The Effectiveness of Different Mechanisms for Spreading Best Practice

Contents

Introduction + Methodology

2. Key Findings and Conclusions

2.1 General Points
2.2 Specific Findings

3. Specific Mechanisms for Spreading Best Practice

3.1 Networks and Beacons

3.2 Guidance Materials and Databases

3.3 Champions

3.4 Customising Information: What do People Want?

4. Holistic Approaches and Models

4.1 Overarching Strategies

4.2 Dissemination Models

5. Evaluations Planned or Currently Under Way

6. Key Sources and References

4.2 Dissemination Models

‘Common Knowledge: How Companies Thrive by Sharing What They Know’, Nancy Dixon

The following summarises an article in People Management (February 2000) by Nancy Dixon, based on the above book which was published in March 2000 by Harvard Business School Press.

‘ … it is possible to take a more systematic approach by looking carefully at the type of knowledge, matching it to the most effective transfer method and using a set of coherent and internally consistent design principles to produce an effective transfer system. In any organisation there may be several different types of knowledge that need to be transferred, each calling for a different transfer method. The answer is to make a match.’

Three factors determine the method through which knowledge can be most effectively transferred:

Nancy Dixon has developed five categories of transfer method, based on her studies of how organisations manage knowledge:

Several case studies are included in the article.

One organisation, FastTech (a multinational communications company) created a knowledge repository where members of the 75 product development teams could place their innovations. The IT department set up a sophisticated database. Management made speeches. The company newsletter carried articles.

Little progress was made. Employees were seen to be too busy for such knowledge sharing to work. A percentage of bonus payments was then made dependent on team leaders providing information on what knowledge they had shared. Again, very little progress was made. This was compared with other examples, as follows:

In the Ford Motor Company (vehicle operations division), their Best Practice Replication system was reported to have saved the company $34 million in one year.

Each week, the 37 plants receive through the intranet between five and eight best practices that apply only to the division. Each plant manager appoints production engineers as ‘focal points’ responsible for best practice, who retrieve information passed to them and enter their own plant’s best practice into the system.

A video system is planned ‘… because the focal points have found that for many best practices, seeing the motion involved is necessary to understand it properly.’

However, Nancy Dixon argues that this system is not simply transferable to other organisations. In the case of Ford, everything needed to complete the tasks in question could be written down. This was not the case with FastTech. Product development requires a great deal of intuition and creativity, with knowledge largely in people’s heads. Individuals need to take what they have learnt through experience and put those ideas together in new and creative ways. Therefore a database system is not the most effective method of transfer. The most effective system would be ‘Far Transfer’ (see below) because this involves the movement of people, as carriers of knowledge, rather than databases.

In another company, Lockheed Martin, a best practice system was designed to spread knowledge across 40 organisations, beginning with engineering and extended to cover (among others) programme management, operations, employee development and procurement. The company carried out a benchmarking exercise across 17 internal and 12 external companies, which showed that each company was best at something but none was best at everything. Then they set up 30 ‘transfer teams’, each comprising representatives from eight different units. Teams include both ‘source’ companies with expertise to share and ‘receiving’ companies with something to gain. Each transfer team works as a unit for several months to help members develop implementation plans Reciprocity is built in at several levels.

Four key principles of far transfer are identified:

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Knowledge transfer and culture – basic principles

There is a large base of thinking within the knowledge management literature about the best ways to share learning and knowledge, both internally and between organisations. One key text, by Nahapiet and Ghoshal, attempts to analyse the basic conditions required to aid the sharing of knowledge between and within organisations (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998). Rather than looking towards the more formal systems for absorbing and passing on new ideas – such as newsletters and guidelines – they argue that it is the culture of an organisation which holds the key to whether it can become good at knowledge spreading. For them, if the right kind of culture is fostered, it has an important impact on knowledge absorption and transfer in as much as it promotes the kind of ‘social capital’ that encourages communication. However, they go on to describe the six core conditions which need to be met for knowledge transfer and absorption to occur:

Nahapiet and Ghoshal then claim that such conditions can best be achieved through durability and stability in employment relationships, and interdependence and interaction in the workplace.

