I’ve been seeing circles lately, in a positive way.
As I mentioned in earlier posts this month and at the Boston KM Forum KM 2.0 symposium, I’ve been putting some time into reading Joseph Firestone and Mark McElroy‘s knowledge management writing. Highly recommended, although occasionally challenging reading. Seeing their Decision Execution Cycle, in Doing Knowledge Management (29 page PDF, Firestone and McElroy, 2004), and also in On Doing Knowledge Management, (Firestone, 2008), got me to thinking about other circular models that have seen. From page 6 in the first paper:
Perhaps the most well known circular model is the similar Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle (PDCA) from Walter Shewhart; frequently credited to W. Edwards Deming, who popularized its use. The American Society for Quality describes the cycle as:
- Plan. Recognize an opportunity and plan a change.
- Do. Test the change. Carry out a small-scale study.
- Study. Review the test, analyze the results and identify what you’ve learned.
- Act. Take action based on what you learned in the study step: If the change did not work, go through the cycle again with a different plan. If you were successful, incorporate what you learned from the test into wider changes. Use what you learned to plan new improvements, beginning the cycle again.
At the Boston KM Forum symposium, in his presentation, Dan Keldsen referenced another circular model, the Observe-Orient-Detect-Act (OODA) loop from John “40 second” Boyd, United States Air Force, as described by A different battlefield, the same strategy: How the OODA Loop applies to business:
Lastly, Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell propose several circular models in their book Learning to Fly: Practical Knowledge Management from Leading and Learning Organizations
The second is double-loop model “relates learning processes, and the capture and transfer of knowledge to day-to-day business.” (p.33):
Now the work is to learn how to intentionally travel in, not just see, these circles.
For Further Reading:
- (added 22 June) The OODA Loop and Double-loop Learning and OODA, the DEC, and the KLC, Joe Firestone 16 and 18 June 2008
Related Post:
- Leadership and the Five Spiritual Faculties (another circular model)
Ray – great to see you picking up the loop idea and running with it, so many useful examples to pull from. I’ll have to remember to use some of these in future presentations – very handy to point out that it’s not just a single instance where iterations are useful.
You could add the Knowledge Chain in there as well (also in my preso), and while it’s not well known, the TRIZ cycle (should be a closed loop, but I’ve never seen it that way), takes your problem -> abstracts to the world’s known problems -> the world’s solutions -> applies to your solution. There really should be a closed loop to feedback around after dumping the new solution into a knowledgebase, and we could safely call that… yep, knowledge management!
TRIZ bit is on slide 50 at http://is.gd/5Je
Knowledge chain on slide 39 at http://is.gd/5Jg
BTW – truly fantastic book on loops, feedback and emergence, is the book “Emergence” by Steven Johnson, on Amazon at http://is.gd/5Jh
See you around (pun intended!).