Mittwoch, 7. August 2013

Framework based on knowledge for Development to analyse and measure the worth of Development Interventions


ITIL ®V3 (IT Service Management) 
PRINCE2 ® (Projects in Controlled Environments)
Agile Management Innovations
Wirtschaftsinformatik  - Diplom-Ingenieur
Informatikmanagement - Mag. rer. soc. oec
Wirtschaftsinformatik - Bakk.rer. soc. oec
Social Science - DEUG











The knowledge management for development is the practical knowledge for development to improve organizational capabilities and development interventions through better *„know how", „better Knowledge´s Design, Delivery, and Support"*, the use and the distribution of the organization's individual and collective knowledge resources. This supports the *science* that enables the translation of "theories", knowledge research´s "materials", and "learning experience" into *live practices* through a simple innovative sustainable development model. Practices that improve and support internal, local and regional sustainable development efforts.


 So there is a need to distinguish three sorts of practical knowledge in the knowledge management for development:


the first is the practical business knowledge for the successfully management, operation and benefits of public and private organizations. The practical business knowledge which we could call the traditional knowledge management enables the efficient management, the smooth operation and the support of internal organizations culture and its business strategies.

The second is the practical Knowledge for Development. The Knowledge that is designed, tested, packaged and embedded in development interventions. The practical knowledge for development enables the successfully management, operation, delivery and support of sustainable development interventions into local practices and local environments.



One important property of this knowledge is that a successful practical Knowledge for Development should be carefully targeted towards its audience, with the right mixture of delivery, support, simplicity, elegance, and, with the right sustainable communities’ development innovations through the right knowledge formats and the right sociocultural knowledge infrastructures.



The third is the community practices (Practical Client Knowledge) which we could describe as the daily public, private practices and habits of each community. This knowledge describes what works in our community, in our industries, in our sectors, in our lives, in our societies, in our engagements, in our daily jobs etc. The community practices vary from community to community, from region  to region,  and change with the time and in  the space.








This Knowledge includes the Practical Business Knowledge and the Practical Knowledge for Development. It is focused on local private business management, public organizations management, and particularly on local sociocultural infrastructures management, operations and their support. 
 
The following figure describes the relation between the Practical Business Knowledge, the Practical Knowledge for Development and the Community Practices (Practical Client Knowledge).








Fig. An Architecture for Knowledge Management for Development. *Efficient through different delivery models, products identifications, collaborations, particiapations, processes, formats and architectures, change management and support etc. (The core services of the Science of Delivery).


As we can see this on the above figure the three sorts of the Practical Knowledge are connected. The following table provides a short description of each practical knowledge:



The three sorts of the practical knowledge in Knowledge Management for Development
Knowledge
Description
Practical Business Knowledge
(Practical private Knowledge)
Solves businesses and private management problems. Offers real benefits for business line. Based on organizational objectives such as improved performance, competitive advantage innovation, lessons learning, transfer between projects and the general development of collaborative practices. Practical private Knowledge for the management of the private businesses. Included Organizational Knowledge.

Traditional knowledge management system that enables the efficient management, the smooth operation and the support of internal organizations culture and its business strategies.
Internal, rigorous and very operational. The knowledge management strategy is aggressive and greedy for Return On Investment (ROI).
Practical Knowledge for Development (Practical public Knowledge)
Practical knowledge refers to skills that are learned by continuous application of theoretical ideas into real life. It often leads to a deeper understanding of a concept through the act of doing and personal experience. In addition, principal learned are not easily forgotten.  Included Organizational Knowledge.

Solves poorest people’s problems. Practical public Knowledge for the management of social progress, and the well-being of each community members. 

 Knowledge that is designed, tested, packaged and embedded in development interventions. 

Focused on the development of the capacities of the local communities in helping the communities to drive and to promote their own sustainable development processes through suitable evaluation processes, through the right adequate local sociocultural knowledge infrastructures, through effective collaborative and participatory approaches with governments, private sector, PPPs, NGOs etc. with the respect of the local Knowledge resources and potentials, at the right place and at the right moment. 

This knowledge enables the successfully management, operation, delivery and support of sustainable development interventions into local community practices and local environments. 

Public and flexible knowledge management system that focuses on the minimum well-being of all community members wherever they are living through prosperity sharing and extreme poverty eradication. 

The Knowledge management strategy has a flexible focus on Return On Investment (ROI).

