong facilitation skills. Therefore, one of our commonly used interview formats requires the candidate to facilitate a discussion with a role-playing product team in a real-world scenario. Our facilitation interviews aren’t designed with tricks and traps; rather, our interviewers actively seek to produce a collaborative artifact by the end of the discussion. The best candidates shine in a setting where they are able to effectively collaborate with strangers, and after being hired have often mentioned their positive experience getting a feel for how they will work with their future colleagues.

Transparency

Transparency throughout the hiring process is crucial to attracting talent. You can achieve Agile transparency in hiring by properly setting interview expectations and clearly communicating the interview timeline.

For example, in the above collaborative facilitation interview scenario, EK provides detailed instructions as to what’s expected and specifically what is not expected (e.g. independent preparatory research on the topic, a single “correct” answer, nor a client-ready artifact). Candidates should also be kept abreast of where they currently stand in the process. If you’re still sourcing more applicants, tell them. If the process is going to take several weeks or the timeline is unknown, tell them. And if a candidate is removed from selection, tell them in a timely manner. A company’s hiring process speaks volumes about its character, and transparency is perhaps the most critical element to a positive experience.

Fun

Not all work is fun, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for opportunities to inject some excitement into what might otherwise be a monotonous process. In that vein, interviews can also be fun. At EK, we’ve used games like Catch Phrase and even group Lego building activities. It’s important to note that these aren’t just for the sake of fun. In addition to direct applicability to our work where we often incorporate games into the design/pilot phases of our change management strategy engagements, we’re assessing our candidates’ social interaction skills, which are critical for consultants. That said, feedback has shown that these activities are enjoyable for both candidates and interviewers alike.

Conclusion

Interviewing is a two-way process; candidates are interviewing you as well. Given that reality, the best way to attract talent is to show candidates your values rather than just talking about them. In particular, transparency, collaboration, and fun should be woven throughout your recruitment process. If you’re looking for help on how to instill these Agile values in your organization’s culture and undergo an Agile transformation in order to attract and retain top talent, our Agile consultants would love to hear from you!

The post The Importance of Agility During The Great Resignation (Part II: Attracting Talent) appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Our goal is that this document helps our fellow KM practitioners apply core Agile principles to our KM work and helps you explain KM’s value to your stakeholders. We’ve included a link at the bottom of this page for you to provide us with direct feedback. Your input will guide the future iterations of The Agile KM Manifesto and ensure that this document continues to be driven by the KM community. 

The 2022 Agile KM Manifesto

When developing Knowledge Management strategies and systems, we must adopt an inclusive approach that continuously incorporates the changing needs of our organizations, stakeholders, and end-users. Knowledge workers’ needs center around getting the right information at the right time with minimal friction. As KM practitioners, we can apply Agile principles to more efficiently and effectively meet those needs. The Agile KM Manifesto applies the values and principles from the original Agile Manifesto to a collection of Knowledge Management principles across interrelated KM disciplines. 

What we’ve found is that Agility maximizes the KM value derived from the successful integration of People, Process, Content, Culture, and Technology. Rather than restate the values found in the Agile Manifesto, we have created five statements of value: 

People 

Communicating the value of KM and how individual roles contribute to KM, is inherently valuable. Crafting that message in a way that addresses users’ goals, motivations, and frustrations ensures understanding and engagement.

Process 

Value is maximized when your KM processes continuously address the full knowledge lifecycle: capturing, creating, managing, storing, enhancing, sharing, and governing your knowledge.

Content 

Content is only valuable when it can easily be found and leveraged by users. Good KM connects people to content and each other. This enables expertise to be shared and creates institutional knowledge.

Culture 

The value of a KM strategy and practices is only sustainable when KM processes are thoughtfully integrated into users’ formal responsibilities and day-to-day activities, rather than understood as separate ‘extra’ tasks. 

Technology

Technical tools and systems create the most value when they enable and support specific components of your KM Strategy. Ensure technology serves as a means to unlock the value created by your People, Processes, Content, and Culture. 

To unlock the value that effective Knowledge Management creates, leverage the following guiding principles as your KM initiatives dictate:

Provide your feedback here: https://forms.gle/C6NRiH1yuE2Qpr1NA

By submitting Feedback, and unless Enterprise Knowledge (“EK”) otherwise agrees in writing, you hereby agree that EK shall own all suggested changes, feedback, comments, suggestions, ideas, and concepts (collectively “Feedback”) that you provide regarding the “Agile KM Manifesto” and you hereby assign EK all associated intellectual property rights, title, the right to incorporate your Feedback into The Agile KM Manifesto, and any other rights and interests thereto. Additionally, you agree that you are not knowingly submitting any Feedback that is subject to third party intellectual property rights.

