Kmc4CRP3 writeshop

KMC4CRPs 3 Writeshop 27 (pm) and 28 (all day) May 2015

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Objectives

• Synthesize what we learned about KMC and CRPs in phase 1 (and this year so far).
• Identify a package of KMC-related principles, actions or interventions that we want to see included in the design of the next round of CRPs
• Identify a set of KMC-related advocacy targets and activities across CGIAR and associated groups - for CRP phase 2 and possibly other processes (e.g. GCARD3)

Expected outputs and outcomes

• Package of written up core/key/critical KMC interventions and actions for phase 2 CRP designers [something anyone could adapt and adjust]
• First Draft ideas KMC engagement/influencing plan for wider CGIAR

Participants

Tana Lala-Pritchard

Nadia Manning

Genevieve Renard

Satish Nagaraji

Ewa Hermanowicz

Vanessa Meadu

Michael Victor

Peter Ballantyne

Ewen Le Borgne

Martina Mascarenhas

Preparation

We sent out a survey to help identify areas to work on. See the results: [[1]]

The sense-making from the survey is here. The first 5 topics were highest ranked in the survey. Number 6 and 7 are suggested as important to work on.We think for each of these we can probably produce a rather complete story with clear guidelines for KMC investments. The six below are perhaps 'reserve' topics where we may want to say they are important but that we dont yet have clear enough guidance to specify definate KMC pathways.

Topic	Persons ‘majoring’ in this, ie: leading the writing	Persons ‘minoring’ in this, ie” contributing to writing / reviewing
Managing research for results: getting to outcomes with KMC] (combined with 'reinforcing CRP results-based management + Processes and tools for research planning, management and collaboration)	Ewen, Satish, Tana, Vanessa	Satish
Supporting CRP partnerships for impact]	Genevieve	Tana, Vanessa, Ewen
Enhancing science discovery and delivery by Opening Access to CRP results and data]	Peter	Satish
4. Processes and tools for research planning, management, collaboration Merging: * Supporting internal communications across the CRP * Supporting CRP research planning and management * Facilitating CRP research collaboration processes	Merged with #1	n/a
Promoting public awareness of the CRP / identity and branding]	Martina / Amit	Tana? Vanessa?
Organizing the delivery of C and KM]	Michael	Satish
Why gender & diversity matter]	Ewa, Martina, Mia	Tana + Vanessa to provide reviewer
8. Engaging and influencing CRP donors and investors	n/a
Facilitating CRP process engagement and events]	Lucie / Nadia	Ewen, Peter? Simone? Michael? Petr?
10. Supporting CRP research planning and management (merged, see above)	Satish / Vanessa
11. Facilitating CRP research collaboration processes (merged, see above)	Satish/ Vanessa
12. Contributing to CRP capacity development	n/a
13. Reinforcing CRP results based management	Tana

For each topic area we need participants to identify a major topic (they will lead the writing about) and a minor (they will contribute to)

Process

We suggest to start by each 'major' drawing/preparing a flipchart 'poster' of the topic - scope, main messages ... Together we review and improve these. Then, authors get writing.

Possible Agenda

Wednesday 1300: lunch 1400: agree objectives, products, process, focus areas, audience(s) 1500: produce posters 1600: review 'posters' 1700: form actual writing teams

Thursday 0830: writing teams 1130: product updates/progress 1300: lunch 1530: products to outcomes - influencing ideas 1630: next steps/actions etc

Format

For each topic, we want to use a standard template (proposed below)

Each topic should be a CRP result area (not an approach or a tool)

For each, we would want to spell out: 1) the contributions of CKM to this result area (why important) 2) how these contributions are best achieved/delivered 3) any specific good practices 4) any concrete/specific examples or cases 5) any pitfalls (practices) to watch out for and avoid.

