Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning resources

[ see Knowledge Management & Organizational Learning ]

Check out these other web sites to learn more about organizational learning.

Society for Organizational Learning
Why a Learning Organization?
A simple introduction to organizational learning
How to optimize organizational learning
Continuous Learning - what continuous learning is, is not, and its requirements
Resources on Senge's Learning Organization
Peter Senge and the learning organization
Learning Organization Overview
Myths and Reality - The learning Organization by Sandra Kerka
Community Building
Learning-Org Dialog on Learning Organizations - excellent email list and related archive
A Different View of Organizational Learning - advocates viewing organizational learning more as group learning with less emphasis as solely an individual activity
Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management - University of Colorado at Denver list of links to web sites covering organizational learning
Transforming the Workplace into a Learning Organization - Contains some good comments on institutionalizing the learning process and recommended actions to move forward.
Open Directory list for Learning Organizations

Systems Thinking

Systems Thinking, an operational perspective of the universe
Drawing causal loop diagrams - follow the links at the end of each section. Also, see the tips.
Causal loop diagrams - part of the resources provided by Pegasus Communication
Systems thinking & systems dynamics - lengthy list of links to resources

Assessment

Understanding organizations as learning systems - This is a good overview of assessing organizational learning and then taking action based on the results. Note that this is a process involving group discussions and is not questionnaire based. For more information on the Organizational Learning Inventory see DiBella, A. J. (2001) Learning Practices: Assessment and Action for Organizational Improvement. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Organizational Assessment: Management Survey - Learning Center
Learning Strategy Self-Assessment
Organizational Benchmarking Maturity Matrix - American Productivity & Quality Center
Assessing and Improving your Organization: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Cures
Needs Assessment - This is a general overview of an assessment process that can be applied to many situations.

Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice - definition, ideas, and issues surrounding
Key Hypotheses in Supporting Communities of Practice
Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation
Communities of Practice: A Review of the Literature
American Productivity & Quality Center web site. In 2000 the APQC did a great study on communities of practice including different styles and how to sustain and diffuse the learning.
Reading notes and links to literature
Two types of CoPs - self-organizing & sponsored.
Open directory Project - list of links on Communities of Practice

Open Space Meetings for large group meetings

Emerging Order in Open Space

Wisdom Councils - a tool for building a shared vision

This technique uses a random sample of individuals from a large organization to sit down together and form a consensus statement about the organization. This statement is presented to the organization, which inevitably creates dialogue across the organization about that subject leading to a grassroots approach for building a shared vision. This in turn sets the stage for holding another Wisdom Council with a new group of people. (Also see Open Space Meetings as a related topic.)

Center for Wise Democratic Processes
The Wisdom Council: A new large system transformation process - this article includes a list of the 12 factors that drive the Wisdom Council toward success
The Wisdom Council: A new way to build community in large organizations - also see an alternate site if the first server is not available
The Wisdom Council: A strategy for We the People to create true democracy
Political Life: Moving from collective stupidity to collective intelligence

Other tools

Learning Action Matrix - This is an excellent tool that overlays causal loop system thinking on top of a two-dimension learning matrix that helps understand needed actions. The two dimensions are phases in the learning cycle (observer, assess, develop, and implement) and levels of reasoning (events, patterns, systemic structures, mental models, and vision). Be sure to follow the links at the bottom of each page.