Protocol & Templates

Knowledge Management Process Mapping

Summary

What does your KM system need to look like to ensure that (1) promising change ideas affect practitioners, systems, and students outside of the network and (2) the network reaches its ambitious aims?

Developing a process map will help your hub team begin answering these questions and:

• articulate and use of a clear team definition of and blueprint for KM;
• identify strengths and potential gaps or breakdowns in your existing or planned KM system; and
• recognize areas where additional supports, tools, and templates are needed to engage in effective KM practices.

​

1

Tools & Templates

• Sample swimlane process map: The next slide presents a model of a KM process map based on a fictionalized math-focused network. The network’s hub is the district, and 10 of the district’s 25 middle schools are currently participating. The network’s shared KM goal is to have all middle school teachers across the district adapt and implement the most impactful change ideas that emerge from the network.

• Process mapping protocol: Steps 1, 2, 3, and 4
• Swimlane process map template & icons bank

2

Teachers share these practices within and beyond their communities

Teachers capture adaptations and implementation instructions that reflect their context

Hub captures change idea and implementation information and packages with other effective practices

Hub aggregates and analyzes testing data and learnings on the change idea from across the network

Various teams across the network adapt, apply, and conduct rapid cycle testing on the idea

Teachers in all middle schools decide which ideas to adapt and apply in their classrooms

Hub shares practices with district leadership

District leaders share practices with school leaders

Yes

Schools leaders share practices with teachers

Initiating teams develops and executes information session on change idea at network convening

Team’s coach shares change idea summary sheet with other coaches who distribute to other teams through coaching meetings

Team and hub coach collaboratively draft change idea summary sheet

Team decides and determines if the change idea has been successful enough to share

Several team members adapt, apply, and conduct rapid cycle testing on the idea in different classrooms

Team aggregates and analyzes testing data, builds understanding of who and how the change idea has worked

Initiating teachers share the idea with others at their weekly CI team meeting

The co-teachers use a PDSA form to capture the idea, implementation guidelines, measures, and predictions on how and for whom the change idea may work

Yes

Teachers determine which adapted ideas have resulted in positive outcomes in their classrooms

All middle school teachers across the district have adopted practices that will improve math instruction

Two co-teachers develop a promising instructional change idea during a class session

Process mapping swim lane template & icons bank

3

Process

Decision Point

Terminal

Direction

For remote mapping: Use the templates included on this slide OR access and save this LucidChart template.

For in-person mapping: Recreate the swim lane template on a whiteboard or poster paper and use sticky notes to populate.

Step 1: Reflect on your current KM practices.

Bring together a representative team of network members and stakeholders, including hub leaders, student-facing staff, school leadership, and system-level staff. With this group reflect on your network’s existing KM infrastructure. Ask yourself:

1. How has our network defined “knowledge management?”
1. Do we have a shared definition? If not, how have different members’ definitions differed? Why?
2. Do these definitions align with the four steps (generation, capture, sharing and application) outlined earlier in this section?
2. Does our network consistently engage in all four KM processes (generation, capture, sharing and application)? If not, what barriers have prevented us from doing so?
3. Who typically “owns” or leads various KM activities in our network?
• Who typically leads efforts to generate learning? Why?
• Who typically leads efforts to capture and consolidate learning? Why?
• Who typically leads efforts to share learning within and beyond our network? Why?
• Who typically leads efforts to apply new learning? Why?

4

4

4

Step 2: Set mapping objectives and establish a KM goal.

Identify the goal or North Star of your knowledge management system and plot it as a terminal in the lower right-hand corner of your swimlane process mapping template.

Ask yourself:

1. What is our network’s shared, long-term aim?
2. What knowledge application goal can we set that will position us to achieve that aim? To articulate this goal, think about:
1. What type of information/knowledge needs to spread and be applied?
2. Who needs to receive and apply this knowledge?
3. At what scale does this knowledge need to be spread and applied?