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Proposed outline of a “KMC advice brief”

format: 2-4 page A4 brief

TITLE: Name of result area

AUTHORS:

1. BOX SUMMARISING WHAT KMC DOES FOR THIS RESULT AREA. A FEW KEY THINGS/FINDINGS/LESSONS: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

2. SHORT NARRATIVE TEXT. ELABORATING ON THE POINTS ABOVE AND SPECIFYING THE APPROACHES/PATHWAYS/PRACTICES THAT WILL WORK TO DELIVER

3. SHORT NARRATIVE TEXT OUTLINING GOOD PRACTICES

4. NARRATIVE TEXT WITH SOME EXAMPLES/CASES THAT ILLUSTRATE THE APPROACH/LESSONS

5. NARRATIVE - PITFALLS TO LOOK OUT FOR

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ALTERNATIVE OR IN ADDITION - THE EVIDENCE BASE

Proposed outline of a “KMC impact or result brief”

format: 4-8 page A4 brief

TITLE:

AUTHORS:

ASSOCIATED PROJECT:

ANY COUNTRY/REGION FOCUS:

1. BOX SUMMARISING KEY LESSONS AND INSIGHTS: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

SUMMARY What, how, why…

INSIDE THE BRIEF:

BACKGROUND (1 page): what was the challenge, intended outcomes, context, etc

APPROACH TAKEN (1 page): detail on how KMC tools were designed and used to help deliver outcomes

FINDINGS/RESULTS (1-2 pages): Detail on what happened. And how was it monitored and evaluated.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS (1 page): What are the key lessons, how can this be applied to other contexts, what to avoid?

BACK PAGE:

LINKS FOR FURTHER READING / REFERENCES (0.5 - 1 page)

LOGOS (Centers and CRPs of contributing authors)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THIS SERIES

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE/ CORRECT CITATION

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Good practice list from the survey

A blog that acts as a place to share the perspectives of researchers and spark a discussion

A database of all of the projects with short descriptions, updates and project leads available for internal use

A discussion space such as a blog

Achieving outcomes and impacts of CRPs would entail a well-integrated communication plan/strategy into the overall development and impact pathway.

Any easy-to-use, clean and jargon-free website to explain the purpose of the program, its structure and what it is accomplishing

Associate the CRP to other programs/institutions at conferences or workshops

Blogging and other Web 2.0 media on what's happening and what is coming out of the CRP

Capturing practical lessons learned regarding outscaling and upscaling (to help develop political skills for delivery)

Clarify role of KM in uptake versus social science research on uptake and link both expertise well

communication research

Communications training workshops for scientists - start with presentations, then other areas (workshop is useful, but needs to be continuously reinforced to create cultural change)

community of practice meetings between participating centers

cross CRP systems for KM and data sharing/open access- all using the same systems

Dataverse

Decentralise and democratize the comms and info products; ensure attribution

Describing clearly the CRP research strategies with objectives and timeline;

Design KM interventions along the impact pathway at the planning stage and therefore have a clear ToC for KM

design products that are unique to the CRP, an infographics, a documentary initiative etc; link with partners'work, focus on small scale gender initiatives

Designing comms in ways that is appropriate and relevant for audiences outside the CG systems. Moving away from the program perspective. Also ensuring longevity of comms platforms and networks--possibly beyond the relatively short lifetime of a CRP.

Designing, organizing and assessing processes of engagement (around conversations, meetings, events and wider MSP-type processes)

doing pre- and post-test surveys or some other evaluation and monitoring mechanism

efficiently facilitated meetings, sometimes including virtual meetings to avoid excessive costs and Carbon footprint

Embrace whole spectrum data - info - Uptake and cover science discovery, development and delivery

Envolving/ingaging participating NARs/institutions

Establish a community of practice for KM&Cs

Facilitating programming meetings of the CRP

Facilitation

Focus blogging

Formulate better KM&C guidelines that can be uniformly applied to all CRPs

Global policy engagement: informing processes such as the UNFCCC and the Global Alliance on Climate-smart agriculture.

Harness the various comms expertises and reach of the different CRP partners

Having a network coordinator who focuses on network creation and maintenance.

