=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=None
|storemode=property
|title=Sharing Day
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-610/paper04.pdf
|volume=Vol-610
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/europlop/RoreSD08
}}
==Sharing Day==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-610/paper04.pdf
Sharing Day
Lotte De Rore, Monique Snoeck, Guido Dedene
LIRIS Group, Faculty of Business and Economics, K.U.Leuven
Naamsestraat 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
{Lotte.DeRore, Monique.Snoeck}@econ.kuleuven.be
1 Introduction
In the IT department of a bank and insurance company, when Susan from the loan department
is confronted with a problem, she will ask the members of her team for help or maybe the
colleague sitting next to her. But it will not occur to her that Mike from the insurance
department might have had this same problem before...
Knowledge is a very important asset for a company. Several techniques exist to share
knowledge within a company. This paper introduces one of these techniques: SHARING DAY.
The pattern language first describes why and when to organize a SHARING DAY and
subsequently how to organize such an event.
2 Pattern Language
2.1 Overview of the Patterns
SHARING DAY Create an explicit time to bring people physically
together at the same location in order to encourage
knowledge sharing on a broad basis.
PALLET OF ACTIVITIES Match the form of the SHARING DAY to the kinds of
knowledge and purposes you wish to share.
DRY RUN Perform a DRY RUN of the sessions to see whether the
stories in the different sessions are attuned on each
other and attuned to the audience.
VISIBLE INVOLVEMENT Make visible that the company attaches great
importance to the SHARING DAY and stress the
personal benefit of attending the SHARING DAY.
CENTRALIZED INFORMATION POINT Centralize all communication about the SHARING DAY
in one point to conserve the coherence.
KEEP IT FUN KEEP IT FUN to help people stay involved and alert all
the time during the SHARING DAY.
PROVIDE A BACK-UP PROVIDE A BACK-UP to prevent the SHARING DAY from
falling apart if some of the contributors drop out right
before the planned day.
Proceedings of the 13th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs (EuroPLoP 2008),
edited by Till Schümmer and Allan Kelly, ISSN 1613-0073 .
Copyright © 2009 for the individual papers by the papers' authors.
Copying permitted for private and academic purposes. Re-publication of material from this volume
requires permission by the copyright owners.
1
2.2 SHARING DAY
The hierarchical structure typical in large companies divides employees in several divisions.
In each of these divisions, we find people with the same positions and roles, confronted with
the same problems. Within a group, we have a diversity of knowledge and experience.
Knowledge sharing about the profession only occurs between colleagues in their own
surroundings (within their own team or division); there is no spontaneous knowledge
sharing on a broad base.
Knowledge within a company is a very important asset. In order to share knowledge about the
profession, a discussion forum does not work. The most plausible reason for this is that people
need to find free time to search or contribute to the discussion forum. The communication on
a discussion forum happens in an asynchronous way which is not the most effective way of
communication [1]. A personal and direct way of communication (like face to face) is the
most powerful way of communication [1]. Also, in a culture with high expectations with
respect to quality of solutions and answers, people wonder whether their knowledge is good
enough to share e.g. on a discussion forum.
The project driven way of working in a company does not encourage knowledge sharing
between teams or divisions. Every activity is budgeted and when in need for information,
employees ask themselves whether it is justified to make time to communicate with other
people. In addition they often don’t know who they should talk with. The deadline of a project
is seen as the most important factor and as a consequence, people work in a deliverable driven
way rather than to strive for a uniform way of working across projects.
However, for a company in expansion, the kind of projects will change. When a company is
still small, almost all projects are rather small and limited to the context of a single division.
But when a company expands, projects grow and happen in an organization-wide context,
involving several divisions in one project.
Local networking within the same division is no longer sufficient. Knowledge sharing and
information exchange between divisions is necessary. There needs to be a way to make all the
aspects within a job visible. For example, how to deal with a process, a tool or
communication? What does it mean to fulfill a particular job?
Therefore,
Create an explicit time to bring people physically together to the same location by
organizing a SHARI&G DAY.
The main purpose of the SHARING DAY is to give people a chance to share experiences. But
even more important than sharing knowledge is to encourage networking, to know who
knows what might be more useful than knowing something yourself. It is therefore important
to withdraw the people from their normal work context. By having the event off site, one can
avoid interruptions that disturb the flow of the event (LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION [2]).