5

6

All middle school teachers across the district have adopted practices that will improve math instruction

Step 3: Backwards map your KM process.

1. Ask yourself:
1. If our goal is the application of our network learnings at scale, what preceding knowledge sharing activity must take place?
2. What knowledge capture activity must precede that sharing activity?
3. What generation activity precedes that capture process?
2. Write down those activities and plot them on your map, connecting each activity to the last with an arrow.
3. Continue to plot backwards, differentiating between processes and decision points by using the rectangular and diamond icons, respectively. When you reach decision points, ask yourself:
• What happens if [yes]? What happens if [no]?
• Make note of the “no” path, but only plot “yes” for now.
4. Plot until you have reached a logical KM starting point in the generation lane.
• It’s likely that your network generates knowledge in many different ways (e.g., teams generate new change ideas; the hub introduces a change idea from field research, etc.). For this activity, however, you should choose just one generation starting point (see the sample map for an example). If the mapping activity proves useful, consider developing several maps that begin at different knowledge generation starting points, making note of where your different maps converge.

​

7

Implementation Note

The goal of this activity is to articulate your network’s broad KM infrastructure. Keep your activity descriptions high-level at this point.

For example, you may establish that network participants are responsible for sharing tested interventions with others at the school. In practice, this sharing activity may require the development of a tool or process to determine which ideas are supported enough to share. Note that and move on.

Backwards map your KM system from that goal using the four KM stages as a frame.

8

Teachers share these practices within and beyond their communities

Teachers capture adaptations and implementation instructions that reflect their context

Hub captures change idea and implementation information in a shareable format (e.g., packages with other effective practices)

Hub aggregates and analyzes testing data and learnings on the change idea from across the network

Teachers decide which ideas to adapt and apply in their classrooms

Hub shares practices with district leadership

District leaders share practices with school leaders

Yes

Schools leaders share practices with teachers

Teachers determine which adapted ideas have resulted in positive outcomes in their classrooms

All middle school teachers across the district have adopted practices that will improve math instruction

Step 4: Reflect on your map.

Reflect on your map using the following questions as a guide. The linked slides attached to each question include notes on common challenges and tips for addressing them.

• Ask yourself: What have we learned about our KM process?
• After mapping, have we identified any parts of our process where we are not attending to the full KM cycle?
1. Why do we think those gaps exist?
2. Where and how can we implement new activities, supports, or tools to mitigate gaps in our process?
• Are there any activities on our map that are not assigned to or owned by an actor or group?
• Who might take the lead on those tasks? What support can we offer to assist with that work?
• The map you’ve developed likely only articulates one part of your network’s KM infrastructure. What other knowledge generation pathways would you need to plot to get a fuller picture of your broad system?

9

10

As you reflect, it may be helpful to recall the KM wave diagram. Are there elements of your KM process where your network isn’t constructing a “full-wave” process?

i. Are there any parts of our process where we are not attending to the full KM cycle?

Generation

Consolidation /

Capture

Sharing

Application

Knowledge application goal

11

ii. Are there any parts of our process where we are not attending to the full KM cycle?

Think again of the diagrams that capture common KM processes issues. Do any of these reflect issues you see on your diagram?

Pain Point Model 1.

Network actors or teams generate new knowledge (e.g., through inquiry cycles) but the network lacks strong KM routines to methodically capture, share, and apply those learnings.

​

Pain Point Model 2.

Network actors or teams generate knowledge but move to sharing without capturing of critical context or implementation information, often leading to disappointing application outcomes.

​

​

Pain Point Model 3.

Network actors or teams generate knowledge and codify it effectively, but the network lacks strong consolidation and cross-network sharing routines, which stymies linked progress toward the network’s strategic goal.

Pain Point Model 4.

Networks often plan for internal KM needs with the most immediate tasks in mind, leading to highly articulated early stage, local KM processes and underdeveloped, unaligned, or absent later-stage processes to disseminate learning outside of the network.