The post The 2022 Agile KM Manifesto appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The Solution

Over the course of a four-month period, Enterprise Knowledge (EK) engaged with the client to perform a Technology Solution Recommendation that included a series of deliverables to address the client’s needs. EK first executed a current state assessment of the client’s technology and processes surrounding the management of the content. Following this assessment, and armed with the knowledge of the clients’ technological and business needs, EK devised a set of prioritized Business and Functional Requirements for the target state system, along with a business case for replatforming the client could use to garner buy-in and executive support.

Further, using the prioritized requirements devised by EK and signed off on by the client, EK identified three software solutions that would meet the needs of the client and developed a tailored recommendation. This recommendation was facilitated end-to-end by EK acting as the intermediary, reaching out to and facilitating initial conversations with potential vendors, arranging system demonstrations of the various products, and presenting a comprehensive, system-agnostic analysis of the options according to the client’s specifications/business case.

The EK Difference

EK’s approach to this engagement highlighted our expertise in the Knowledge Management (KM) space by combining several of our services into one offering. EK utilized our expertise in maturity assessments, use case and requirements analysis, and knowledge of the KM technology world to deliver a highly specialized and tailored recommendation to the client. Having seen similar use cases with previous clients, EK was able to quickly identify the type of solution sought after by the client and facilitate connections with multiple vendors within the span of a few weeks.

EK also utilized both bottom-up and top-down analyses by executing assessment activities from multiple touchpoints. EK recognizes the importance of a multi-faceted approach and therefore consulted with end users (bottom-up), the actual content in scope (bottom-up), executive leadership (top-down), and facilitated demonstrations of in-scope systems (bottom-down) to inform the final recommendation.

Lastly, EK fostered a working relationship with the client by holding weekly status meetings to check in on project progress and collaborating on various deliverables to ensure collective agreement. EK also acted as the intermediary with vendors to preserve the anonymity of the client and remained system-agnostic to ensure the client received unbiased and accurate recommendations.

The Results

In doing so, EK provided the client with a thorough analysis of viable technology solutions to replace their current system/s. The client was presented with a variety of options, varying in price, satisfaction of identified requirements, and other differentiating factors. The client was also introduced to a new type of technology, and they received invaluable knowledge and insights from EK’s in-house content management and technology experts. In addition, EK provided the client with a Replatforming Plan and associated timeline that provided a comprehensive roadmap for implementation and the steps, resources, and estimated timeframe to replatform their new system.

The post Technology Solution Recommendation for a Global Development Firm appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The Solution

EK conducted a series of training activities over a multi-week period, focusing on organizational analysis and synthesis. In order to ensure that the organization’s leadership understood and accepted the proposed Target Organization Definition, EK conducted multiple feedback sessions with senior leadership to share the proposed organizational recommendations, gather feedback, and refine the model as needed. In these feedback sessions, EK elicited leadership’s perspectives on whether the proposed change practices were appropriately prioritized and covered the key initiatives and priorities of leadership. These sessions also allowed EK to identify and share problem points or bottlenecks in certain processes (e.g., lines of authority and decision-making, communications) and whether there were any opportunities to simplify organizational actions and processes. Following each of these sessions, the EK team made iterative edits and developments to the Target Organization Definition to ensure the organizational model remained up-to-date and in-line with organizational objectives.

EK also delivered a synthesized version of the Target Organization Definition as an executive briefing deck, to be used externally when updating current and future partners on the new organizational model. This deck provided the organization with a clean, marketable message to showcase their value to the broader federal agency and discuss planned changes to the organization. This executive briefing deck described the organization’s differentiated value, outlined why it is changing its approach to how it delivers its services, what its core offerings are, and what the organization is uniquely able to provide its partners. EK developed the deck iteratively, presenting leadership with a draft version from which to gather reactions and make adjustments.

The EK Difference

EK supported this organization throughout the entire project to design, develop, and implement the best possible solution for their needs. Beginning with the strategy and design phase of the project, EK conducted multiple rounds of workshops and focus groups to uncover the root of their challenges and discover the right people, processes, and content that should be included in the organizational model and involved in the change efforts. EK designed multiple iterations of the model to incorporate feedback from workshop participants and key stakeholders.

During the development process, EK leveraged Agile processes to maximize communication with organizational leadership and staff. User stories were expanded upon and business requirements were revised in a collaborative process between the design team and key stakeholders. EK began this engagement with a Current State SWOT Analysis, assessing the organization’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities for growth, and the roadblocks that could inhibit the project. This phase of work allowed EK a deeper understanding of the organization’s desired Target State. EK also provided change management, training, and a comprehensive transformation and roadmap plan to ensure a smooth transition and high adoption rate of new federal services and solutions.

