What we do
The Knowledge Fair in Curitiba brought together cities, large and small from all over Brazil.
"People were surprised that this woman coming from a 60,000 city , Manacapuru, somewhere in the Amazon, could sit with the big city of Sao Paolo and have something to bring to them.
The guy from Sao Paolo said "At the beginning we thought, 'What is this lady going to tell us?' She's coming from the jungle. We then both realised that we are both working in jungles. Hers is one of trees and ours is one of concrete. But we have got very interested in some of her ideas. We are going to see how we can implement them in our context."
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Everyone has something to share. Everyone has something to learn.
The Constellation uses a variety of Knowledge Management tools in its work first to ensure that individuals, communities and organisations learn from what they do and secondly that what is leaned is shared as widely as possible. All of the tools mentioned below (plus many others) are described in the book "Learning to Fly" by Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, Capstone Publishing Ltd, 2004. Much of the material in this section is taken from Learning to Fly with grateful thanks to Chris and Geoff.
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An After Action Review is a tool which you can use after or during any piece of work. It simply requires a group to come together and reflect on 4 questions
- What was supposed to happen?
- What did happen?
- Why is there a difference?
- What can you learn from this?
The idea is that the AAR is a short, simple LEARNING process. It is not a blame allocation process. For more details on After Action Reviews see Chapter 8 of "Learning to Fly".
More details on After Action Reviews
This document gives a summary of the AAR process.
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If you are facing a challenge, it is almost certain that others have faced challenges which are relevant to yours. A Peer Assist brings together a group of such people who are committed to sharing their experiences so that you can respond effectively to your challenge.
A Peer Assist involves more than sharing 'Best Practice'; at its best, it is a creative process where individuals share the experiences gained in a variety of contexts to create an original response to the challenge.
For more details on Peer Assists see Chapter 7 of 'Learning to Fly'.
More details on Peer Assists
This document gives a summary of Peer Assist process. |
The Knowledge Fair is a natural consequence of the Self Assessment. When you have done the Self Assessment, you will have identified areas where you feel you have made good progress and there will be specific areas where you have committed to improvement.
A Knowledge Fair brings together groups who have completed the Self Assessment and who will all have 'Something to Share and Something to Learn'.
The River Diagram and the Stairs Diagram are 2 tools which help to ensure that the right conversations take place at a Knowledge Fair.
More details on Knowledge Fairs
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During a Knowledge Fair, people share their experiences. When this happens, people frequently notice that while those experiences may come from very different contexts, there is a common principle which underlies these experiences. (See story on left.) If other experiences give further support to the common principle, our confidence increases that we may have found a common principle which is applicable in a very wide variety of contexts.
A Knowledge Asset is a systematic collection of these principles together with the material which supports and illuminates them.
More details on Knowledge Assets
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