Having a percentage of the core CRP budget allocated to comms & KM

Having a unit that focuses on uptake and impact assessment

Include KMC work in theories of change to make it visible how it contributes to the wider program impact pathways

Index all the products in a single repository - like cgspace / similar approach for data

Informing national policies and capacity enhancement: working with national research partners to simultaneously develop policies while also enhancing their capacity to deliver long-term impact

Integrating comms staff members into research discussions and meetings

Invest in a common Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning process and platform in order to better shape internal and external KM&C

Letting programmatic impact pathways determine KM-C activities, i.e., KM-C should support program to achive outcomes defined in impact pathways (that where we should get the objectives part of our comms strategies)

M&E on KM-C. If we had better tracked M&E indicators, we would have a better sense which KM-C activities pay off and are worth investing in

Making scientists co-responsible with comms for research uptake (in their PAs)

monthly newsletter/news update. Annual Report, twitter or at least one social media tool

Open access of research outputs

Policy briefs and document summary that explain the CRP in simple language

Policy outputs using visual materials

Public awareness campaign

Set up a Current research information system (CRIS) for M&E

Set up network site of experts - partners and CG (VIVO) to increase visiblity

Setting up workspaces and various other comms channels/tools for everyone in the program to find ways to communicate, cooperate, collaborate

Short video stories showing the results and impact of the CRPs through the eyes of beneficiaries

Sourcebooks to collect knowledge on specific topocs

Stakeholder platforms- e.g learning alliance, hubs etc

storify

Strategic use of social media to engage with youth

Use controlled vocabulary for proper tagging across CRPs

Working with media houses to disseminate impacts/outcomes of CRP

writeshops to develop impact pathways in a collaborative process

Writing policy-brief type documents with the help of researchers involved about the CRP objectives and process, and eventual outputs

Poor practice list from the survey

Project website--too many disparate efforts with no (or insignificant) return on investment

Over-complex websites and portals e.g. Big Facts, AMKN

CRPs often overlook the importance of communication in achieving goals, impacts and outcomes. At best, it is considered ancillary, and sometimes, an afterthought activity of CRPs when fact is, it is an equally important component.

Off-line reporting templates & ad hoc reporting DBs not standardized across CRPs

Insisting on creating CRP's own document or data repository when such tools already exist to piggy-back on

Very big flashy global events with no clear outcomes apart from PR...

Use KM as service providers for library services, data services, facilitation services without connection and strategy

Considering the publishing of product inadvance interms of badget allocation and taking action before the expairy date.

Focusing so much on CRP branding

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The endless flow of policy briefs that do not necessarily end up in the hands or on the agendas of policy makers

Self promoting videos

Introducing too many online communications tools.

Internal communications within the CRP

facebook

Centralized approach that takes too long

A partners priority survey, too broad and not well targeted

Building closed systems/platforms

None

Focusing on glossy media presence, attention and coverage without thinking of wider engagement with all parties involved

Wikispace - I don't know researchers that actually use it, except perhaps for the organizers of an event

Unclear institutional arrangements (Centers-CRPs) which make it difficult to enforce accountability

Internal newsletters

Expensive international meetings that are essentially talkshops among the like-minded

Internal knowledge sharing, sharepoint, yammer and other associated tools - we need to think beyond this

Ensure appropriate KM&C resources (budget and staff) and invest in KM&C capacity development

Focusing on online communication only, instead of having a mix of electronic and face-to-face channels/approaches

Frustratingly, expecting open access sharing of publications and data, via CG Space, to be decentralized. It might be that it has to be the program's responsibility to make sure outputs are uploaded and shared.

Insisting on using a document repository that requires a login and password provided by the Communications officer

Investment in presence at events, but unclear what the cost/benefit are and what the follow-up is for these events

Knowledge management across CRPs hasn't really happened, not enough resources and too silo-ed, everyone doing their own thing

Lack of common KM &C tools - more effort to standardise these is required

Not attedning to event design and facilitation

Process on reporting on CRP-related publications not clearly structured and lacking proper attribution

Slow response time of the people involved

Too much focus on branding, less on content

Trying to brand a CRP, in addition to centers and CGIAR, is a major challenge.