Is carefully targeted towards its audience, with the right mixture of delivery, support, simplicity, elegance, flexibility, and, with the right sustainable communities’ development innovations through the right knowledge formats and the right sociocultural knowledge infrastructures.

Improves Development works processes, impacts, outputs, outcome and benefits. Supported by change management processes and mechanisms. 

Efficient through different delivery models, collaborations, participations, processes, formats and architectures, change management and support etc. (The core services of the Science of Delivery).
Community Practices (Practical Client Knowledge)
Solves community daily practices problems. This knowledge underlines what works in our community, in our industries, in our sectors, in our lives, in our societies, in our engagements, in our daily jobs etc.

The knowledge includes the daily public, private practices and habits of each community. This includes the Practical Business Knowledge and the Practical knowledge for Development. 

The knowledge management strategy is focused on local private business, public organizations, and on local management of the available sociocultural infrastructures. This knowledge management supports too the Return On Investment (ROI).



The challenge  is how to design, to deliver, and to support successfully an extern practical knowledge for development into a local Community Practices (Practical Client Knowledge) for sharing prosperity and eradicating extreme poverty? Or how can we successfully transfer a successfully community practices into another different community practices?










In the following lines I will present a flexible framework based on knowledge for development to analyse and measure the worth of Development Interventions into local community practices and environments. 





The major obstacles to sustainable development efforts that we meet and we oft underestimate are implementing and delivering development programs and projects in unknown environment are great challenges. Most development interventions fail when they meet local sociocultural infrastructures and because the traditional evaluations, programs and projects management methods are not able to cope with constant changes in the local practices and in the communities’ environment.

The practical Knowledge for Development is crucial to achieving the Mission of ending world poverty. Knowledge for development is a considerable intangible asset to develop, to manage, to deliver and to support with success development projects and programs.



Knowledge for Development agenda must promote, drive and communicate *how* development stakeholders must effective work together to provide development professionals, local support groups, beneficiaries, communities and local governments the suitable and appropriate information, data, technologies, tools, talents, skills, development materials and knowledge that they need to deliver and to support with success development interventions (programs and projects) into local community practices, local and regional environments.





There are strong needs to improve Knowledge for Development and particularly eradicate the numerous constraints imposed on access to, the delivery and the support of knowledge for development services which are the main factors that slow sustainable development progress.

The concept of *Science of Delivery* of Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group (Delivering on Development: Harnessing Knowledge to Build Prosperity and End Poverty) is very appealing and supports the culture of searching suitable alternative solutions to sustainable development interventions. This requires a shift in the production and delivery of knowledge for development and a fundamental re-organization of the way knowledge for development (knowledge management for development, knowledge architecture, knowledge tools, knowledge formats, knowledge sharing approaches and practices etc.) is designed, produced, tested, readapted, packaged, embedded, distributed, delivered, transferred, replicated and supported etc. into local development interventions, into  local Community Practices.










This *Science of Delivery* addresses more precisely an innovative development intervention (project and program) that includes: inclusion management in all phases of the intervention, the availability of the right sociocultural infrastructures that enable the development and the support of the intervention on the target site, the knowledge transfer mechanisms and change management that enable efficient management and the exploitation of the delivered intervention on the target site after the intervention exits.






Fig. Framework to improve development interventions
 


* Sociocultural Infrastructures are basic physical, cultural and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise, or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function. It is an important term for judging a country or region's development*. 

These sociocultural infrastructures include, for example, local practices, spiritual, moral, religion and philosophy dimensions, learning experience, transport infrastructures, water infrastructures, communication infrastructures, solid and liquid waste infrastructures, earth monitoring and measurement infrastructures, management and governance of social infrastructures, economic and cultural infrastructures, economic infrastructures, social infrastructures, cultural infrastructures, environmental infrastructures etc......

Let me give one short framework example for the production of a practical Knowledge for Development to combat HIV/AIDS in a remote village in the following table.

Funding and local capacity management for the operation and the support during and after the intervention are available.
Trigger
Needs for new knowledge package or adaptation of existing knowledge package and the required socio cultural infrastructures to combat HIV/AIDS in a remote village.
Approach
Assessment and evaluation to produce a new knowledge package or to adapt an existing knowledge package into the local environment.
Input
Decision to invest in a construction of a knowledge development center to support the local knowledge management and transfer procedures.
Output
Knowledge development center is constructed, maintained and managed by a local knowledge management committee with support of knowledge management agencies, local government, NGOs, public, private sector, regional knowledge management coordination centre etc.
Outcome
Information on HIV/AIDS infection and prevention are offered more quickly and accurately through videos, cinema, storytelling, sketches, analogies, seminar, education, training, theatre, singing, discussion, knowledge sharing etc. in the local, national and regional language within and outside the knowledge development´s center.
Benefit
HIV/AIDS infections are reduced by 10%, annually.



