"The Matrix" - a film by the Wachowski sisters - is full of meanings: philosophical, religious and cultural, and sometimes they find in it . There is another meaning - command. The team has a seasoned team leader and a young specialist who needs to be quickly trained, poured into the team and sent to complete the task. Yes, there are specifics with leather coats and sunglasses indoors, but the rest of the movie is about teamwork and knowledge.
Using the Matrix as an example, I will tell you why managing knowledge in a team, how to fit knowledge management into the workflow, what βcompetenceβ and βcompetency modelsβ are, how to evaluate expertise and share experience. And Iβll also analyze cases: the departure of a valuable employee, I want to get more, knowledge management in the development process.
Teamleads are concerned about various issues. How to build a super team faster and better? It seems that there are budgets, and there are projects, but there are no people or they are slowly learning. How not to lose valuable knowledge? People sometimes leave or management comes in and says: βWe need to cut 10% of the staff. But don't break anything!" Will the afterparty? All these questions are answered by one discipline - knowledge management.
Knowledge management is the key to the answers
Surely you have experience in how to grow a team or how to fire people, but you have no experience in organizing parties after conferences. What is the similarity, you ask? In awareness of action.
I took a more sensible approach to the question of how to work with people, after the words of HR:
- You need senior developers, but let's hire juniors, and grow the seniors yourself?
How long does it take to make a senior out of a junior? 2 years, 5 years, 25? And how much - to develop a conference website ? Probably not more than a couple of months. It turns out that we, developers, are able to evaluate features: we have the practice of decomposition of software systems. We don't know how to decompose people.
People can also be decomposed. Each of us can be digitized and decomposed into βatomsβ of knowledge, skills and abilities. This is easy to demonstrate with the example of the story from The Matrix, a film that is already 20 years old.
Welcome to the Matrix
For those who have not watched or have already forgotten, a brief non-canonical summary of the plot. Meet the heroes.
The main character is Morpheus. This uncle owned various types of martial arts and offered pills to people.
Pythia is a strange woman, she has cookies, and she is an oracle. But now in Russia there is a fashion for import substitution, therefore - a soothsayer. Pythia was famous for answering questions with ambiguous phrases.
Two bouncers and team members - Neo and Trinity.
One day, Morpheus was caught with pills and was dragged to his headquarters by "Okhrana agent" Smith with the call sign "Elf". Trinity and Neo undertook to pull Morpheus out of the jail. They did not understand how to do it, and so they decided to ask a smart person. Came to Pythia:
NiT: How do we get Morpheus?
P: β And what do you have for this, what do you know how to do?
To solve a problem, certain skills or competencies are needed β ability to solve a certain class of problems. What competencies does the team need in order to achieve its goals?
Competence
Each of us has a large number of competencies, each of which is a combination of three components.
Competence is knowledge, skills and character.
The first two terms are our skills or Hard Skills. We know something and are able - one knows how to get from St. Petersburg to Moscow, the other - why the hatches are round. There are also practical skills, such as fast typing or the ability to use a clicker. Each of us has character traits are Soft Skills. All together - these are competencies. Neo and Trinity have their own competencies: Neo could fly, and Trinity was a good shooter.
A set of competencies allows you to act more meaningfully, competently and successfully.
Competence Model
Consider, using the example of developers, what the competency model consists of.
Practices and tools. To program, you need to know at least one programming language, the principles of building complex systems, and be able to test. We also know how to use different development tools - version control systems, IDE, we are familiar with management practices - Scrum or Kanban.
Personnel and work with him. These are competencies related to the formation of a team and work in it, with feedback and motivation of employees.
Subject area. This is knowledge and skills in a specific subject area. Everyone has their own, big or small: fintech, retail, blockchain or education, etc.
Let's go back to The Matrix. All the competencies that Neo and Trinity have on the team answer three simple questions: what we do, how we do ΠΈ who is doing. When Pythia told Neo and Trinity about this, they rightly remarked: βGreat story, but we donβt understand how to build a model of our competencies at all.β
How to build a competency model
If you want to build a competency model so that you can later use it in your activities, start by understanding what you are doing.
Create a model from processes. Decompose step by step what skills, abilities and knowledge are needed to perform the next stage of your work.
What you need to successfully complete the process
The competencies that Neo and Trinity needed to free Morpheus included marksmanship, tricks, jumping, hitting guards with various objects. Then they had to figure out where to go - the skill of navigating the building and using the elevator. In the end, piloting a helicopter, firing a machine gun and using a rope came in handy. Step by step, Neo and Trinity identified the required skills and built a competency model.
