Originally published on April 13, 2018
This is the 15th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. Graham Durant-Law was the principal and director in a boutique consulting company called Knowledge Matters, which specialized in business network analysis (BNA) and knowledge management solutions. He earned his doctorate at the University of Canberra researching “Mapping Social Connectivity and Artefact Relationships to Improve Knowledge Productivity.” His work included:
- A business network analysis of an organization that had a portfolio of projects valued in excess of 40 billion Australian dollars. This analysis revealed hitherto unknown relationships, enabling senior management to make more informed decisions.
- The design and support to a knowledge management system, colloquially known as TARDIS, for Capability Development Group of the Australian Defence Force. TARDIS, won the 2004 actKM combined cultural and technological silver award the first time a combined award of this type was presented.
Graham’s personal web site, now devoted to bagpiping, used to host his blog and many papers and presentations on knowledge management and BNA. That rich content is no longer available there, but I retrieved it through The Wayback Machine of the Internet Archive and made the links available here.
Profiles
Content
Articles
Writing
1. Welcome
Knowledge management is a subject that fascinates me — so much so that I am a doctoral candidate at the University of Canberra. My topic is ‘A knowledge productivity model for the public sector’. I am a knowledge practitioner and currently I am assisting in the design, development and deployment of a knowledge management system for the Australian Defence Force, colloquially known as TARDIS. I am a director in a small company called HolisTech® Pty Ltd, which specialises in problem projects and knowledge management. Accordingly much of this web site is devoted to knowledge management.
Inside you will find some theory on knowledge, and in particular knowledge models, which I trust will be of interest to you. There is also a growing list of books and journal articles, and some links to papers and presentations I have presented at conferences with a knowledge management theme. I have also included a page that will take you to my favourite websites. However, knowing that I am interested in knowledge management only tells you part of the story. You will also find information about who I am, what I am doing at the moment, and what I have done in the past — just surf through the pages using the navigation bar, or follow the hyperlinks on the pages.
2. Discipline
I think the missing element in the knowledge management is the notion of discipline. Discipline is the means by which organizations do things at the right time, in the right place, to the right quality, using the right processes. There are at least five types of discipline, all of which are essential if a knowledge management initiative is to succeed.
Discipline is not about punishing people, but rather about engendering the right culture and skills, so that things are done at the right time, in the right place, to the right quality, and using the right processes, all with limited assistance. That said, management should not be afraid of holding people to account, and to discipline them appropriately if necessary. Hopefully this is a rare requirement, but it is requirement managers should not be afraid of enacting.
Following standard processes is a discipline, and requires discipline. It allows freedom of movement and decision, knowing the base is solid. It requires individual discipline and commitment to follow a process that one may not completely agree with, or to use corporately-supplied tools that may not be intuitive to some individuals. It takes individual discipline to think about the corporate need and share their knowledge in the first place.
Discipline does not mean that people are not free to criticize or to do things as they see fit — the right to criticize is one of the foundations of improvement. However, when deviation from the norm occurs, and then reasons and approval should be provided, always remembering the paradigm that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. That said, when acting outside the norm, one must do so with skill and a complete understanding of why it is necessary to do things differently. To do otherwise is a mark of a lack of discipline.
Discipline does not require a hands-on approach by managers and leaders, but it does require that managers and leaders remain connected. Discipline starts at the top. It is a given that executives must maintain discipline in their own actions. Only then they can expect discipline from their staff. In this case it is a matter of ‘doing as I do.’
In short, any knowledge management journey requires people to exercise individual discipline to constantly look to the collective good. It requires group and cultural discipline to work to a common cause. It requires process discipline to follow mandated corporate requirements, and it requires technology discipline to work with what you have and not constantly seek the technological silver bullet.
I trust you find my answer to be interesting, useful and different!
Documents
- Knowledge Productivity™ in a Project-Focused Government Department: What Works and What Doesn’t
- The TARDIS Knowledge Productivity System
- TARDIS: A Journey Through An Enterprise Knowledge Space
- TARDIS Final Presentation
- TARDIS: An Australian Case Study in Applied Knowledge Management Focusing on Non-Technological Implementation Issues
- Logical Thinking
- Using Business Network Analysis™ Techniques in Project Management
- A Knowledge Productivity Model for the Public Sector: PhD Research Proposal
- SNA Survey
- Research Paradigms, the Philosophical Trinity, and Methodology
- The Tacit Knowledge Advantage
- Knowledge Management Models or Models of Knowledge?
