Had a discussion with my supervisor and the concept of mini-thesis is coming together. The objective for the mini-thesis is to come up with a questionnaire, which will then be used in the actual thesis to learn about the KM and lean barriers in the target organization. It will need to cover following topics in some level: KM, barriers of KM, lean thinking, barriers for lean (or success factors). The title could be something in the lines of “Barriers of lean KM on a global context”. Besides the literature review, we discussed a possibility to arrange a workshop for the key stakeholders. They would be introduced to the barriers framework and based on that, scope the most relevant barriers or barrier categories for the questionnaire. Based on this information for the actual questionnaire is then drafted. Sounds good doesn’t it? :)

Regarding the workshop to establish the basic understanding of barriers in target organization, following things need to be documented:

• Who were the experts that participated?
• Why they were selected?
• What information was presented to them?
• What was the flow of the workshop?
• What were the results and the reasons behind them?

It’s crucial that the objective for the meeting is clear for everybody. The framework needs to be explained and expected results communicated.

That will be the mini-thesis. Theory for the actual thesis will be mostly covered by research from mini-thesis. The first thing is to do the questionnaire and analyzing the results. Based on this information we get a basic set of requirements for a new instrument. At this moment it’s impossible to guess what the instrument should be, it can be technology or process related or anything in between. Also the validation method cannot be set before knowing the targeted barriers and the actual instrument. But all of this comes after the questionnaire.