Trying to enforce complicated lead center driven branding across all the many different products

Wikis (or similar platforms) don't seem to work well with scientists, even though they crave discussion and sharing platforms...

Advice to a CRP designer from the survey

Don't think you represent the program. You represent potential users of research results, tools, solutions. Your finest responsibility is to ensure that the program's communications is relevant to and can be understood by 'outsiders'.

Design a CRP not only with a clear idea of objectives but of the stakeholder and the surrounding socio-political environment affecting it.

Allocate appropriate budget at the beginning. When good opportunities for KM/Comms arise, there is often too much time lost looking for funding and the chance may fall through the cracks.

Single sourcing to reduce cost by reusing existing content components for different purposes.

Allow KM to communicate about process and unfinished research outputs, not waiting for the peer-reviewed science outputs to come out, otherwise, there are very few CRP results in the first two years

The CRP leader needs to have fully bought into the idea that KMC is essential to deliver outcomes, i.e. for the program's survival and success!

Follow what I put under point 2. At CIAT we developped 7 entry points to KM. Similar to what cap dev did, those (or others) should be considered, otherwise we have no agreement on what KM actually is and contributes to. In this sense it is crucial to link the data, info, uptake spectrum if we want to cover all science, from biophysical to social.

Focus on the key output (ONE above all) that you want to achieve with the CRP and always refer back to it with each decision

Engagement and consultation with partners and implementers to be sure they are on board, supportive, and understand how the KMC will be integral to the outcomes of the CRP. How will this all link to and benefit the people on the ground?

Adequate resources for comms and km

It's impossible to be everything to everyone. Having a clear mandate makes communicating it much easier and more straight forward.

Have communications expertise at the table as the CRP is designed. Acknowledge early the importance of comms for research uptake.

have a full time comms officer

Focus on helping, not policing

Make sure information flows with partners, that you can highlight their work and create synergies. In the case of MAIZE, some competitive grants have been great to report on, but other times, comms just does not get the information for lack of clear processes on both sides; define information flows

Build in regular engagement processes to maintain and strengthen partnerships and open communication

Gain access to multi-comms/km skills (including all sorts of soft networking/partnering/engaging/connecting skillsets)

Consistent messaging across the particpating centers

Focus on strong internal communication and rewarding (in recognition/attribution) good sharing and learning

It's hard to get people on board with a program that is only around for a few years. If possible, I think CRPs should be at least 10 years long

Provide adequate KM&C resources and training; each centre/CRP should be required to dedicate a given percentage (at least 10%) to Communications.

Engage with mainstream media

Trust your communicators and let the communicate to stakeholders. This is important because i think most resaercher managers see communictaion as a risk and dont trust us to communicate. So we spend most of our commnicating upwards rather than to our stkaeholders

Top-ranked KMC challenges by the survey

Developing multiple center information management systems

Reaching beyond the CGIAR and engaging international, regional and national partners

Networking/coordinating across multiple partners

Linking KMC to impact pathways

Liaising and working across centers – dealing with CRP overload?

Knowledge sharing: among program participants and between partners

Incentives to work with multiple partners and get buy in

Consistent CRP messaging

Working in open access

Communications branding

other challenges suggested:

Harvesting tools and solutions and facilitating sharing with potential end users.

Making the communications products compelling and clear to external audiences

Proper budgeting for KM/KS within CRPs as many donors require reporting on these activities

Changing comms within the outcome way of working

Clarity between representing centre and representing CRP

Maintaining a website with a clear content management strategy.

Inflexibility

Demonstrating why comms and KM MUST be resourced properly

Getting all program staff to adapt their behaviour towards 'working out loud', PKM etc.

Attributability of CRP results and achievements is difficulties to pin down because there are no clear rules as to how centers deal with the multiple CRP demands they face.

Old Stuff

Day 1: Sense making and identifying pathways for influence Important that before we jump into capitalization that we step back and strategically think about what we have (based on initial preparations), who we want to influence and how we want to do this. General sessions could include:

• Lessons and experiences from the agknolwedge share fair and individual CRPs – what was learned (fish bowl?)
• Sense making of what we have around main topics (bulk of the day).

