Learning to Fly: Practical Lessons from One of the World's Leading Knowledge Companies

by Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell

Book Overview

Learning to Fly shows exactly how to put theory into practice, sharing the tools used and the experience and insights gained by two leading knowledge management practitioners. In Learning to Fly, Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell share their experiences from BP, one of the world's leading knowledge organisations. It is a practical, pragmatic workbook packed with hints and tips to help managers put knowledge management into action immediately.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 184112124X
• ISBN13: 9781841121246
• Release Date: March 2001
• Publisher: Capstone
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Beyond the theory

Beyond the theory - here's 'the' hands-on guide to making KM work for real. As a practitioner of KM, I recognise and appreciate many of the initiatives and projects the authors successfully introduced and gained adoption of throughout BP. It's also refreshing to read that they had learning points to review too. This book illustrates how to achieve the ultimate goal - making KM part of the way to do business. KM is, after all, just good management, it shouldn't be regarded as an add-on, something extra to do. I recommend this book unreservedly to all who are engaged in KM activity - from those new to the field to those who (like me) want to make sure that they're doing the right things!

Making sense of knowledge work

Collison & Parcell have put together a very down to earth approach to knowledge management. I liked their simple wisdom:1) talk to people with the T-shirt: been there, done that2) learn, learn, learn: before, during and after3) cultivate a community: for tacit transfer and to keep the repository alive and fresh4) establish a network: to gather news and keep yourself awareWay too may KM projects chase content, without community, technology without a strategy and compile best practices with no way to validate and refresh. Chris and Geoff have the right spirit and advice when it comes to starting - jump right in and avoid the gradual immersion, ask some key questions, "What are your critical issues?" listen deeply and go with the flow!. Readers will find their people centric views and emphasis on learning, a refreshing and effective way to make sense of knowledge.work.In particular, I found their book easy to navigate, clearly organized and easy to absorb in small chunks - there is a deep lesson there for any aspiring knowledge manager. They certainly hit the high spots in my book: yellowpages so you can find people that know, communities of practice for continuous learning, practices for testing and validating captured content to avoid GIGO (garbage in garbage out) and strategies to embed knowledge in role structures, processes and company lore.A key aspect of learning to fly is the use personal and 3rd party stories to convey meaning and change mindsets. This helps to center the prescriptive aspects and changes the tone from a fieldbook to a readable engaging text. Learning to fly is a handy way to get your KM projects up and away, showing clearly the sky is the limit when we really start to work with our knowledge.

Learning to Fly soars among KM books

What enables a company to soar in the midst of mergers, reorganisations and technology change? In their book, Learning to Fly, BP Consultants, Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, share their secret for delivering more with less and positioning the company for future success. What's more important than the company's size, holdings or product lines? It is the use of Knowledge Management (KM) to adapt what others have already learned and dynamically capture and share the explicit and tacit knowledge of your work force as it evolves. Learning to Fly is both a reference book and a blueprint. Part One: Overview sets the context for and defines knowledge management. Part Two: Tools and Techniques describes six very useful tools for managing knowledge. I found their inclusion of real-life examples like BP's "Connect" project tremendously helpful in understanding what is involved in building buy-in for a searchable intranet knowledge directory through which all staff can search for people with relevant knowledge and experience. In Part Three: Today and Tomorrow, the authors share practical advice about embedding knowledge management in the organisation. Appendices guide the reader to resources for inspiration, people and technology. Internet style pages enable easy navigation through and between chapters.The book has received critical acclaim from a number of industry leaders. It will undoubtedly be received by those of us in the trenches with the same enthusiasm!

Immediately Useful!

As a Knowledge Manager for a large organisation I come across a lot of books in the field. This has been one of the most helpful and practical KM books that I have seen for some time. We have been able to immediately utilise the advice from the authors to suit our situation. We are just starting out with an implementation of a "corporate yellow pages". We have used references from the book to get signoff for the approach that we wanted to take (ie. a more casual approach rather than a HR-like listing), stolen ideas re the implementation!! and got fantastic support from the authors online. They do reply to your email! We are now well on track with the project, have high levels of buy-in across the organisation from Managing Director down and are keeping it simeple and therefore inside time and budget. The book is well written with a good scattering of English humour to keep you interested! Highly recommended.

Great book on KM and especially After Action Reviews.

This must be one of the best books on KM I've seen for a long time. What I love about it - is its lack of focus on technology. Yes - BP are using technology in a big way - but it is just the enabler. The book focuses on the people side - building learning into an organization and on the concepts of the After-Action Review (AAR) - 'Learn Before', 'Learn During' and 'Learn After'.