The Knowledge Engagement Program (Public, v1)

Oliver Ding

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Curativity Center

8 min readJul 11, 2022

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An Introduction to a “Co-Curation” project for “Service Knowledge Management” and Beyond

Two weeks ago, I developed the Knowledge Engagement Program (v1) for a client. Though the program focuses on “Service Knowledge Management”, it can be considered as a general program for applying the Project Engagement approach to Knowledge Management.

Today I made a public version of the program on Milanote. This article is an introduction to the program.

The name “Knowledge Engagement” refers to the “Project Engagement” Approach to “Knowledge Management Activity”.

The “Project Engagement” Approach is part of my 2020 book Project-oriented Activity Theory and the Project Engagement Toolkit.
The “Knowledge Management Activity” refers to the normal social practice of “Knowledge Management”.

References

1. The “Anticipatory Activity System” Perspective

The client’s activity is defined as “Service Knowledge Management” which is a special type of activity.

I adopt the “Anticipatory Activity System (AAS)” framework to understand “Service Knowledge Management”:

First-order Activity: Software Product Development
Second-order Activity: Service Knowledge Management

Why do we need to use the AAS framework? If we don’t understand the first-order activity, then we can’t understand the second-order activity.

I also use other several frameworks for this program. The following sections will introduce them and related boards.

References

2. Four Boards

I host the Knowledge Engagement Program on Milanote which is a digital whiteboard for creative curation. See the screenshot below.

The program is designed with the following four boards and several sub-boards:

Homepage: It uses “Service Container” to understand the project in general.
Activity Analysis Board: It uses the AAS framework and the Activity System Model to understand the present situation.
The Service-fit Board: It aims to develop a new framework called “Service-fit” for understanding “Service Knowledge Management”.
Knowledge Onboarding Board: It aims to develop a new canvas called “Knowledge Onboarding Canvas”.

Each board refers to a sub-project. Each sub-project uses one or more models for collaboration.

We will add new boards once we decide to add new sub-projects.

3. Homepage: Service Container

I use the following “Service Container” to identify three sub-activities of “Service Knowledge Management”.

Knowledge Onboarding: Attach to the Service Container
Knowledge Discovery: Events within the Service Container
Knowledge Reflection: Detach from the Service Container

I also use “Service Container” to define the tasks of the program.

Activity Analysis: Attach to the Service Container. I am going to use the AAS framework to understand the present situation and define the model for the project.
The Service-fit Framework: Detach from the Service Container. One of the outcomes is defined as the Service-fit framework. I am going to adopt the ECHO Way framework to develop a new framework for Service Knowledge Management.

The Service-fit framework will be the guide of the whole program. We can use it to define sub-projects one by one. For example, I identify the following sub-project:

Knowledge Onboarding Canvas: We can use the Thematic Space Canvas to develop a new canvas for Knowledge Onboarding Activity.

The program is a dynamic process that will be unfolded. We will add new sub-projects if we need to do it.

References

4. The Activity Analysis Board

The client’s activity is understood as an Anticipatory Activity System. The Activity Analysis Board focuses on this task. See the screenshot below.

The Anticipatory Activity System (AAS) framework is developed for understanding “Self, Other, Present, and Future”. It is formed by First-order Activity, Second-order Activity, and the Self — Other Relevance.

First-order Activity: Software Product Development
Second-order Activity: Service Knowledge Management
The Self — Other Relevance: Self refers to a service provider while Other refers to a client.

We will use the Activity System Model (The Engeström’s Triangle) for understanding First-order Activity and use the Relevance of Zone framework to understand the Self-Other Relevance.

References

5. The Service-fit Board

The Service-fit Board aims to adopt the ECHO Way framework to develop a new framework called “Service-fit” for understanding “Service Knowledge Management”. See the screenshot below.

The Service-fit framework will be the guide of the whole program. We can use it to define sub-projects one by one.

By using the Theme U model, I identify three types of fit of “Service-fit”:

Fit A = Knowledge Reflection
Fit B = Knowledge Discovery
Fit C = Knowledge Onboarding

The whole program starts with Knowledge Onboarding (Fit C) which is only about supporting Project-based workflow. Each project requires information from Clients in order to run the Software Development Activity. The outcome of Knowledge Onboarding is only useful for a particular project.

Since the Software Development Activity is a dynamic process, it will bring opportunities for Knowledge Discovery (Fit B). The outcome of Knowledge Discovery goes beyond a particular project but benefits the long-term workflow of the team and the whole company. Also, the outcome of Knowledge Discovery contributes to both Service Providers and Clients.

After closing a project, both Service Providers and Clients need to run the Knowledge Reflection (Fit A) in order to evaluate the outcome of the Knowledge Discovery Activity and preserve them. They need to pay attention to by-products, significant insights, challenges, problems, special internal tools, etc.

References

Since the ECHO Way framework has three parts, I also set three sub-boards for the Service-fit board.

Theme U for Knowledge Onboarding
Developmental Project for Knowledge Engagement
Container Z for Developing Tacit Knowledge

The “Theme U” sub-board aims to use the Theme U model to understand Knowledge Onboarding Activity.

References

The “Developmental Project” sub-board aims to use the Developmental Project model to guide team members to join the Knowledge Engagement project.

The Knowledge Management Activity relies on each member of the team to care about it.
The Project Engagement Approach considers each project as a Developmental Project for a person.
The Developmental Project model focuses on the transformation of life themes and the life identity of a person.

References

The “Container Z” sub-board aims to discuss Container Z (Echozone) and Developing Tacit Knowledge.

Reference

The key to Knowledge Discovery Activity is Developing Tacit Knowledge. We will use the Knowledge Discovery Canvas as an instrument to help us.

References

6. The Knowledge Onboarding Board

The “Knowledge Onboarding” board aims to use Thematic Space Canvas to develop a new canvas for the “Knowledge Onboarding” Activity.

The Thematic Space Canvas is a meta-canvas that is designed with two sub-spaces: Inner Space and Outer Space.

Outer Space: Clients
Inner Space: Development Team

Each Thematic Space Canvas is developed with 4 areas and 8 pairs of concepts. We need to work together to define these areas and concepts.

References

7. The “Co-Curation” Method

The Knowledge Engagement Program will be run with the “Co-Curation” method.

While I offer frameworks and host the whole program, your team offers situational information.
Together, we will create some new frameworks and models for your company.
Some frameworks and models can be shared with the community in the future.

You can visit the homepage of Knowledge Engagement Program on Milanote.