Day 3: We know… we love a good knowledge board!

It is day 3 of my open working challenge and I notice that both my daily blogs mention knowledge boards. I think it is safe to say we love a good knowledge board at CAST. This daily note covers what they are, 3 reasons I love them, and a template you can use to give it a go.

Photo by Gabriella Clare Marino on Unsplash

What is a knowledge board

When we’re tackling complex social challenges, we all make assumptions about the nature of a problem and how our service users or stakeholders experience it. The ‘Knowledge Board’ is a simple template to help structure these assumptions.

CAST’s Knowldedge Board template

How to use it:

• You can take a look at the great information in CAST’s Digital Toolkit on Knowledge boards, including a fab “how to” video (2 minute video).
• Get your team together (or do it alone)
• Start listing out your assumptions on post-its and then categorise them into the three columns titled, “What we know,” “What we think we know” and “What we don’t know”
• Note: Everything in the “What we know” column needs to be backed up by data or evidence — if this isn’t the case, challenge your or your team’s assumptions. Things move from column to column as we learn more about the problem space or subject area.
• Tip: It can be really good to use post-its to put assumptions into columns so that they can easily be moved around!

To prioritise your assumptions in the knowledge board, ask yourself (and your team) these questions:

• What do I need to know in order to move my project forward?
• What is the most important to address to solve my challenge or achieve my objective?
• What would be the most risky not knowing?
• What is the biggest opportunity?
• If I could only find out one or two things from my user research, what would it be?

P.S. I didn’t create this toolkit, I am just a big fan! Shout out to the digital practice wizards Tori, Joyce and the the CAST team who created the templates and resources in the Digital Toolkit.

3 reasons why I love knowledge boards (and why you might too!)

1. Normalise saying ‘I don’t know’

The whole point of a knowledge board is to capture the things we don’t know. I like being curious about the things I don’t know. I like asking, is it important to know that? Why?

Saying I don’t know is powerful. It leaves space for someone else to share what they know. And we can ask questions like, I don’t know much about that, what does it mean to you? How can we find out more?

2. Knowledge evolves

The things we know, think we know and don’t know change. And a knowledge board helps visualise this evolution. Using collaboration tools like Miro, Mural, Microsoft Whiteboard, or post-its on a wall in the office help visualise this. The post-its can move! In the Information Innovation team at Cancer Research we once took over the only space we could find — under the staircase. At the Red Cross we created a whiteboard where one didn’t exist, using whiteboard paper you can stick up and take down. At CAST some of our knowledge boards live in a database on Airtable, others live in Miro. It doesn’t really matter where your knowledge lives, so long as it is living somewhere, and the right people know where that somewhere is.

3. Action orientated

This is the bit I really like. Knowledge boards helps name and prioritise the things that we absolutely need to know more about in order to move forward with our projects. It is good to do this with your team or stakeholders if you are working together. This helps create a plan and stay really focussed on the important stuff rather than distracted by spaces where we know there is a gap in our knoweldge, but not one we need to worry too much about.

What is the thing in the knowledge board that scares you? The post-it that you want to ignore because it feels uncomfortable or risky? Start there. Who does know a bit about that?

Over to you!

If you give knowledge boards a go I would love to hear how you get on! What’s useful? What’s tricky?

I have a couple of knowledge boards on the go at the moment, so the inevitable struggles and (maybe?) lightbulb moments of each will probably pop up in my daily notes over the next month.

If you are also building your knowledge in any of these areas, I would love to connect…

• How to support the design and development of community technology? You can read about our knowledge board on how to help community businesses design community tech here.
• How to join the dots between the day to day things we learn when delivering services, to the deeper insight we hold on organisational strategy?
• How Artificial Intelligence can help us synthesise insight? How might we apply AI in a way that still allows us to nurture strong, human centred relationships? And how can using AI tools support the innovation process? You can read more about why I am thinking about AI in this way here.
• How to create positive onboarding experiences on accelerator programmes?

Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge! Thank you.

Hello! I am running a 30 day experiment in open working to help me understand the benefits and challenges, so I can get better at supporting social impact organisations to work in the open. I would love to hear your comments, ideas and feedback! Thank you, Ellen