The practical organization of such a big event as a SHARING DAY should not be
underestimated. It consumes a lot of time to organize a well structured event. To ensure that
the activities are fitting the variety of goals of a SHARING DAY, you should build the program
2
using a PALLET OF ACTIVITIES. A DRY RUN can help to see whether the stories in the different
sessions are attuned on each other and attuned to the audience. Besides the content, the
practical side of bringing a large group of people together needs preparation too: room
reservations, parking places, printed matters being only some of the issues. Since you would
like as many people as possible to show up for the sharing day, you should ensure a VISIBLE
INVOLVEMENT of a company and communicate effectively using a CENTRALIZED
INFORMATION POINT. While attending the sessions of the SHARING DAY, participants may lose
interest as the day goes on. So KEEP IT FUN to help people stay involved and alert all the time.
And finally, the initial enthusiasm of contributors may fade away when faced with the
preparation work, so you should PROVIDE A BACK-UP to prevent the sharing day from falling
apart if some of the contributors drop out right before the planned day.
A SHARING DAY is a big event and should only be organized when you want to bring a large
group together, i.e. when there is diversity in knowledge and experience within the group and
when there is a diversity of knowledge and experience you want them to pick up. Otherwise,
it is sufficient to encourage knowledge sharing in smaller groups, e.g. by a training course or a
coaching session.
The company KBC ICT organized a sharing day [3] “To WPF or not to WPF” to bring
together the people from their work preparation community (about 140 people) and to share
knowledge about their work preparation framework (WPF): the method, the tool and the
process. The main goal of this sharing day was to share experiences, lessons learned and real
cases with each other.
At ThoughtWorks [4], once or twice a year, they organize Away Days. Employees tend to be
at different client sites and do not necessarily have the opportunity to share everything they
have learned or to meet each other face-to-face. Away Days or Sharing Days give this
opportunity.
3
2.3 PALLET OF ACTIVITIES
You will organize a SHARING DAY to bring people together to exchange knowledge and
experience and to encourage networking. There exist several forms to organize such a session.
For example, a knowledge fair with different booths where people can walk around to ‘shop’
for information, plenary sessions to reach a large group at once, workshops in smaller groups
to collect and share experiences and ideas with respect to a specific topic or an informal drink
or reception where people can meet and talk with each other. However, not every form is
suitable for each purpose and as all people are different, not every form will work for
everyone.
What is the most effective form for the SHARI&G DAY?
The first purpose of SHARING DAY is exchanging knowledge. However, there are different
kinds of knowledge. There is optional knowledge that is nice to know for the participants and
from which they can choose whether they feel there is a need, but there is also knowledge that
is part of the goals of the SHARING DAY, and you definitely want people to know at the end of
the SHARING DAY. Also, the information can have a general character and be meant for a broad
audience. Or the information can be very specific about a particular topic. Not all forms will
be suitable to transfer each kind of information.
Each form brings the information in a different way. In a presentation there will be only one
way of knowledge exchange namely from the presenter to the audience, while sometimes it
might be advisable to have more interaction with the audience.
Frequently, knowing something is less important than knowing who knows something.
Especially in large company you can not expect everyone to share everything they know but
knowing who does know is more useful. Therefore the other and maybe even more important
purpose of SHARING DAY is networking. Not every form of SHARING DAY lends itself for
networking.
Therefore,
Match the form of the SHARI&G DAY to the kinds of knowledge and purposes you wish to
share.
In a plenary session the whole group is reached at once. Besides presentations about more
general topics, these plenary sessions are also ideal to start and end the day with. An overview
of the day (what can the participants expect), who has contributed to the sharing day and of
course, also practical things as room allocation, timings etc. can be provided in a plenary
session.
A workshop might be more appropriate when interaction with the audience is required. For
more theoretical sessions, where you want to teach the participants a new part of the
methodology or how to use a tool, you need smaller groups to be sure you can pass the
message. These workshops will be more concrete than the general plenary sessions.
Consequently, the danger exists that the target audience for the workshop is not as broad as
the target audience for the SHARING DAY. To avoid this, let the participants choose which
workshops they want to attend.