All activities are decomposed into knowledge and skills that are needed to solve a specific problem.
But is the model alone enough to use it in knowledge management? Of course not. By itself, the list of required skills is a useless topic. Even on a resume.
To understand how to manage knowledge better, you need to understand the level of this knowledge in your team.
Assessment of the level of knowledge
To decide what each will do during the rescue mission, Neo and Trinity need to figure out who is best at what skills.
Any system is suitable for evaluation. Measure at least in pink elephants, as long as there is only one system. If in a team you evaluate some employees as boas, and others as parrots, it will be difficult for you to compare them with each other. Even with a factor of x38.
Come up with a unified scoring system.
The simplest system familiar to us from school is grades from 0 to 5. Zero means a complete zero - what else can it mean? Five - a person can teach something. For example, I can teach you how to build competency models - I have an A. Between these meanings lie other stages: I have been to conferences, read a book, often practices.
There may be other scoring systems. You may well choose a simpler one.
There are only 4 options, it's hard to get confused.
- No knowledge, no practice - this is not our person, he is unlikely to share his knowledge.
- Have knowledge and practice - can share knowledge. We take!
- Two intermediate points - you need to think where to apply a person.
It can be complicated. Measure depth and width as we do at Cloveri.
Have you decided on the scale? But how to assess the level of competencies that you or your team own?
Common Assessment Methods
Self-concept. Neo came up with the easiest way. He said: "I know kung fu!"
The self-assessment method works, but there are nuances. An employee can be asked to evaluate how much he owns a particular skill. But as soon as the influence of this assessment on something monetary appears - For some reason, the level of knowledge is increasing. Wow! And all the experts. Therefore, as soon as money appears near the assessment, immediately remove self-esteem away.
The second nuance is Dunning-Kruger effect.
The incompetent do not understand their incompetence because of their incompetence.
Interviews with experts. We are called in the company to assess the level of employees in order to further develop development plans. Employees fill out self-questionnaires in their own way. , we look at them: "Cool, another expert, let's talk now." But when talking, a person quickly ceases to look like an expert. Most often, this story happens with juniors, sometimes with middles. Only at a certain level of development of a specialist can one confidently rely on self-esteem.
When Neo said that he knows kung fu, Morpheus offered to check whose kung fu is cooler on practice. It immediately became clear - Neo only in words Bruce Lee or in deed.
Practice is the hardest way. Determining the level of competence through practical cases is more difficult and longer than interviews. For example, I participated in the "Leaders of Russia" competition and in total we were checked for 5 days to determine the level in 10 competencies.
The development of practical cases is expensive, so they are often limited to the first two ways: self-esteem ΠΈ interviews with experts. These may be external experts, or they may be from your own team. After all, each team member is an expert in something.
Competence matrix
So, when Neo and Trinity got ready to rescue Morpheus, they first figured out what competencies are needed to carry out the workflow. Then they assessed each other and decided that Neo would shoot. Trinity will initially help him, but then the helicopter will lead him, since Neo is not friends with helicopters.
The model, together with the scores, gives us a competency matrix.
That's how competent knowledge management led Neo and Trinity to victory, and they saved Morpheus.
How to manage with models
The story about little men in glasses and leather pants is interesting, but what does the development have to do with it? Let's move on to real-life use cases of a competency model built from your processes.
Selection
Everyone who approaches HR for a new employee hears the question: βWho do you need?β. For a quick response, we take the job description of the previous person and send to look for the same one. Is it right to do so? No.
The task of the leader is to reduce the number of bottlenecks in the team. The fewer competencies you have that only one person owns, the better the team. Fewer bottlenecks = more team throughput = work goes faster. Therefore, when looking for a person, use the competency matrix.
The main selection criterion is what skills your team needs to cover with this person.
This way you will increase the throughput of your team.
The main question to answer when creating a new vacancy: "Who actually we need?" The obvious answer is not always the correct one. When we say that we have problems with the performance of the system, is it necessary to hire an architect to solve it? No, sometimes it's enough to buy and set up a piece of hardware. And these are completely different skills.
Adaptation
How to quickly adapt specialists who have recently joined the team and are still on probation? Itβs good when there is a knowledge base, and when it is relevant, itβs generally excellent. But there is a nuance. It is connected with the fact that a person learns in three ways.