- Network Project Management
- Soft Systems Methodology and Grounded Theory Combined — A Knowledge Management Research Approach?
- Specifying a Knowledge Management System
- The Knowledge Conundrum. Unraveling the Knowledge Component on Knowledge Management Models
- The Knowledge Level of Maturity (KLOM) — A Knowledge Approach to Identifying Risk in Projects
- A Network Analysis of the actKM Community of Interest
- An Introduction to Network Analysis as a Research Technique
- An Introduction to Social and Organisational Network Analysis
- Introducing Network Analysis as a Research Technique
- Knowledge Management Models or Models of Knowledge? A Critical Review of the Literature
- Managing Project Interdependencies: Exploring New Approaches
- Applying the RAAAKERS™ framework in an analysis of the command and control arrangements of the ADF garrison health support
- An Introduction to Network Analysis as a Research Technique — 2010 Version
- Using SNA for organisational and personal improvement
Using SNA for organisational and personal improvement
Blog Posts
- Seeking Wisdom
- Black Art Definitions
- Surfaces and Gaps, Killing Grounds, Strategy and Conversation
- From data to wisdom
- On Wisdom
- The Knowledge Conduit
- Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
- Sometimes a Picture is Only Worth a Few Words!
- Connected
- Connectivity is Enabling Pavlovian Work Practices
- Is the Pyramid to Wisdom Model Useful?
- Knowledge Management Is Still A Dirty Phrase
- The Knowledge Productivity Target
- The Six Knows Knowledge Model
- Using Network Analysis to Solve Hunger and Poverty
- Mapping Website Differentiation
- Brokerage and Closure
- Structural Holes
- Hogmanay, Paulatim and Knowledge Management
- Deconstructing Complexity
- 2007’s Top 50 Websites?
- Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek
- Meet Tertius Iungens, the True Knowledge Broker
- Which Knowledge Management School Do You Belong To?
- Knowledge Management Lessens Crime
- Knowledge Productivity Thesis
- Black Leaders and the Dog Syndrome
- Social Network Analysis in Program Evaluation
- Social Networks and Organizations
- Who is the Most Important Person?
- Knowledge Management Is On The Rise But Fails To Deliver
- Knowledge Is Whatever We Believe It To Be!
- Is the Word “Knowledge” Content-Free?
- Knowledge Management Schools?
- Microsoft Excel Network Analysis Add-In
- Methodological Pitfalls in Social Network Analysis
- The Philosophical Trinity
- Stupid Surveys
- New Knowledge Management Principles?
- Defence BNA™ Case Study
- Knowing Projects
- Connectivity Paralysis
- Does Knowledge Management Need A Maturity Model?
- The Power of Number Visualisation
- Happy Flu Network Diffusion Experiment
- TNT Connectedness
- Is Knowledge Representation Becoming More Visual?
- Dollars or Links? Visualising Collective Knowledge
- The Father of Knowledge Management?
- 4-Pane Achromatopsia
- Idea Thieves
- Seeking the Silver Bullet
- Do Even More With Less
- Seven Steps from Everyone
- Archetypes Still Don’t Matter!
- Catnets
- A Billion Dollar Knowledge Transfer Mistake!
- Conference Week in Australia
- The Shadow Organisation and Network Analysis
- Theories of Communication Networks
- The Clean Child Indicator
- Organisational Restructuring
- Social Network Analysis and Smoking Behaviour
- Website Personality
- The Definitional Conundrum
- Working Wikily
- The SMART Framework
- The Invisible Discipline
- Research Question, Central Idea, Assumptions and Propositions
- Research Contributions and Value
- Blogging a Thesis
- Knowledge Management and Network Analysis Bibliography
- Knowledge as an Artefact
- Social Network Analysis and the Dynamic Spread of Happiness
- Database Failure and New Beginnings
- Blood-Sucking Consultants and Proprietary Databases
- Meet Tertius Iungens, the True Knowledge Broker
- Critical Mass
- Who is Tertius Gaudens?