4
The knowledge fair can be used to provide information that is ‘nice to know’ rather than ‘need
to know’. People can shop for the information they want by visiting several booths. These
booths can consist of real cases, the education possibilities, contact persons, etc.
Providing information is only one of the goals of a SHARING DAY. Even more important is the
networking aspect. In order to encourage this networking, you need enough time and
possibilities for the participants to meet and talk with each other. More informal sessions as
lunch together or a reception at the end of the sharing day can provide this.
Within one functional domain there are different roles with different competences and
knowledge (business analysts, systems analysts, technical analysts, etc.). The chosen pallet of
sessions should be balanced across general sessions aiming at networking and more specific
sessions offering tailored information for a particular target role or target domain.
The alternation in styles and forms has an advantage that it keeps the participants alert and
interested. KEEP IT FUN is another way to achieve this.
Depending on how broad the audience for the SHARING DAY is, not all sessions might be of
interest for everyone. One option is to let the participants choose which of the sessions they
follow. Another option is to make different tracks where all sessions are mandatory. This last
option might be less complex to organize: participants are divided in several groups and each
group has to follow a prescribed path through the different sessions.
“To WPF or not to WPF” started with coffee and each participant received a documentation
file (which booths at the knowledge fair, which workshops). The plenary session opened with
the results the knowledge management team from the WP community achieved the past year.
After the plenary session, the participants could choose 2 out of 5 workshops to attend. There
was among others a workshop about the new community portal and one about the modeling
tool Mega and how this is related with WP. After a lunch, the participants were invited for the
knowledge fair with 11 booths (KM instruments, best practices: how and where to find them,
education possibilities, real cases,…). After another plenary session with a guest speaker, the
day ended with a reception.
5
2.4 DRY RUN
You organize a SHARING DAY consisting of several sessions.
You want to bring a clear message with the sessions on a SHARI&G DAY; the participants
should have these right messages at a single glance.
A lot of people cooperate to organize a big event as a SHARING DAY. The different sessions,
workshops and booths in the knowledge fair are prepared by several people, with different
backgrounds, opinions and visions. Varying personal visions should not dominate the agreed
shared overall message you want to have for the SHARING DAY.
One of the aspects of a SHARING DAY is to let people bring their own story and experiences.
However, these people are not always the most experienced speakers and might be not be so
confident to speak in front of a group or to lead a workshop.
Therefore,
Do a DRY RU& of the different sessions to see whether the material in the different
sessions is attuned.
The first purpose of the DRY RUN is to see whether all the material presented at the SHARING
DAY is attuned: attuned with each other (e.g. is there overlap between the sessions? are there
contradicting messages?) and attuned with the target audience (e.g. is the material clear for
the target audience? Will they need more information than delivered in the sessions?). The
SHARING DAY has one general message and this should be visible in all the material. With this
DRY RUN, the organizers can check whether they’ll reach their goals.
Next to attuning the material, this dry run also gives confidence to the people contributing to
the SHARING DAY. The less experienced speakers get a chance to practice the story they want
to tell. The booth keepers get feedback whether their posters and material bring a visible
message. The speakers of the plenary session might not need a test run of their presentation;
often these are the experts in their field and are confident enough about their story. Also in the
one way interaction of such a presentation, there is less chance that hard questions will
interrupt the session compared to an interactive workshop where the audience steers the
session. Nevertheless, it might still be interesting to go through the slides to see whether the
story is concrete enough and the ‘expert’ language is adapted to the audience.
At this DRY RUN, the flyer with the core message of each session given to all participants is
screened.
However, it is not the intention of the DRY RUN to perform a complete test run of all the
sessions, as this might be too time-consuming. In any case, organizing a DRY RUN will add an
extra cost.
6
2.5 VISIBLE INVOLVEMENT
You are organizing a SHARING DAY.
How to convince people to join the SHARI&G DAY?
Attending the SHARING DAY should be mandatory for all members of the target audience or at
least strongly encouraged. However, the time pressure for other projects might be a reason to
be unable to attend the event.
Therefore,
Make visible that the company attaches great importance to the SHARI&G DAY and stress
the personal benefit of attending the SHARI&G DAY.
Management empowerment is an important fact in a company with a hierarchical structure.