The challenge is Measuring and Evaluating what works on the basis of evidence (“know-how”) before intervening. The production of the practical knowledge, and its delivery with the right format at the right place, at the right moment, into the local suitable sociocultural infrastructures is required for building prosperity and ending poverty.






The practical knowledge for Development that we want to deliver on a specific target site could not work if the design and the architecture of our practical public knowledge do not take into account, and do not support the local knowledge architecture, the local knowledge formats, and the sociocultural knowledge infrastructures of the Communities practices (Practical Client Knowledge) on the target site.







The following table presents a flexible framework based on knowledge for development to analyse and measure the worth of Development Interventions into local community practices:


How to deliver,
Business case, design and delivery,
how we could deliver successfully our knowledge package? How do we know our knowledge package will work in the target audience´s environment with regards to
Political, social, cultural and institutional realities on the ground?
Are we right to deliver, to support and to upgrade continuous the knowledge package at the target audience´s site? Clearly define the content of the development´s intervention. Clearly define the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, Set expectations of the development intervention quality, availability and timeliness
What will happen, what do we know (observation, imitation, and practice)?
What others know?
What information do we have (obstacles, strategies, policies, consensus, commitment etc..)?
What will happen if our knowledge package is hit by the target audience traditional knowledge potentials? resources, socio cultural infrastructures and culture?
Are we right to provide the access to new sociocultural infrastructures, to update and to adapt the knowledge package at the target audience stations if the target audience´s sociocultural environment changes?
Local capacity,
is there the complete local capacity in terms of technical, managerial and financial skills to bring such knowledge to a successful end?
Are the tools and machinery required to carry on the knowledge available locally and is the skilled personnel required to maintain the above also available locally?
Capacity for ensuring that Knowledge resources are in place to satisfy planned, and designed
development´s intervention and that those knowledge´s infrastructure (soft/hard) assets could be effectively used, and are capable to support the intervention. Coaching, practice, and continuous improvement, communities, moderators, network, assistance, empowering local capacity building service,
local effective tool for identifying and evaluating needs,
Working closely with local implementing partners and building their capacity.
When,
when information, data, evaluation, reports and analysis are available? When the compiled knowledge package is available for the intervention? Understanding clients' needs and concerns;
responding to client needs; Customizes services and products (technical non-technical). Focus on new knowledge package product development and launch. Gather, evaluate, and track information from a range of sources and use this data to provide an analysis the strength or weakness the intervention. Suggestion of other methods that might be more successful based on the actual results, data and evaluation.
Availability of the right knowledge package. This may base on the right infrastructures and the right format with respect of the actual environment
Accesses to the right socio cultural knowledge infrastructures. Integrating and assimilating knowledge package to the corresponded environment
Arrangement and
classification of knowledge infrastructures
Knowledge may be
arranged in such a way that it facilitates finding
the right knowledge infrastructure and its formats
application of the knowledge package
Package must be focused on its scope and objectives applied according to the knowledge package business case with respect of the community’ needs and community´s environment
awareness of evaluation of the knowledge package
Awareness of being evaluated may contribute to increase knowledge upgrading, communities collaboration and participation
baseline for the knowledge package maturity
comparing actual results to a previously knowledge package set baseline
Access to the new knowledge
no barrier to access and to transfer the new knowledge package
Format enabling creative knowledge package
objectives of the knowledge package enable infrastructures for creative knowledge formats, support flexible the knowledge activities, knowledge sharing and transfer process
readability
flexible and adaptable knowledge package to a target community through collaboration and participation work
usability
usable and available knowledge package to the target through right infrastructures and right format
re-use
reusable and transferable knowledge toward target communities
re-use knowledge package
reusable and transferable knowledge package toward target communities
Best practices
Knowledge effect
Individual experience
success stories
cooperation with
knowledge experts, knowledge organization and target communities during all the process to find the right knowledge infrastructure and the right format
Knowledge sharing culture, adoption evaluation process to see the positive progression of the knowledge effect
Communities satisfaction
the communities are satisfied with the knowledge package
Communities success
knowledge sharing success among communities compared with previously
distribution of knowledge
easy distribution of the knowledge package within the target communities
Format
Knowledge package available in different local knowledge format and supports the local knowledge potential and resources
Social value
positive effects of the knowledge package within the target community increases visibility and increased communities social value
efficiency &visibility within the target community
knowledge package increases the well-being of the target community
Knowledge produces satisfaction
positive effect, positive social impact of the knowledge package compared to previous community’s life
Knowledge expertise available
target community supports manages efficient the new knowledge package for the local sustainable development purpose
Local participation
local community are involved in the outline of the knowledge package business scope
Knowledge package Innovation
new knowledge package increases knowledge innovation within local communities
Communities satisfaction
increasing satisfaction within the target communities situation due to facilitated information sharing
New knowledge package activity
new knowledge package activities increase
Knowledge package sharing and transferring
knowledge package sharing and transferring per measurement interval increase
business case
knowledge package business case contributes to the local sustainable development efforts
motivation
activities
networking
management
usefulness of theknowledge package contribution
Usefulness of knowledge activities management
increasing possibilities for networking with external, internal knowledge partners and others communities and organization
increasing of
Knowledge package sharing, preferably an increase due to well managed knowledge package
profitability
new knowledge gained from
knowledge package base
quality
usefulness of the knowledge format and infrastructures found, possibilities of re-use of the knowledge package
query guidance
Sufficient instructions and guidance within knowledge package. This enables quick knowledge sharing
relationships
relationships established due to knowledge sharing, transferring & networking
response time
real response
times of finding information due to the knowledge format and its infrastructures
return on investments
knowledge package business case represents value of money
scope re-use
reuse of new knowledge package scopes among other communities
Revenue gained/saved
revenue gained due to the right knowledge package business case
sharing
knowledge sharing increases amount communities and regions
support ratings
identification of the knowledge package sharing, transferring and support and update function ratings
support from management
knowledge package supporting and upgrading from knowledge management
Support incidents
Supporting knowledge change, update coming from the use of the knowledge package in actual environment
Defect
problem submitted due to the operationalization of the knowledge package
time, money
&personnel time s
Savings resources due to well managed knowledge package through the right format and the infrastructures
time to meet communities needs
communities are quickly satisfied with the knowledge package solution
usability
useful of the knowledge package and the impacts on the well-being of the target communities



