Make Your Experiences Count. They Can Change the World.
LET’S BRING ALL OF OUR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCES TOGETHER.
TOGETHER WE KNOW MORE. TOGETHER WE ACHIEVE MORE. TOGETHER WE DO BETTER.
Knowledge Management
Our Objectives with Knowledge Management
Together with our Partners we strive to foster organisational learning by reflecting on experiences, learning from frailure and good practices as well as by getting access to the relevant knowledge and experiences from others.
KNOW-HOW3000 is the Knowledge Management Programme of HORIZONT3000. It promotes processes of learning from and sharing of experiences that Partner Organisations make, and brings relevant knowledge within their reach.
It aims at strengthening local Partners’ capacities so that they can improve their work’s impact and performances. How? By creating sharing and learning spaces and by following-up on organisational learning processes.
Knowledge Management, as it is understood and promoted by HORIZONT3000, is not Information Management, which focuses on a collection and distribution of data. For KNOW-HOW3000, knowledge refers to experience, know-how, capacity or skills: “the main question regarding information is how to store and organise it, the main question regarding knowledge is how to produce, transfer, adapt it to specific contexts and share it between the right people, taking into account the socio-cultural structure and institutional setting that shape these processes. Knowledge thus includes social and human perspectives that information does not.” AGRIDEA (2016): Review of the Framework Programme HORIZONT3000.
Our Focus Areas in Knowledge Management
Learning & Sharing
What We Do & Why We Do It
The exchange of experiences and the transfer of knowledge are at the heart of KNOW-HOW3000, putting a major effort in the promotion of learning networks, which bring together people and organizations working in similar fields and facing similar challenges. This is done through various methods that aim at fostering structured learning & sharing amongst organisations with similar thematic backgrounds. The application and backflow of new learnings from such sharing spaces to the individual organisations are supported by encouraging involved persons to actively reflect on the use and applicability of their learnings for their specific work and teams.
Experience Capitalisation
What we do & why we do it
At HORIZONT3000 the main strategy we work with in the scope of Knowledge Management is the Experience Capitalisation Process. We believe that experiences are hidden treasures in organisations that are not always shared and our goal is to change that. Sharing learnings from experiences requires capitalisation and documentation of experiences. That means to systematically reconstruct and document what has happened in a certain project or process, reflect on it and draw lessons from it. The lessons can then be shared, adapted, adopted and applied.
Capacity Development
What We Do & Why We Do It
The KNOW-HOW3000 community aims at developing capacities to enable all of its members to keep improving our services to the final beneficiaries and to strengthen our contribution to changes on societal level. This is why another main area of action is the development of capacities, including technical, managerial and methodological capacities, networking abilities as well as our capacities to learn as organizations and teams, to capitalize experiences, and to exchange knowledge in an effective way. Together we strive to become learning organisations in order to be more efficient and effective. By learning from and adapting our practices we pave the way to a resilient and sustainable existence.
Knowledge Management Tools and Activities
We have put in place a variety of tools to assure the quality of knowledge management and capacity development within and between our Partner Organisations.
Joint-learning by reflecting on an experience and drawing lessons learnt – that is what Experience Capitalisation is all about. Systematisation, change stories, after action reviews and storytelling are a few methods to reveal issues that are often overlooked.
KNOWLYMPICS is our knowledge sharing game, where Partners can win prizes for sharing their experiences in form of “good practices” and “learnings from failure”.
Our Communities of Practice are interest groups that interact regularly to learn more. They enable stronger networks and learning processes among organisations operating in similar areas.
Members can run local or regional face-to-face-events, where participants discuss their activities and experiences within a previously set topic or area of work in order to learn and improve their practice.
Thanks to exchange visits our members work closer together. One (or more) HORIZONT3000 Partner Organisations visits another organisation and their projects in order to learn from their practice and methods applied.
Specific trainings are either organised by HORIZONT3000 or by Partners themselves. They complement the Partner Organisation’s work and methods, strengthen their structures and procedures and enable joint learning.
Partners might have a need for short-term consultancy in a field of expertise, but a full-time TA is not necessary. Borrow-a-TA provides short-term consultancy and allows more Partners to profit from their know-how. Find here how to plan a BaTA assignment.
Consultancies enable continuous capacity development measures facilitated by an expert for one or a group of Partner Organisation/s and can involve coaching and mentoring activities, face-to-face and distance/remote consulting services.
KNOW-HOW3000 activities are seen as part of a learning process, which includes follow-ups such as action plans or surveys. Additionally, Knowledge Management TAs are assigned to provide continous support to Partner Organisations.
The platform supports the planning and implementation of knowledge management activities and provides documents created within the network. It serves as a tool for TAs and their Partners to find solutions for their projects.
Capacity Development and Knowledge Management
Individuals
By strengthening staff of Partner Organisations HORIZONT3000 promotes a more effective work and increased impacts of their projects and initiatives. Project Managers, executive personnel and others contribute to and benefit from the sharing of experiences and knowledge as well as the sensitisation, training and coaching on crucial topics for their individual work as well as their organisations as a whole.
Organisations
Organisational development through organisational learning is at the heart of KNOW-HOW3000. Through capacity development measures at the level of project teams and organisational units, and the follow-up on change processes induced by individual and collective learnings, Partner Organisations are equipped with stronger capacities to serve their target groups and their organisational goals.
Societies
By strengthening CSOs and promoting cooperation and networking among them, HORIZONT3000 contributes to strong civil society actors who work more effectively towards just and inclusive societies by delivering meaningful services to their constituencies and engaging crucial stakeholders for societal change.
Organisational Development is a key aspect of HORIZONT3000 programmes and programme interventions in all countries, especially within the Technical Advisor Programme and the Knowledge Management Programme KNOW-HOW3000. Organisational Development includes capacity development of staff and improvement of structures, processes and practices. It involves leadership, relationship, strategy, communication, funding, resource mobilisation, among others, while departing from and focusing on the individual organisational realities and objectives.
Our Cross-Cutting Issues: Gender & Environment
KNOW-HOW3000 supports Partner Organisations to better integrate cross-cutting themes into their work by providing the space for exchanging experiences on those topics.
Furthermore, KNOW-HOW3000 targets directly and explicitly a greater gender equality when it comes to the access to relevant knowledge, and the recognition of individuals and organisations as knowledge imparters and knowledge mediators. This is done mainly through the promotion of women participation in KNOW-HOW3000 activities and the sensitisation on gender issues.
KNOW-HOW3000 helps Partner Organisations to better integrate cross-cutting themes into their work by providing the space for exchanging experiences on those topics.
Capacity development in sustainable access to water, wastewater treatment, sustainable energy sources, strengthening the resilience of ecosystems to cope with more or less extensive climate change effects like changes in rain patterns, floods, droughts, etc. are a crucial support for some partners working in the fields of environmental protection and climate change adaptation or mitigation.
Tools for Knowledge Management on the Platform
What can the platform do in order to support the pursuit of the objectives and the work with the focus areas? The platform provides sector specific information, promotes know-how transfer, creates a space for knowledge exchange and connects the right people for the right task.
Coordination
Petra Herout is the coordinator of our Knowledge Management Programme. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with her.