The EK team displayed Agile approaches and methodology throughout this entire process, demonstrating to the organization’s staff how they should approach the implementation of the new organizational model. The model was developed iteratively, and at each phase, all stakeholders were given the opportunity to voice concerns and shift priorities. The change practices that EK advised to reach the Target State were supported by recommended actions and milestones, success criteria, and anticipated outcomes so that change management best practices would become second nature at this organization.

The Results

As a result of this engagement, the organization possessed a renewed understanding of Agile and Design Thinking program planning processes, approaches for Center Strategy and Change, and training on messaging and communications regarding that change. The organization was better equipped to handle its vast array of digital media, as staff were upskilled on project management roles, project planning processes, and resource management. EK concluded the engagement with a Business Transformation Plan, comprising seven change practices and a new mission statement to guide the organization in creating a more dynamic and adaptable organization focused on providing world-class expertise and service to its partners in the federal agency.

The post Training and Organizational Design for a Federal Agency appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The two-day certification course is a staple in KMI’s Certified Knowledge Specialist (CKS) offerings. The course provides a background on key concepts including Agile, Design Thinking, Change Management, and User-Centered Communications strategies, detailing how elements of each may be harnessed to address common challenges in KM efforts. This will be highly interactive, involving participants in a series of facilitated exercises, including EK’s complete “Design Thinking for KM” workshop approach.

Mary Little, EK’s Division Director of Knowledge Management Strategy & Design, will serve as the lead instructor for the course. Little is a KM expert, experienced facilitator, and frequent speaker on KM, Design Thinking, and Agile methodologies. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Scrum Product Owner (CSPO). Little focuses on applying agile and design-thinking principles to user-centric solutions, and she is determined to create actual, positive change in the way people engage in the work they do.

When asked about the course, Zach Wahl, CEO of Enterprise Knowledge, said, “This certification course is a perfect application for how we approach KM. It will teach attendees how we put the end user at the center of the KM strategy and design effort, and leverage an assortment of facilitation techniques to engage them in every step of the process.”

Additional information and registration can be found on KMI’s website.

About Enterprise Knowledge

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Our mission is to form true partnerships with our clients, listening and collaborating to create tailored, practical, and results-oriented solutions that enable them to thrive and adapt to changing needs. 

About the International Knowledge Management Institute

Based in Washington, D.C., the KM Institute is a global leader in Knowledge Management certifications and training, with thousands certified since 2001 and classes delivered in up to 15 countries annually. KMI trains and certifies KM team members in the methods and tools that enable individuals and organizations to transform (and substantially improve) human performance in the current Knowledge Age.

The post EK Teaching Upcoming Agile & Design Thinking Certification for KMI appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

Introduction

People are still leaving their jobs, and in record numbers. According to Willis Towers Watson’s 2022 Global Benefits Attitudes Survey, a whopping 44% of employees are considered “job seekers,” who are actively hunting for new work. With so many individuals looking to leave their employers, it’s important for teams to know how to operate and position themselves in order to keep the talent they have, and attract the active job hunters out on the market.

Teams that possess an Agile mindset and practice Agile values can encourage employee retention, while also attracting new talent. In Part I, we’ll explore how to better retain existing employees by applying Agile values in a healthy work environment. Part II will address how teams can attract new talent from the current surplus of those seeking new roles during the Great Resignation.

What Is Agility?

The term “Agile” gets thrown around a lot, usually in close proximity to words like “sprint,” “Jira,” “Scrum,” and “user stories.” Unfortunately, implementing these tools and practices alone won’t result in true Agility, nor will it successfully navigate you through the Great Resignation. At its core, Agility is a mindset expressed in a set of values, some explicitly stated in the Agile Manifesto, and others implied. In this two-part post, we’ll be focusing on a few of these values, namely: collaboration, transparency, consensus, flexibility, prioritization, and fun.

Collaboration

While collaboration in today’s virtual world looks different today than it did a few years ago, teams that maintain a strong collaborative environment can promote employee engagement and retention. Numerous studies and experts indicate that engaged employees stay with their organizations longer. 

These days, it’s not uncommon for teams to work and interact with groups across the globe. That’s certainly the case at EK. Collaboration at a distance has become critical when working with our clients. On many of our projects, we use approaches like virtual whiteboarding (Miro, Mural), stand-ups, and interactive messaging tools (Slack) to create modern, synergetic work environments. Whiteboarding has been particularly effective when helping our clients in the brainstorming phase of projects. It allows for many individuals to engage with a topic simultaneously, and is often a fun exercise that mimics the sensation of being in the same room together. It’s important to note that with these approaches, skilled facilitators are often needed to ensure adequate participation, and to create a safe space for those involved.

