Reflections on how to make better use of existing knowledge in humanitarian organisations: an analysis of ECHO’s field network

by Julia Stewart-David

Context
The European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid DG (ECHO) is rare, as a large humanitarian donor organization, in having an extensive field network of humanitarian experts. The field network is linked to HQ in Brussels. Their role is to support decision-making, advocacy and implementation of EU humanitarian aid to people affected by crisis. This field expertise is seen as a key organisational strength and comparative advantage; however experience shows there may be room to use it more effectively for knowledge management purposes.  The network comprises of 140 international humanitarian experts, located in 46 offices (of varying size and status) in 41 countries.

Question:  Could existing connections between the international field staff be more effectively leveraged as part of a strategy to improve knowledge management in ECHO?

Availability of data:  Subject to agreement to access the data, some basic attribute data sets should already be available from the Human Resources team. This would include name, nationality, gender, location and length of time in current post.  Additional attribute data that would be extremely interesting to look at may also be theoretically available (e.g. through CVs held by Human Resources) but may not be organised as a single data set. Data privacy rules may limit direct access by the analyst; therefore accessing the full set of available data is likely to depend on getting managerial agreement to do this with the HR team. Useful additional attribute data would include: sector-specialism; length of humanitarian aid career; previous contracts with ECHO and previous employment in other humanitarian organizations.  Current social network data on who talks to whom regularly would need to be gathered by a specific survey. ECHO field experts are geographically dispersed in difficult locations and working under sometimes extreme time pressure. Experience has shown a relatively low record of response rate to surveys.  Partial response could however still be useful.

Why analyse the field experts as a social network?

In looking at the ECHO expert network as a social network, rather than a functional organizational set-up, it should be possible to gain insight into the ‘social’ or human aspect of professional knowledge transfer. Who do you turn to when you face a new situation on the ground?  How do you easily access recollections of the emergency response dilemmas in previous similar crises? How does your previous organisational experience impact on your current links and partner preferences?  An analysis of the existing connections could help identify potential for active organizational strategies to build on natural social connections to enhance knowledge management.  We would be looking for natural (human) vectors of knowledge transfer between locations and specialisms, which could enable us to identify some ‘learning champions’ that could be explicitly recognized and supported as points of reference for developing a management strategy to improve collective professional learning. The SNA would be a smaller part of a larger analysis, which would also likely need to include survey data on attitudes and motivation.  

What would we measure?
Density to give an overall indication of how closely knit the entire network is.
Centrality to see whether communication flow is widely dispersed or rather controlled by a few (a strong possibility given that some offices - the Regional Support Offices - are designed to be functionally larger than others).
Average path distance  to give an indication of current ease of navigation around the network: if I don’t know the person with the relevant knowledge, how quickly can I reach them via someone else?
Eigenvector in the context of a highly mobile, widely dispersed field network strong connections to others with connections are likely to contribute to organisational efficiency.
Cliques and degrees could also give useful indications of what currently draws people together and how the network is likely to be impacted by mobility over time (e.g. if key people move on).

An “elevator pitch” to senior management: A knowledgeable network effectively sharing its knowledge, makes for well-motivated staff able to leverage their skills and experience to best effect for high quality, efficient humanitarian action.  Show you value your most valuable people asset, as part of a strong commitment to organisational learning.