What (processes, tools, approaches) we have that works/what we do effectively. OUTPUT: Effective practices synthesis and cases and examples knowledge product [what we learned and would recommend] What principles do we recommend for this block/domain. OUTPUT: Draft package of core/key/critical KMC interventions and actions for phase 2 CRP designers [something anyone could adapt and adjust] What examples do we have to show how it's done well. OUTPUT: Draft set of case studies that illustrate this + updated KMC4CRP building blocks from KMC4CRP meeting 1.

• Targeting – who we want to target and how
• Setting out tasks for Day 2

Day 2: Capitalization The day would be focused around getting people into teams to focus on specific topics and areas that we want to bring together experiences and lessons. By the end of the day should have draft materials and action plan written up.

• Writing and capitalization
• Sharing and feedback
• Action planning

Ideas ELB about the writeshop

Process

During the workshop:

• For capitalization we identify and further consolidate on the KMC4CRP pages:

What (processes, tools, approaches) we have that works/what we do effectively. OUTPUT: Effective practices synthesis and cases and examples knowledge product [what we learned and would recommend] What principles do we recommend for this block/domain. OUTPUT: Draft package of core/key/critical KMC interventions and actions for phase 2 CRP designers [something anyone could adapt and adjust] What examples do we have to show how it's done well. OUTPUT: Draft set of case studies that illustrate this + updated KMC4CRP building blocks from KMC4CRP meeting 1.

• For influencing we:

Look at the road map ahead Identify who / what / where / when / how of influencing Develop a roadmap to address the previous questions/issues and make sure we keep the momentum Tease out the people responsible for preparing the next bits of the journey Use these inputs to direct our capitalization efforts for the rest of the writeshop After the writeshop:

• We document the whole thing very well and share it with the wider CG comms group;
• We invite anyone to join any bit of effort;
• We hold regular chats and try to be present at key influencing 'moments';
• We update/document the KMC4CRP wiki pages on the different building blocks...

Possible topics (and sub-topics)

Try to organise this around a mandala of comms function (front and back office)

• Sharing and learning

Events and processes * Event and process facilitation * Wider engagement processes * Online engagement and campaigns Partnership development and collaboration processes * Knowledge sharing among partners * Networking and coordinating across multiple partners * Liaising and working across centers (see this point below too) * Incentives for working with multiple partners/getting people on the bus Internal communication * Using intranets * Getting people and teams to share work Reaching out beyond the CGIAR and engaging international, regional and national partners. Process documentation M&E of KMC work

• Influencing and messaging

Branding CRP messaging Awareness annuals and perennials: annual reports, policy and practice briefs etc.) Communication campaigns Advocacy and policy engagement work (covering policy briefing papers etc.)

• Publishing and curating

Collecting/harvesting research Disseminating our research outputs Working in open access Working with a family of publications (including infographics etc.) Making the most of our resources through taxonomies and meta data

• Multimedia multi-channel opportunities

Video work Audio work DVDs, CD-Roms and other related mediums (USB keys etc.)

• Managing our CKM work

Liaising and working across centers (see this point above too) Getting all partners to share knowledge regularly Organizing our learning across our CRP teams Developing multiple center information management systems Learning within and across CRPs

• Cross-cutting topics

How to deal with CRP overload? Developing capacity on KMC work Working in low-connectivity areas Monitoring, evaluating and learning from KMC work? Connections with other areas of work: research uptake, cap dev, gender, HR, research planning, CRP management

• Cutting edge work (to further re/define)

Social learning work Killer annual reports a la CIAT

For each topic 'package' check:

• Value of this - what we seem to offer
• Questions to wonder about
• Measures of success and examples of work (indicators and other ways to gather useful insights in this + Evidence of delivery: how has KMC contributed to CRPs reaching outcomes. We need clear case studies and evidence to convince directors that it is important)
• Testimonies of people appreciating the work done
• How we'd love to get involved in this work (ideal and hell scenarios?)