Preface.

1 Introduction - Why No More Consultants?

Five Key Questions.

How to Read No More Consultants.

Chapter by Chapter.

2 Discovering the River.

Forming the River.

Beating Consultants at Their Own Game.

Spotting the Potential for Learning and Sharing.

Examining the Distribution of Performance.

Watching the River Over Time.

3 Building the Framework.

Deciding Who to Involve.

Identifying and Selecting the Practices.

Deciding the Variables.

Defining the Levels.

Developing our ‘Effective Meetings’ Example.

Story 1 – Using Self-assessment to Unite a Consortium of Companies.

Story 2 – Helping UK Government Departments to Develop and Learn.

The Benefits of Global Rather than Local Frameworks.

Defining the Strategy.

4 Applying the Approach.

It’s All About the Conversations.

Involving the Procrastinators.

The Environment.

Story 3 – Responding to AIDS in Brazil.

Sharing Experience Within a Framework.

It is Subjective, and De-personalises the Emotion.

It Challenges Our Assumptions.

The Focus for Improvement.

Finding Ways to Close the Gap in Performance.

Story 4 – Developing Professional Communities in Oracle.

Story 5 – Assessing Knowledge Management in UK Regional Government Offices.

Story 6 – Linking the Supply Chain.

Launching and Going to Scale.

5 The Role of the Facilitator.

What Are the Attributes of a Good Facilitator?

What Does a Facilitator Do?

6 Creating the River.

Constructing the River Diagram on Paper.

Innovative and Practical Ways to Visualise a River Diagram.

Creating the Stairs Diagram.

Story 7 – Developing a Knowledge Culture in the National Health Service.

7 Learning from Experience.

Offers and Requests.

Learning from Experience Through a Peer Assist.

Story 8 – Organic Rice Farming in Thailand.

Story 9 – Peers in Unexpected Places – When Great Ormond Street Hospital Met Ferrari!

Barriers to Sharing.

Tall Poppy Syndrome.

Shrinking Violet Syndrome.

Not Invented Here Syndrome.

Real Men Don’t Ask for Directions.

8 Improving and Sustaining.

Measuring Progress.

Leading and Lagging Indicators.

Modifying the Framework.

Local Customisation.

External Benchmarking – Towards Level Six.

Story 10 – The Sustainable Development of Cities.

9 So What Do We Do Now?

Appendices.

Appendix A Self-Assessment Framework for Effective Meetings.

Appendix B Learning and Development Self-Assessment Framework.

Appendix C Creating a River Diagram with Excel.

Appendix D Knowledge and Organisation Development in the NHS.

Further Reading.

Index.