Accelerating Learning Innovation at Genentech

One more blog from HCI’s Learning Innovations conference last week in San Francisco…on a truly exciting  topic-
Enhancing Learning and Innovation at Genentech: Leveraging Collective Knowledge Sharing Technologies
Omar Nielsen, Senior Manager for Learning Technologies, Genentech
Dr. Steven Kowalski, Executive Development Consultant, Genentech
Omar and Steve shared a case study that explored the use of online collaboration tools and their effect on company-wide learning and development programs. During this interactive session, participants learned about Genentech’s decision to launch an internal social networking platform, how it augments other collaborative learning methods, how HR Learning & Development uses the platform to increase employee performance, and collaborating for innovation (sometimes even with past competitors). 
They addressed:
• How HR Learning & Development at Genentech is using blogs, discussions, wikis, world cafe, open-space and polls to enhance learning and professional development
• Adoption techniques being employed to ensure maximum participation and learning benefit
• How to determine which training solutions are best suited for integrating with online communities
• How success is measured and what metrics are important to continue support from upper management
• How the inclusion of online community tools are enhancing Genentech’s New Employee orientation program

Innovation at Genentech is defined as a result, and what’s behind it is creativity. Examples include scientific discoveries, targeted therapeutics, collaborating with competitors.  So how do they enhance creativity?
Efforts to encourage creativity cluster around these initiatives: Through cross-pollination of ideas, create spaces to share diversity of approaches, share idea “fragments”,  ownership of communication channels, freedom to self-organize, pushing context and required info for effective decision-making in the organization.  The related granular behaviors are taught on an as needed basis, such as helping users to self-organize info.  New users may need prompting such as discussion questions and polls in their knowledge sharing tools.  Seasoned users take ownership for their knowledge sharing tools.
Knowledge sharing technology and methodologies used at Genentech:
• Open space (unstructured way to build knowledge and exchange info) done in teams or departments… people start off generating topics in response to open-ended questions and topics are whittled to those participants feel are most critical 
• Dialog (called “Oasis” because sands/perspectives shift, and participants are guided by a compass instead of a map) to give people a place to identify the oases in their work life.  “Space for silence” is designed into the dialogs.
• World Café
• Online platforms used at Genentech include:
o     Gen-pool (like a wiki) many to one  to id pitfalls about a project before launch
o     Microblogging tools (1 to many) share ideas with others
o     Alumni community
o     Mentor community
o     Google sites/docs
A recent McKinsey study discovered that 71% of surveyed companies use web 2.0 technologies for internal training.  Of HCI conference attendees, most in the room have considered them; 20% of respondents said these tools are taking off,  20% of respondents have implemented them, and only 3% of the room described themselves at the full adoption phase.
Eighteen months ago Genentech relied on email; now they have 11,000 people using web 2.0 tools for an online workforce community. Social networking tools are both a push and a pull; this helps retention of knowledge. Within twitter Genentech uses Yammer for internal access only.   The transition to using these technologies at Genentech started in an IT groundswell (because the tools helped them get their job done).  Beginning with a small pilot, each person participating filled out a profile. Then HR started using the tools themselves. “Go slow to move fast,” described their approach; initially of 100 invitations, 20 rsvp’ed, but in five months Genentech has 6000 users with over 700,000 page views. 
Each social network needs an architect. Omar Nielsen determines how much structure to offer based on experience level of users.   Adoption is 50% currently, and new users tend to respond to discussion questions before they will go to these tools unprompted. Roles for HR and L&D in promoting use of these tools include: Member, motivator, moderator, community manager.  Directors in Genentech each has their own private space.  Talk about efficiencies in using these tools–there is no transcribing because people take pictures with their i-phones.  When needed, in about 15 minutes a user group can edit a new wiki for future access. 
Omar Nielsen shared criteria for selecting social media, and suggested we look for the sweet spot where the following overlap:
    Highest attended courses, multi-day courses, popular enterprise resources, phased recurring training,    courses with extended group work—all of these bridge the informal learning.
L&D folks wanted to know about evaluation and support. 
At Genentech they evaluate using these tools by:
   Learning through others, relevant contributions, ideas exchanged, new connections, growth in use (number of visitors, polls). They ask for example, “what is the quality of the info; was it relevant to your work; how did it help you meet your performance goals?”   Qualitative evaluation is also determined through relationships built with management and community champions. 
This provocative session wrapped up with two quotes:
“A community is like a plant; if you water it it will grow.”
“Social learning and collaboration is more an attitude than just a set of tools.” Dr. Ray Jimenez