The influence of people in authority in this hierarchical structure should not be
underestimated. Inviting people from management gives a sign about the importance to attend
the SHARING DAY. Also mentioning the number of budget assigned to the event (for example
in the invitation letter) helps to convince them of the importance to attend these sessions.
Although the main goal of the SHARING DAY is a company goal, namely to create a network
for knowledge sharing, one should also pay attention to the personal interests of people. When
people can see an added value in attending the SHARING DAY for their own benefit, interest
and job, they will be more inclined and motivated to attend the SHARING DAY than when they
have the feeling there is only a benefit for the company.
7
2.6 CENTRALIZED INFORMATION POINT
You want to organize a SHARING DAY. Such a day is not only created for but also by a
community. From the start, a lot of communication about this event needs to be sent to the
participants.
How to conserve the coherence in all the messaging about the SHARI&G DAY?
A sharing day is a large event that needs a long time of preparation and is gradually built. It
starts with an idea, searching for interested people to cooperate, the registration, publishing
the program of the day. When all this communication goes through the mailbox of the whole
community, they will be swamped with emails.
Therefore,
Centralize all the communication in one point, for example the portal of the community.
The SHARING DAY is organized for a particular target audience. Often such a community has
its own portal with all kinds of information. This portal can be used to centralize all the
communication for the SHARING DAY. As this event needs a lot of preparation and some of this
preparation needs input from the community itself, by keeping all information centralized, as
the event is built up step by step, the communication can be given without losing the
coherence between the different steps.
All communication for the WPF-SHARI:G DAY went through the portal of the work preparation
community.
8
2.7 KEEP IT FUN
You are organizing a SHARING DAY.
How do you keep the audience alert?
Attending the several sessions of the SHARING DAY, it might be a long day to stay alert all the
time.
Therefore,
Insert some frivolous elements.
In a SHARING DAY, you need to care for alternation, dynamics and iterations. Fun is a way to
insert alternation and dynamics into your event which will preserve the energy. By breaking
out of the normal course of the day, you keep the people alert and interested. Additionally,
when you wrap the message in a nice/funny package, people will remember it longer.
However, do not go too extreme with this. Keep your target audience in mind so that the fun
parts don’t come across too childish.
During the WPF-SHARI:G DAY, participants indicated their opinion about several statements
on large thermometers placed outside the auditorium. Additional, instead of normal name
cards, participants wore a card with a statement about WPF.
9
2.8 PROVIDE A BACK-UP
You organize a SHARING DAY. Part of this SHARING DAY is organized by volunteers, for
example the booths at the knowledge fair.
However, people often underestimate the effort it needs to develop an idea to a session or
booth.
Lots of people will be enthusiastic at the start and come up with nice ideas to bring on the
SHARING DAY. But it takes time and effort to evolve from an idea into a well-organized
workshop or a completely worked-out booth for the knowledge fair. Often people
underestimate this and drop out near the end of the preparation phase and close to the day of
the event.
You bring one story at the SHARING DAY and all the messages in the different sessions build
up to this one story and message. When people drop out, there is a risk that your concept of
the sharing day falls apart.
Therefore,
Always provide some back-up material in case people drop out at the end.
At the start, while brainstorming for ideas, plenty of ideas for sessions and booths will come
up of which only a few will be selected to work out. However, the other ideas can serve as
back-up material. Be aware, as an organizer, to incorporate the required time to work out
these ideas last minute.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Jason Yip for his very useful remarks during the shepherding
process and also the participants of the ‘Collaboration and Management’ Writers Workshop.
This paper has been written as part of the KBC-research chair on ‘Managing efficiency
aspects of software factory systems’ sponsored by KBC Global Services NV.
References
[1] Kelly Burke and Laku Chidambaram, ‘Do Mediated Contexts Differ in Information Richness? A
Comparison of Collocated and Dispersed Meetings’ Proceedings of the 29th Annual Hawaii
International Conference on System Sciences - 1996
[2] Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising, ‘Fearless change: patterns for introducing new ideas’, Addison-
Wesley, 2004
[3] The instrument SHARING DAY was developed and implemented by DNV CIBIT in cooperation with
KBC ICT/ knowledge management team
[4] Direct communication with Jason Yip, ThoughtWorks
10