From the MCB University Press 'Action Learner' column today:

Members of the National Society for Quality through Teamwork (NSQT) who operate in the Eastern region of the UK met last week to explore the theme "we learn from without not from within". Among points that emerged:

- if you look at the normal problem solving tools which teams use you will immediately find ' brainstorming'. Harvesting the knowledge of the people in the team. You could say that each individual is learning from the other members of the team, and therefore learning from without; but that is the usual boundary limit of the teams' learning. That is, they can only know as much as the sum of the knowledge stored within the team. And that can be quite limited when compared with all the knowledge available.

We came to the conclusion that we needed to add a new tool, let's call it knowledge-storming. After collecting all their own ideas through brainstorming the team members then go knowledge-storming. Firstly within their company, and then to external sources of relevant knowledge.....