- Through theory - reads books, articles on HabrΓ©, goes to conferences.
- Through observations. Initially, we are herd animals - the first monkey took a stick, hit the second with it, and the third organized the course "Seven effective ways to use a stick." Therefore, observing someone is a familiar way of learning.
- Through practice. Scientists who study cognitive systems say that the first way is good, the second is great, but the most effective way is through practice. Without practice, adaptation is slower.
Practice? Let's throw a person into battle right away? But he may not pull out one.
So we usually give him a mentor. Sometimes this doesn't work:
- I have a lot of things to do, and they also hung this burden on me. You are a team leader, you are paid for it, work with him yourself!
Therefore, the option that we use when building a team development plan is many different mentors for different skills. An expert in prototyping pulls up a front-ender in prototyping, an expert in testing teaches how to write tests or at least shows what he usually does, with what tools and checklists.
Microlearning and mentoring by a large number of specialists works better than one mentor.
It also works better because most of the problems in companies are related to communications. If you immediately teach a person to communicate a lot and exchange information, then, perhaps, there will be no problems with communications in the company. Therefore, the more people involved in human adaptation, the better.
Development
Where can you find time to study? No time to work!
When you use competency models, it is easier for you to understand how to learn on the job. What to give a practical task so that a person gains knowledge.
Many of you know about Eisenhower matrix, which says what can be delegated and what can be done by yourself. Here is its analogue for knowledge management.
When you want to constantly cultivate knowledge in a team, do it at least sometimes in pairs β get people to do one thing at a time. Even if it is urgent and important, let the beginner deal with it together with the expert - at least write down why the expert solves this problem in this way, let him ask what is not clear - why the server rebooted this time, but did not reboot the previous one.
In each square of the matrix there is always an activity for the second person. A beginner can almost always do everything on his own, but sometimes he needs to be supervised, and sometimes actively helped.
This is a way to teach people when there is no time for learning, but only time for work. Engage employees in the things they are capable of at the moment and develop in the process.
Career
An employee once comes to each team leader and asks a question: βHow can I get more? And you have to urgently figure out what the employee needs to do so that in three months his salary will be raised.
With the Competency Matrix, the answers are in your pocket. We recall that the team needs to be duplicated and spread knowledge as much as possible over different people. If we understand where the problem is in the team, of course, the first task for the questioner is to improve this area.
As soon as you use a competency-based approach, a more meaningful direction for employee development immediately begins. With a competency matrix, there is always an answer to the question of how to get more.
To get more, develop the competencies that the team needs.
But be careful. A common mistake that we see when we advise companies is to set the direction of movement without asking about the desire of a person to go there. Is there any motivation? Does he want to develop in load testing or test automation?
An important point when we talk about human development is understand his motivation: what he wants to learn, what he is interested in. If a person is not interested, knowledge will not enter. Our brain is so arranged that it is very afraid of change. Change is expensive, painful and wasteful of energy. The brain wants to survive, so it tries in any way to escape from new knowledge. Go out for lunch or smoke. Or play. Or read social media. Yes, yes, to do what we usually do when we need to learn something.
If there is no motivation, teaching is useless. Therefore, it is better to learn a little, but what is interesting. When the brain is interested, it does not mind sharing energy for the sake of new knowledge.
Care
What to do with the knowledge of employees who leave? There are times when a person leaves the company. Often, after he signed the application and slammed the door, it turns out that he was doing something important, but it was forgotten. This is problem.
When you have a competency matrix, you understand where the bottlenecks are in it, who is the only person you have who can shoot or drive a helicopter. As a team leader, you must solve problems before they happen: If you only have one person who can fly a helicopter, teach it to someone else.
Duplicate people before they leave or get hit by a bus. Most importantly, do not forget that you need to duplicate yourself. A good team leader is one who can leave, and the team will continue to work.
And finally.
What we don't understand scares us. What scares us, we do our best not to do it.
There are tools that allow you to more meaningfully engage in management in an organization. One of them is management model on the basis of process and people digitization for more meaningful actions of managers. Based on this model, we hire, develop and manage people more efficiently, create products and services.
Apply competency models, be smarter managers.
If you are interested in the topic of the article, and you feel the need for structured knowledge management in the company, I invite you on April 26 to β the first Russian conference on knowledge management in IT. We have collected in many important topics: onboarding newcomers, working with knowledge bases, involving employees in knowledge sharing, and much more. Come for a working experience in solving everyday problems.
Source: habr.com