We have found that insights and information that are collaboratively derived are more likely to be understood and retained, and the individuals who contribute are more likely to find their work engaging, and want to stick around. 

Consensus

Employees often value workplaces and teams where their opinions are heard and taken seriously. In fact, one of the leading factors that is driving workers away is the feeling of being disrespected. The idea of reaching consensus on any team can seem difficult on the surface, but Agile teams try to reach it whenever possible. Teams can facilitate collective alignment through activities such as planning poker (used to estimate effort on tasks), dot voting, or other interactive exercises. Consensus can also be sought after on topics like team priorities, meeting cadences, and approaches to take when tackling a difficult problem or task. 

At EK, we often seek to reach consensus on the amount of work we are pulling into a given sprint. We’ve found that even when individuals disagree, the goal of consensus often creates an engaging dialogue that surfaces insights or questions that would have been missed otherwise. These conversations are productive, and the team is almost always better off for it.

While consensus isn’t always possible, making a genuine effort to listen to the voices and opinions of members of a team can go a long way in helping them feel respected and valued. This in turn can reduce the likelihood of a toxic team culture developing, which is a common cause for driving workers away from their jobs.

Transparency  

Transparency is crucial to promoting employee retention. In terms of Agility, we define this as the ability of individuals to quickly and easily discern the intent and progress of a given piece of work. The benefits include fewer status meetings, and more accessible knowledge. Transparency can be supported through Agile tools such as Trello or Slack, which can be used to flatten teams, bring employees closer to leadership, and create a digital “single source of truth.” Collectively, these can replace the need for burdensome micromanagement that often weighs heavily on employees. Furthermore, these tools can help teams manage information overload, and provide them with a hub for storing and recalling key information and knowledge.

Transparency also plays a key role in employee retention beyond day-to-day work – particularly during the COVID era. Leaders must be completely transparent as to their planning. At EK, our leadership team has been up front with their thinking throughout the pandemic, and hasn’t been afraid to say they don’t know what the future will precisely look like. That type of thinking may be scary to traditionally need-to-know leadership styles, but leadership’s openness and flexibility in an era of uncertainty has fostered trust and led to improved employee retention. 

Flexibility

Few teams and organizations could have predicted or planned for the global events that have unfolded over the last two years, of which the ripple effects have dramatically changed how most people work. As a result, most of the workforce has come to expect flexibility in when and where they perform their jobs. In fact, over 40% of employees would leave their current job for a more flexible work environment. 

While no single team or organization can change the effects of these larger global events, teams can always choose how they respond to these changes. Teams that allow for flexibility in where team members are located, the frequency and duration of meetings or sprint cycles, and even working hours, can lead to much happier, more engaged employees. 

At EK, we’ve seen this play out for one of our large federal clients that adopted an agency-wide alternative work schedule policy. The policy allows employees to work varied hours suited to their own needs, and take alternate Fridays off by allocating those hours elsewhere. This flexibility is only possible due to the team’s mutual understanding and support, as well as modern collaboration tools that enable work to continue without disruption. Members of the team have reported that they highly value the program, which has greatly helped with retention.

While the above is just a single example, Agile teams that genuinely embrace flexibility will have a much easier time retaining top talent within their organizations than teams that do not. We often try to coach our clients into embracing change when it presents itself. The idea that change is a good thing and should be welcomed should be reinforced from leadership, as it allows individuals and teams to refocus on things of value. That’s at the heart of Agility.

Prioritization

On any team, it’s important to know what things to focus on, and in what order. Employees may grow disgruntled if teams are not prioritizing the right things, or direction is unclear. On an Agile team, it’s imperative to not only help individuals prioritize their objectives, but also deprioritize less urgent goals that can become distractions.

At EK, we often approach prioritization on our projects by breaking out tasks or features into Must Haves, Should Haves, or Could Haves categorizations. We’ve found that this designation helps manage a team’s workload and morale by creating a clear indicator of what to work on first. With clear and strong prioritization, team members often feel less swamped by everything they need to accomplish, and will be less likely to head for the exits.

Conclusion

The pandemic and the Great Resignation have dramatically changed how people think about work. While people have been leaving their jobs for a myriad of reasons, some of the top causes for leaving are often the result of rigid, inflexible teams. Employee retention can be greatly improved by practicing Agile values. Agile organizations are the foundation of workplaces where individuals feel valued, respected, and more dedicated to their employer and mission. If you’re looking for help on how to customize your team’s Agile transformation and would like to transform your culture in order to retain top talent, our Agile consultants would love to hear from you!

