Managing Synergic Knowledge-Creation in Consortia1

Managing Synergic Knowledge-Creation in Consortia1

Zvi Lanir

The Praxis Institute
Tel-Aviv, Israel

THE NEED

For more than a decade the Praxis Institute has been studying and developing methods & tools for augmenting the knowledge-creation processes in individuals, groups and organizations. Over the years we have gained significant experience in each of these settings, in the relationships between them, and in the way each differs from the other.

Over the last two years we have been involved in observing and studying the processes of knowledge-creation within consortia. We have found it intriguing that while the administrative modes of managing the consortia (in EU FP6 and other frameworks) are well defined and acknowledged, there is a lack of information on the cognitive aspects of shared knowledge-creation and management in consortia. EU FP6 publications state clearly the procedures for proposals, negotiation, contracts, submission, intellectual property and access rights, reports, evaluation, reviews and the required financial and auditing regime. Nonetheless, the publications have little to offer, if at all, on the way to achieve synergic knowledge-creation in consortia.

Consortia use the services of consulting firms specializing in handling administration, financial auditing and other coordination challenges; but even these consultants do not have the cognitive expertise, methods or tools to assist their clients in this critical dimension of synergic knowledge-creation.

KNOWLEDGE-CREATION IN A CONSORTIUM: AN INSIDE GLIMPSE2

Our observations on how Shared Knowledge-Creation processes are handled in IST and other types of consortia have revealed the following pitfalls and recurring problems throughout the life cycle of the consortium:

? Kick-off meetings of newly formed consortia bring together people from different organizations, professions, countries and cultures. The challenge is how to lead discussions aimed at coordinating the fragmented, partially overlapping and partly contradictory ideas, to arrive at shared agreeable goals. Presentations and explanations in these meetings mix up semantics, which leads to difficulties in agreeing on basic definitions. Everyone agrees only that there is an "urgent need to clarify" how everything is related, and who is going to do what.

Beyond these problems lies a deeper one: the need to create a clear language shared among participants with different professional terminologies and interpretations, who are driven by different organizational cultures and mind-sets. Participants rarely know how to achieve this in an effective manner without wasting substantial time, intellectual energy and good will.

? Participants frequently drag these handicaps unknowingly through their entire activities. This may occur by replacing the quest for deep understanding with agreement on common "umbrella concepts." The result is that many of these consortia fail to reach a convincing coherent proposal to be presented to the commissioner, and then dissolve. Those consortia that do arrive at the stage of presenting their proposals to the commissioner and are also fortunate enough to have the proposal approved, usually find out later that they actually do not know how to overcome these basic pitfalls in order to mutually create new synergic shared knowledge. Fragmentation gradually takes over their shared activities. Each partner concentrates on developing his own domain of knowledge, and draws demarcation lines between his territory of knowledge and that of the others. Communication in the meetings becomes bogged down by discussions on how to fulfill the obligations to the commissioner and solve the agony of the need to report.

? Indeed, some consortia finally succeed after all to come up with a "shared demonstration." Nevertheless, in many cases it is the result of effort invested by only a small number of partners, or those who find mutual business interests in promoting the demonstration, leaving behind the other members of the consortium with their initial aspirations and promises only partly fulfilled.

? Synergic knowledge-creation is the ultimate challenge for IP, NOE and STREP activities. Its practice, however, lags far behind the desired goal. Little progress is achieved in the new "in between" territories of knowledge, although the creation of knowledge in these in-between territories should have been the essence of the consortia in the first place. Despite a growing realization that most IST consortia fail to achieve the target of effective synergistic knowledge-creation, the issue has not been systematically addressed till now.

Consortia knowledge-creation processes encompass individual, group and organizational dimensions, but also go qualitatively beyond all of these. Knowledge development in consortia is different and more complex than knowledge development within the better known organizational setting, and ignoring these differences costs a substantial price in time, efficiency and effectiveness. What is required is sound methodology and a set of tools for the creation and management of knowledge "in between" the participants' already established organizational and disciplinary territories, in both synchronous (face to face) and asynchronous (web-based) manners.

THE PRAXIS PACKAGE FOR CONSORTIA SYNERGIC KNOWLEDGE-CREATION & MANAGEMENT

Based on its research, methods and tools on the individual, group and organizational levels, the Praxis Institute has designed an entire package for consortia knowledge-development and management.

The package is comprised of a software platform supporting and facilitating thinking and knowledge-creation through the entire process, from the initial "budding" idea to its implementation and demonstration.

The package facilitates the process by a set of systemic Knowledge Maps and complementing methods and tools to ensure effective thinking and discourse through these systemic evolving maps.

The Budding Idea Map

Enables the coordinator to set and represent his budding ideas in a comprehensive systemic manner for the first kick-off meeting. The map's systemic presentation leaves the budding ideas open for further interpretations and enrichment, yet reflects the ramifications of each new suggestion to the systemic whole.

The Shared Directive Map

Enables the coordinator and participants to reach an agreement on a shared goal based on a systemic comprehensive understanding of what it means. It avoids the common tendency to reach a vague agreement that allows members the convenience of continuing to do only what they wanted to do in the first place. Instead, it helps clarify what the contribution of each participant should be, and the nature of the added value of central management to the consortium as a whole.

The Shared Operational Plan Map

Based on the Shared Directive Map, the participants can now arrive at a "Shared Operational Plan". From abstract ideas to concrete tasks, it allows for the consideration of all activities needed to achieve the goals, ruling out grandiose and unattainable ideas. It also depicts each partner's share, as well as what should be synergistically developed. The Shared Operational Plan Map is later used as a basis for the preparation of the proposal papers to be presented to the commissioner, as well as for formulating the consortium contracts.

The Shared Knowledge Discourse Map

Once the proposal is approved, the Shared Knowledge Discourse Map becomes the main platform for developing shared knowledge in the consortium's meetings. It is designed to ensure a systemic integrated approach by enabling a constant review of the relationship and implications of any new idea, concept, insight or data brought forth throughout the discourse, to the systemic whole. The map highlights conceptual, knowledge and information "holes," and helps discover gaps in the consortium's expertise that require the extension of the consortium portfolio. The Shared Knowledge Discourse Map is also used as a Road Map assuring a systemic integrated approach on the road from research to application, and at the "take off" stages.

The Up-To Knowledge Map

The Up-To Knowledge Map is a knowledge management tool to be used by the coordinator in executing his or her role as knowledge manager of the shared enterprise. The Up-To Knowledge Map represents the updated shared knowledge, and its ramifications to further unsolved issues and queries. It is distributed to the members from time to time through the consortium's intranet, to promote a further knowledge-development process.

The Up-To Knowledge Map can also provide new transparency for the Commissioner, beyond the periodical or final reports and demonstrations, as it provides a real-time presentation of the state of knowledge achieved by the group.

The Remote Discourse Map

This map complements the Up-To Knowledge Map. The Up-To Knowledge Map is the coordinating tool for transferring a systemic overview of the state of knowledge from the center to the periphery. The Remote Discourse Maps is meant to be used by remote participants for conducting continuous discourse between themselves and the coordinator, and to enable the continuation of Knowledge Development discourse between consortium meetings.

?he Synergic Deliberation Space method & tool

The participants are provided with guidance throughout the entire process in using two additional methods and tools combined in the platform. The Synergic Deliberation Space is aimed at arriving at clear shared meanings of the concepts in use, an essential step in ensuring effective shared knowledge-creation. It enables to detect different uses in different meanings of the same concepts, and leads to the formulation of a shared language. It also helps detect other types of tacit misunderstandings, bringing them to the surface and allowing for effective discourse on the differences in understandings.

The Focused Discourse method

The Praxis package includes a unique Focused Discourse method, designed to prevent diffused, unfocused discussions. On the other hand, it also avoids the tendency to arrive too early at agreements about what is not yet clarified and well understood. Instead, it fosters an efficient discourse manner, yielding synergetic insights.

Applied together, these maps, procedures and tools provide a comprehensive architecture for effective development and management of the consortium's shared knowledge-creation activities. It enables effective but flexible processes by which the consortium's shared knowledge, as well as each partner's knowledge, evolve through mutual cross-fertilization.

THE PROSPECT

The Synergic Knowledge-Creation package is already in use in different contexts, and has been well received by multi-disciplinary groups of researchers and stakeholders, although not yet tested in the IST consortia framework. We believe that now is the right time for expanding the use of this package for the benefit of IST consortia coordinators and their consultants. We believe that it will mark a new standard for effectiveness and efficiency in Synergic Knowledge-Creation and in the management of IST consortia.

NOTES

1. Consortium is a legal word for signifying a combination of institution capabilities for carrying out an operation requiring their combined enterprise and partnership. In our context we refer to a consortium whose main operation is knowledge-creation "in-between" the areas of expertise, capable of carrying out such processes in both a synchronous (face to face) and an asynchronous (web based) manner.

2. The following descriptions are based on a study that included direct observation of IP and NOE (both have not even reached the stage of the commissioner approval), interviews with two other IP coordinators who experienced the entire process up to the demonstration stage, and discussions with three consultants having extensive experience in working with such network consortia.