Today I co-hosted a couple of guest speakers at our AFCEA luncheon. Applied Research Associates (ARA), headquartered in Albuquerque, was kind enough to foot the bill to bring in Scot Miller (CAPT, USN, Retired) and Gary Klein, Ph.D. to share their perspectives on KM. Thanks to ARA’s Felix Sanchez and Frank Maestas for their support in making this happen.

Scot, in one of his last active duty assignments, in 2004, lead the KM effort for the Multinational Force in Iraq. Regardless of what you think about the Iraq war, you must admit that trying to get the U.S.-led coalition forces, the U.N., and the interim government of Iraq to share knowledge would have to have been one of the greatest cat herding efforts of all time. As it turns out, there was some degree of success among the non-Iraqi participants, but the Iraqis were, even in 2004, still too traumatized by the innovation=death legacy of Sadam. Knowledge sharing was not only an alien concept, but one that triggered instinctive fear. Scot said he had hopes that the Iraqis have progressed beyond this point, but no evidence to date. Scot is now a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School. [Scot's presentation file]

Gary Klein gave the second talk. He has a soft, airy voice that leads an audience to listen carefully and — initially at least — to expect a boring presentation. Soon, however, the audience member realizes with palpable relief that Klein is telling stories. He is a good storyteller. People lean forward a bit, eyes squinting and heads nodding slightly as they digest a salient point. Gary is smart to leave “knowledge management” out of his lexicon for this event. He tells of how critical care nurses on an infant ward attribute their astonishing diagnostic acuity to intuition but, with the assistance of expert knowledge elicitation experts, come to slowly explicate their previously tacit expertise. He then relates a story of an experienced Navy pilot (there were at least four current and retired Navy personnel in the small audience) trying to qualify for carrier landings in an unfamiliar aircraft. A small, incorrect assumption nearly cost him his flying career, but a colleague who was skilled in guiding others to insights asked the critical questions that enabled the pilot to realize and correct his mistaken mental model and keep flying. In these and other stories, Klein demonstrated effective knowledge elicitation techniques in real-world situations. It was the best sort of guided learning possible from merely listening to a presentation.

This wasn’t my first encounter with Klein or his work. I am fairly sure that I heard him speak when I was a student at the Air Force Institute of Technology, back in 1990-91. Later, when the Web appeared, I began using it as a research tool and began running across more references to and by Gary. Then, last fall, a colleague and I attended training in methods of cognitive task analysis (CTA) provided by Klein Associates (a division of ARA) in Dayton, OH. Three of Klein’s analyst-facilitators introduced us to CTA interviewing methods pioneered by Klein, and then walked us through the process by having us interview an expert (happened to be an old acquaintance, Mark Seelbaugh of The Triune Group, currently supporting Air Force Knowledge Now (provides basic team software online for Air Force users) in Dayton. The training opened our eyes to the potential and power of CTA methods for eliciting expertise in ways that tap into natural ways of human thinking and sensemaking (another of Klein’s focal research and application areas). [Gary's presentation file]

Klein has several excellent books in print that explain and provide ample examples of his CTA methods:

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

Working Minds: A Practitioner’s Guide to Cognitive Task Analysis

I’ve used concept mapping in my research and at work since 1990. This book has one of the best descriptions I’ve found of concept maps and how to create and use them. That’s just part of the value in this rich resource for CTA practitioners, including knowledge elicitation specialists, anthropologists, industrial engineers, teachers, and instructional designers.

The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work