- Where Would You Allocate Your Priorities?
- Collaborate for an Ethical Cyberspace
- Don’t Let Cyber-Vandals Beat You!
- Genocide Knowledge Management
- Visualising Organisational Efficiency
- Net Work
- Senior Officer Interest Lights (SOILs)
- Analyzing Social Media Networks with NodeXL
- Network Power
- Understanding the Complexity of a Program of Projects
- Understanding the Complexity of Program Management
- Understanding the Complexity of Program Management 2
- Visualising Project Programme Risk?
- Where Would You Allocate Your Priorities?
Directories
1. Knowledge Matters Index
- Collaboration maps
- Information flow maps
- Interface maps
- Policy relationship maps
- Project interface maps
- Social capital maps
- Doing an analysis
2. Categories
- Australian Defence Force
- Book review
- Business Network Analysis™
- Complexity
- Data
- Ethics
- HolisTech® Pty Ltd
- Information
- Knowledge
- Knowledge management
- Knowledge management model
- Knowledge model
- Knowledge Productivity™
- Miscellaneous
- Network analysis
- Organisational network analysis
- Philosophy
- PMBOK®
- Project management
- Research
- Risk and regulation
- Social network analysis
- Strategy
- Systems
- TARDIS
- Visualisation
3. Site map
- Collaboration maps
- Information flow maps
- Organisational interface maps
- Policy relationship maps
- Project interface maps
- Social capital maps
- Doing an analysis
- Presentations
- Book reviews
- Blog-posts
- Visualisations
4. Graham Durant-Law
Other Content
- KM4Dev Social Network Analysis
- Network Numerology: Demystifying Numbers in Social Network Analysis
- Corporate Amnesia, Discipline, and Knowledge Management
Videos: How to Do a Business Network Analysis™
Books
- Brokerage and Closure by Ronald Burt. It’s no secret that I am a fan of Professor Ronald Burt’s work. His book “Structural Holes: the Social Structure of Competition”, is a seminal publication. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for “Brokerage and Closure”, although I would still give it four stars. Read in sequence and in conjunction with each other they offer the knowledge management practitioner and network analyst some useful insights.
- Critical Mass: How One Thing Leads to Another by Doctor Philip Ball, who is a physicist by education and a science writer for Nature. I read it because of my interest in networks and complexity, and this book promised some insights. It was an entertaining read, but was hard going in a lot of places. Despite this the book was well written and flowed naturally.
- Exploratory Social Network Analysis with Pajek by Wouter de Nooy, Andrej Mrvar, and Vladimir Batagelj. Pajek means spider in Slovenian. Pajek is also a software program for the analysis and visualisation of very large networks; networks with thousands if not millions of vertices. It is a program I use occasionally, however I prefer UCINET and NetMiner 3, because I find these programs to be easier to use.
- Net Work: A Practical Guide to Creating and Sustaining Networks at Work and in the World by Patti Anklam, who is a recognized practitioner in network analysis circles. The central theme is we work through informal and formal networks, which may be tangible or intangible, but all have value. Her primary assumption is that all networks can be mapped. These maps serve to describe the network and provide a diagnosis of the health of the mapped entity, albeit the map is a snapshot in time. Patti’s premise is if the network can be mapped and described then the network can be managed and weaved — a premise I largely agree with, and which is an underlying assumption in my research.
- Weak Links: Stabilizers of Complex Systems from Proteins to Social Networks by Peter Csermely, who is a Professor of Biochemistry at the Semmelweis University of Budapest. The central theme is weak links are the determinants of system stability and diversity. Csermely defines a link “as ‘weak’, when its addition or removal does not change the mean value of a target measure at a statistically discernible way”.
- Structural Holes: the Social Structure of Competition by Ronald Burt. This is a seminal publication and a must read for anyone interested in network theory. The book has an academic flavor but is well written, with many easy to understand examples. Burt’s central thesis is that structural holes in business networks are very important. A structural hole is a gap between two individuals. When the two are connected through a third individual important advantages accrue for the third individual, who may employ a tertius strategy.
