Continuous Improvement

It’s All Good!

One of the things I noticed when I was working at PWR was the seeming inevitability that people who were most knowledgeable about some skills seemed considerably challenged when it came time to demonstrate the skill in their own work. What I’m referring to is analogous to the cobbler whose children are shoeless or the accountant who never balances her own checkbook.

I found this to be true of many of us who were the most active in what we still refer to as Knowledge Management (KM). We could help others – whether individuals or large product teams – to organize their approach to capturing and sharing knowledge, but we couldn’t keep our own calendars or contact lists up-to-date to save our lives. I was surely guilty of this; still am, though not nearly as profoundly as before.

I credit the concept of continuous improvement for my ability to refine my personal knowledge management and to slowly become more effective and efficient in performing the tasks and commitments I take on. I suppose, in that regard our lives are a bit like physics avoiding pyramids. The basic, foundational skills we learn early in life remain at the bottom of the edifice. However, as we gain experience and further skills, the foundation continues to broaden in order to provide maximum support for those new capabilities we keep piling on top of it.

In that spirit, I have just added another page to this site. On it, I’ve taken a screen grab from my LinkedIn profile in order to share some of the recommendations I’ve received over the past few years. They’re from colleagues and friends and, in that regard, they may be taken with a tiny grain of salt. I do believe they’re reasonably honest and accurate. I paid nothing for them 🙂

The page has been added to the Menu on this site, under “Background”, “Personal”. If you’d like to check it out now, the link is here.