NHS Executive: Spreading best practice from beacons: Learning from experience in year one and maximising the impact of the programme

The NHS Executive is leading the government’s programme in the NHS to improve the way best practice is disseminated and spread, at the heart of which is the NHS Beacons programme (See NHS Executive 2000b). Recently the Executive has been attempting to draw up a model of how best practice should be spread between beacons and from beacons across the NHS. This has been developed from previous best practice dissemination work in other sectors, and from learning from how the beacons have so far attempted to spread best practice. The model is based on a range of activities that are appropriate for the message, will enable beacons to share learning with others effectively, allow formal and informal learning and support networks to develop and enable beacons to influence others and think about changes within their own organisations.

The model, set out below, describes more ‘passive’ dissemination activities towards the left-hand side of the diagram, and more interactive activities (that have a greater chance of shaping behaviour) towards the right.

The proposal is that existing beacons, and new beacons as they arrive into the programme, should be invited to think carefully about their dissemination plans, using this model. With the Regional Office, they will agree the most appropriate package of dissemination activities over the (two year) life of their learning agreement.

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Ways of Disseminating Best Practice

The NHS Central Research and Development Committee (CRDH) set up an advisory group in July 1994, chaired by Professor Andy Haines and lasting six months, to identify means of evaluating methods to promote the implementation of research and development findings in the National Health Service (NHS 2000b).

It was felt at the time that though the transfer of research knowledge into practice is vital if patient care and service delivery are to be improved, there was too little knowledge of evidence-based assessment of research findings. The multidisciplinary group, including health providers, purchasers, consumers, researchers and policy makers, consulted individuals, commissioned expert papers and convened workshops, extending beyond the health sector, to gather information.

Twenty priorities evaluating the uptake of research and development and methods of implementing research findings were identified. These included examining the influences of source and presentation of evidence on its uptake by health care professionals and others; exploring why some clinicians, but not others, change their practice in response to research findings; evaluating the role of the media in promoting uptake of research findings; and the analysis of use of research-based evidence by policy makers.

Subsequently, 35 projects have been commissioned ranging in duration from a few months to four years. Some £4.3 million has been committed, though seven of the priority areas identified have not been funded. In March 2000 the programme transferred to the national programme on Service Delivery and Organisation, based within the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Findings from completed projects include:

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If Only We Knew What We Know: The transfer of internal knowledge and best practice

The authors are, respectively, the President and Chairman of the American Productivity and Quality Centre whose operations include an International Benchmarking Clearinghouse and an Institute for Education Best Practices (O’Dell and Jackson Grayson, 1988). The Centre brings together consortia of organisations to find and transfer best practice. The book’s recommendations are based on work with member organisations, and a variety of case studies are included.

A 1994 study led by Dr Gabriel Szulanski (formerly with INSEAD) looked at phases of and barriers to the effective transfer of knowledge in organisations and found that, even in the best of firms, in-house best practices took on average 27 months to transfer from one part to another. This finding helped to provide an impetus for the authors’ work.

Szulanski’s research pinpointed four barriers:

The authors use the definition of best practices as: ‘those practices that have produced outstanding results in another situation and that could be adapted for our situation’. Feedback from one of their members highlighted the need to avoid giving the impression that there is only one best way to do things.

In addition to those outlined above they identify barriers and needs relating to:

The book provides a ‘Model for Best Practice Transfer’ which has four ‘enablers’ for the knowledge management process:

The authors provide two key principles. (1) the higher the grade of knowledge the lower-tech the solution will be. (2) Tacit knowledge is best shared through people, whereas explicit knowledge can be shared through machines. (The book contains a detailed chapter on the effective design of IT based transfer systems, which should be useful to any organisation developing a web-based dissemination strategy.)

Key points for effective dissemination include:

The authors have identified three basic design approaches, which are not mutually exclusive. These are:

Chapter 18 sets out a process through which organisations can identify their priority needs in improving the transfer of knowledge and best practice. These are based on the following objectives: