Knowledge Handover Workshop

[samvara]

In a moment of enthusiasm for good documentation and knowledge management I offered to host a Knowledge Handover Day for the 2012 and 2013 Swancon Committees plus the Con Steering Committee. It was good fun :)

We did four 30 min sessions where the aim was to pass on information about what worked, what didn't and what knowledge needs to be retained and passed on.

Round 1

• Program: Good Thing to keep, Good Things to improve, Things to ditch
• Venue: Good Thing to keep,Good Things to improve, Things to ditch

Round 2

• Suppliers / contacts: Where we got things, what they cost and who we talked to and should keep talking to
• Tools / Technology: That turned out to be useful and should be passed on (Program app for iPhone etc.)

The sessions were done in two rounds. After each round the groups came back together and reported briefly on their findings followed by a 'snack and mingle' time to recover and allow people time to chase up related items.

After the final round we had a group discussion about other concerns / topics people wanted to pursue and agreed to do another workshop in July. This also spawned a possible June workshop on committee relationship management (or whatever we eventually agree on), and a smaller Programmer meeting for Coders and ConProgrammers to talk about software.

As a workshop structure I felt the 30 min sessions seemed to work well - they gave enough time to talk and trade info without exhausting people, and kept people from getting trapped by too high a level of detail. All up it took us 3 hours (30 mins to get settled, 30 min workshop, 15 min debrief, 15 min break, 30 min workshop, 15 min debrief, 45 min discussion of other issues and plans for future workshops.

I've done the minutes, now I need to get all the notes onto the sf wiki and figure out how best to structure that information. This has been a looooooooooooong day :)

Comments

[rabbit1080]

My anonymous source has said Good Things about how awesomely useful the day was. Also, that it was fun. :)

[samvara]

Convey my thanks to your anonymous source, I'm relieved it seems to have gone so well :)

[stephbg]

Thank you for sharing your expertise. Sounds like it was a very fruitful exercise. Death to wheel re-invention and mistake duplication!

[samvara]

I think it was fruitful!

Now I just have to edit the crap out of the wiki...

[transcendancing]

So pleased that it seems to have gone so well! Very impressed with the format and think you capitalised on ability to share stuff but not exhaust people overmuch :)

Yay for everyone!!

*loves*

[samvara]

Me too, I think the format worked - will seek feedback ;)