In Part II, we’ll talk about how these same Agile values can be applied to attracting talent.

The post The Importance of Agility During The Great Resignation (Part I: Retention) appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The two-day certification course is a staple in KMI’s Certified Knowledge Specialist (CKS) offerings. The course provides a background on key concepts including Agile, Design Thinking, Change Management, and User-Centered Communications strategies, detailing how elements of each may be harnessed to address common challenges in KM efforts. The course will be highly interactive, involving participants in a series of facilitated exercises, including EK’s complete Design Thinking for KM workshop approach.

Mary Little, EK’s Knowledge Management Division Director, will serve as the lead instructor for the course. Little is a KM Expert, experienced facilitator, and frequent speaker on KM, Design Thinking, and Agile approaches. She is a Certified Project Management Professional and Certified Scrum Product Owner. Little focuses on applying agile and design-thinking principles to user-centric solutions, determined to create actual, positive change in the way people engage in the work they do. 

When asked about the course, Zach Wahl, CEO of Enterprise Knowledge, said, “This certification course is a perfect application for how we approach KM. It will teach attendees how we put the end user at the center of the KM strategy and design effort, and leverage an assortment of facilitation techniques to engage them in every step of the process.”

Additional information and registration may be found at the following link: https://www.kminstitute.org/content/cks-agile-and-design-thinking

About Enterprise Knowledge

Enterprise Knowledge (EK) is a services firm that integrates Knowledge Management, Information Management, Information Technology, and Agile Approaches to deliver comprehensive solutions. Our mission is to form true partnerships with our clients, listening and collaborating to create tailored, practical, and results-oriented solutions that enable them to thrive and adapt to changing needs. 

About the International Knowledge Management Institute

Based in Washington DC, The KM Institute is the global leader in Knowledge Management Certification/Training, with many thousands certified since 2001 and classes delivered in up 15 countries annually. KMI trains and certifies KM Team Members in the methods and tools that enable individuals and organizations to transform (and substantially improve) human performance in the Knowledge Age.

The post EK Teaching Upcoming Agile & Design Thinking Certification for KMI appeared first on Enterprise Knowledge.

The Solution

Piloting an approach with their IT Support team, EK implemented a Knowledge Management strategy in addition to a taxonomy and an enterprise search strategy aligned with the Bank’s needs and objectives. Using an agile approach, EK:

1. Inventoried information repositories, based on criticality and frequency of use;
2. Assessed and prioritized content by developing indicators to determine content’s value based on user needs and organizational goals, thus eliminating stale, inconsistent, or irrelevant information;
3. Implemented a taxonomy management tool and integrated the system with repositories to tag content, based on an EK-developed taxonomy; and
4. Revamped the search experience by implementing an open-source search engine and designing a new search interface and indexing strategy.

EK trained IT Support Managers, CSRs, and technical staff on how to conduct their roles with the new solutions and further scale their capabilities to benefit other business units in the bank. EK also implemented a KM Leadership team to ensure KM governance processes were in place and that the bank understood the newly developed strategy and how to communicate its value to executive leadership and their staff.

The EK Difference

EK was able to provide end-to-end KM services for the bank with expertise ranging from strategy and design to implementation and maintenance of the proposed solutions. EK utilized a variety of top-down and bottom-up approaches to assess the current inventory of repositories, define a content management strategy based on organizational and user needs, implement a taxonomy management system to properly tag and manage content, and align the system with an EK-designed taxonomy for consistent content management. EK partnered with the bank’s IT team to ensure a transparent and collaborative process, and to ensure that the bank’s staff received the proper and necessary training for effective maintenance of the new solutions. EK further enhanced the process of finding information by implementing a search engine, using in-house expertise, which also aligned with the content management strategy, taxonomy management solution, and the new taxonomy. EK was able to streamline the process of finding information due to the varied expertise in taxonomy design/implementation, content management processes, and enterprise search design and implementation.

The Results

Implementing the Knowledge Management strategy and technical solution resulted in the Federal Bank’s IT Support team being able to more quickly find information at the time of need. Key success outcomes of the engagement include:

• Cost Per Ticket was reduced
• Staff prefer the new search experience over SharePoint Online and DokuWiki
• Employees report increased confidence in search results
• Decreased time spent finding required information
• Increased ability for employees to discover content
• IT Support management understand their roles and responsibilities as they relate to governing the solution and guiding CSRs

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