*The success of this framework depends on how well a development intervention is designed and on how well all the stakeholders are integrated in the processes of the intervention. Simple Copy and Paste or the Simple Transfer of a successfully Development intervention in another region or in another sector could not work.The success requires an innovative adaptation of the transferred, copied and pasted Development intervention......


the best Knowledge Management, learning and evaluation strategies in the UK are not necessarily the best Knowledge Management, learning and evaluation strategies in Uganda. Different groups and organizations (whether they are different due to political circumstances, economic resources, culture, social background or religion etc.) may have different associations in relation to concepts such as ‘leadership’, ‘cooperation’, ‘information’, ‘sharing’ and ‘monitoring” (Hovland 2003: 8).


References you might be also interested in are available in the following table:
Title
Source
Setting Key Performance Indicator (KPI) for Knowledge Package for Development
Knowledge Package for Development
Agile knowledge Package Quality Policy: It is the Right Delivery and the Real-Time Access to the Knowledge for Development!
Creating decentralized knowledge management and transfer culture for development
How Knowledge can Impact Development?
Change Management and Knowledge for Development
Évaluation et Développement Durable
A holistic approach: the sociocultural infrastructures and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
Why operate agile in sustainable development programmes and projects?
Holistic framework to improve development projects and interventions
Évaluation agile: la vie privée et sociale des plus pauvres comme des indicateurs pertinents dans les processus d´évaluation des projets et programmes de développement durable
La coopération agile au développement
La gouvernance des Partenariats Public-Privé (PPP), la gestion des ressources locales et aides au développement en Afrique
Afrique: Champ de Théâtre économique entre les pays riches et la Chine.
Books on amazon
Agile Strategy: the power of human factors in the design and support of your business applications management


*Author, Amouzou Bedi (Expertise and knowledge of the science management and its cultural implications in the developed and developing world in particular), contact on LinkedIn. I will try to update this paper on a regular basis if a need arises. Please if you have a suggestion (how we can better this framework) and feedback with regards to this work please feel free to share this. Many thanks for taking your time to read this paper.

Photo: Design for Delivery and Focus