The Three Actuals

In Dr. Jih’s Blog on Knowledge management (http://kmspring07.blogspot.com/) there is a post about experience Pro and Con…

In my work as an I.T. manager and Project Manager I have come to learn that there are “three actuals” that need to be studied when providing solution or doing systems work. This feeds into how experience is important in Knowledge Management:

Actual #1: Go to the actual place. This is important when developing software systems, mechanical systems or work flow processes. Too many times in my early career have I thought I understood a user request. I created a solution from my perception and found out the square peg will not fir into the round whole. Experiencing the actual place will give you insight not other wise gained from an interview or written request. Some of what is gained at the actual place is explicit knowledge. Other knowledge, and at time more important, is the tacit knowledge.. The feel of the place, the observation of the way the people interact with other people or interact with systems and machines.

Actual #2: See the actual people perform. Understand from the end user the gap you are helping them to fill. Having the understanding that the user thinks a report will fill a process gap, an experienced process engineer may suggest a change in work flow that leads the people to a more efficient screen. If the engineer has not seen the actual people in their actual place then a sub-optimal solution may have been delivered. From a project management perspective, being with the people helps with solution buy-in. The people will feel some ownership in the solution and in the end accept the solution at project closure.

Actual #3: View the actual process. It is possible to visit the actual place and communicate with the actual people and still not understand the actual process. Again, if the process engineer is seeing a process different that what the solution will be applied to, then we may find out at implementation time the square peg does not fit into the round whole.

So, experience is important to knowledge workers. Especially the knowledge workers that are bring some kind of solution to a problem.