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16https://www.decisionprofessionals.com/blog/2017/01/SDP-Fellows-Blog-Eric-Johnson-on-Information-Management-for-Knowledge-Workers
SDP Fellows Blog - Eric Johnson on "Information Management for Knowledge Workers"
01/26/2017 10:26 AM Posted by: Eric Johnson Poster Avatar
 

SDP Fellows Blog

SDP is kicking off a new service: periodic blogs, written by SDP Fellows. These blogs will address topics of interest to decision analysis, such as:

  • Judgment biases
  • Value of information
  • Scenario planning
  • Strategy creativity
  • Decision metrics

  • In this blog, the first of the series, Eric Johnson offers thoughts on "Information Management for Knowledge Workers".

    =====================================

    Information Management for Knowledge Workers

    Introduction

    A decision analyst is a knowledge worker, but with an unusual relationship to knowledge. We have expert knowledge about how to help clients formulate, evaluate and choose among alternatives. But we touch lots of other knowledge about which we are not expert: the content that our subject matter experts bring to the table, whose implications we explore. Different decision analysts require different degrees of subject matter expertise. I am employed by a drug company (BMS) to do decision analysis, so I need to retain more of the subject domain than an external consultant, but even freelance DA consultants need to have some understanding of their clients' domains.

    Some of us in my department at BMS recently reviewed our information acquisition and management strategies. This blog reports on that review, aiming to give you some ideas you may not have heard before, and to spur you to undertake such a review. The topics reviewed are:

  • What do you read?
  • How do you store & access information?
  • Do you proactively review?

  • What to Read

    Within our group at BMS, one resource I was unfamiliar with was as a go-to resource by many. So I subscribed to it, and find it worthwhile. Compare notes with your colleagues about what you read; you might learn something useful.

    Storage and Retrieval

    The way we store information relates to how we intend to retrieve it later. The two main retrieval paradigms at BMS are search over the entire corpus, or categorization in a hierarchical folder structure. I'll briefly characterize factors to bear in mind as you consider whether to modify your own approach.

    BMS uses Windows computers, and we do not generally find the search capabilities of the file browser to be entirely sufficient, so we keep documents in a nested hierarchical folder structure. BMS uses Outlook for email, and some of us find its search capabilities (by sender, time frame, or content text string) adequate to allow keeping all items in one big pool. Others use a hierarchical folder structure mirroring what we use in the filesystem.

    Folder hierarchy is inflexible. You must traverse the folder dimensions in pre-specified order; if the top-level partition is irrelevant or difficult to specify for a particular document, you must nonetheless make an arbitrary choice where it goes, and remember which arbitrary choice you made when it comes time to retrieve. A system where files are indexed on multiple dimensions, each of which can be searched independently (as can be done in SharePoint) can solve this problem, if you are willing to spend a little time defining the dimensions, setting up columns for them, and coding all the files.

    If you don't have SharePoint, here is the top level of a hierarchy structure that works for us at BMS, and also worked for me when I was a consultant: core projects, side projects, tools, content, and admin. Then there are folders for each individual project under the core- or side-projects headings. The folder structure I myself use has a couple additional levels of headings under each core project, because our projects have a common structure to them; this comes in handy for retrieval and for purge (see below), but others here don't find this necessary. The "content" subtree is used very differently by each individual. For me, I have three main areas of content: Decision analysis, Diseases, and BMS corporate. Upon reflection, I noticed that I do go back and access DA information, but I never refer to old information about diseases or corporate. Reflecting in this way gives you (and me!) the opportunity to stop collecting and storing information that you will never use.

    A different top-level partition is by time blocks. People who are generally comfortable with search, but find it necessary to categorize files or emails (e.g. due to computer system constraints), can also consider organizing files into "archives" or "folders" by year (or quarter). For emails, Outlook automates this process.

    Some of us also maintain a work log for each project, and you should consider whether it is helpful to you. This is a text document where you type important background information at the top (team members, access codes, dates), and then keep a chronological log of important daily occurrences (like a scientist's lab notebook). This can be helpful if you have to rotate among multiple projects ... when you come back to this project, you can easily identify what needs to be focused on, even if that information didn't find its way into an email or a computer file. If you use OneNote for these work logs, you can flag to-do items amid the narrative, and the system will automatically extract a ready-made to-do list; or you can maintain your to-do list manually, as I do.

    Proactive Review

    Everyone accesses information reactively, as needed. The advantage of periodic proactive review of information is that it can be top-of-mind when needed; but proactive review takes time, and it seems like a chore. Here are some activities that can make knowledge review more palatable, because they also achieve some other knowledge-preening objective.

    If you maintain your task list manually, periodically revising its prioritization keeps tasks top-of-mind and allows you to sharpen up the definitions of tasks, as well as allowing you to make intelligent choices about which tasks to do first.

    Writing a brief summary of a month's entries in a project work log at each month end allows you to notice connections that may not have been salient in the moment, enables you to give a clear and prompt answer to "What have you done for me lately?", and gives a useful document for subsequent reference months or years later.

    Subjecting an email or filesystem folder to a purge review freshens up one's memory of the items that are retained, as well as freeing up storage space for the items that are deleted.

    Summary

    So, in summary: giving some explicit thought to what you read, how you stored it (in filesystem and emails), and whether/when to proactively review our information can help us knowledge workers identify ways to use information to make us more effective at what we do.

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