Tips to conduct a successful Reverse Knowledge Transition (RKT) Session
1. Selection of topics (All party involvement)
This is a very important part of the whole RKT process. Selection of topics should be aligned with all parties involved in KT along with customer. We need to ensure the topics selected are covered during our KT sessions and should be important from customer point of view. We can always suggest topics that we want to cover and request customer to pick from those topics.
Select fewer topics so that you can delve deeper into the topic within time frame - which showcases our knowledge level on that topic and thereby increases confidence of customer.
Select topics that are important and forms bulk of your work on a day to day basis - this will also ensure that we cover more information which is useful and not just theory.
2. Duration for each topic
It makes more sense if you tag certain timeframe to each topic selected. This will provide you a lever to be prepared about the topic and how deep you can delve on that particular topic.
3. Preparing a deck (Why slides?)
Presentation becomes really key in RKT sessions. The slides are best tools to represent information in a short and crisp manner. Don't use passages or paragraphs in slides but just use bullet points or numbered points only. This will give us two fold advantage:
- It will enable us to remember all the information on that particular topic
- Customer will get confidence if we talk about each bullet point in-depth rather than reading from a passage/paragraph
It is always important to keep it to the point and talk about each point for a designated amount of time without reading from paragraph.
Pictures /screen shots will help depicting the information in a more visual format which is always preferred than textual content.
Slides also provide animation tools and is a very powerful mechanism to attract attention of viewers on particular point to highlight during our presentation. Word of caution: Don't go for fancy animations, keep it simple (for example use "Float In").
4. Review of material by all parties
Once you prepare the material to your satisfaction, review it internally (within your team) first and get feedback. Once you incorporate all the feedback, then circulate it among the stakeholders and seek feedback. This will ensure that there are no surprises during RKT session. (Note: You can chose to remove all animations before circulating it to stakeholders to keep it interesting during RKT session)
Incorporate the feedback from all the parties. In case you cannot incorporate feedback please respond to that particular party about why you could not incorporate the feedback. (This is key to gain confidence of parties which might also help in obtaining a good rating.)
5. Dry run
This is one of the important steps that needs to be performed without any exception. Dry run the entire RKT session internally within the team or you can invite someone who can help in providing candid feedback. Time the session as well during dry run to find out about the timing. Ensure that you talk slow and loud with clear voice. Pause during switching between sub topics and ask for questions.
6. Involve team members
Utilize team members to talk about particular topic that they are comfortable with. Guide them in case of any mistakes during dry run. Ensuring that more people talk about topics will provide confidence to customer as well on the entire team.
7. Remote RKT?
If you are conducting RKT session remotely using phone then keep your phone closer to your mouth. Speak slow and loud so that other people can hear without any disturbance. Pause and give enough time for audience to respond. Always be polite and use thank you and please wherever possible. Greeting is an important part which will start the meeting on a right tone.
Please remember to keep your phone on mute if you are not talking to avoid any unnecessary background noise.