CILIP President Paul Corney stepped down from the role in December. This is his final Presidential Musings feature, in which he speaks to Chris Payne, head of the International Olympic Committee’s Information, Knowledge and Games Learning (IKL) Unit about putting on the planet’s biggest sporting event during a pandemic.

It is, according to international research, the most recognisable logo in the world: the Olympic rings, symbolising five continents coming together. And the Olympic and Paralympic Games are the major global sporting event, taking place every two years, with alternating summer and winter editions.

Imagine the logistical challenge facing each host city, with numerous stakeholders, as it prepares for a massive influx of tens of thousands of athletes, officials, media and spectators. Plus, the challenge of ensuring the maximum legacy, over decades, from the one summer of sport. Then imagine the whole thing, seven years in the planning, being postponed for the first time in its history. All the venue agreements to be renegotiated. All the plans redrawn. And, from a blank sheet of paper, a safe and secure way found of hosting the world’s biggest sporting event – featuring more than 10,000 athletes – amid the worst global pandemic in a century.

Playing an important role in supporting the planning, delivery and legacy of each Games is a professional knowledge and information management team who call upon an array of skills familiar to many CILIP members.

I’ve always considered the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as one of the best examples of how to pass on the baton of knowledge from one event to another: how to capture the right knowledge and ensure it is made available in a format that is useful for future local organising committees (LOCs); how to use innovative technology to bring logistical experiences to life; how to ensure that lessons are identified, learned and processes updated; and how to create a legacy that is sustainable.

In the light of Covid-19, I was even more impressed with how the IOC managed to deliver incredible games in Tokyo, albeit with no spectators. I was intrigued at how the knowledge management specialists adapted. So I was particularly delighted when Chris Payne, who heads up the IOC’s Information, Knowledge and Games Learning (IKL) Unit, agreed to share their story for the benefit of the global CILIP community. Chris, who is also one of the KM “Chefs” featured in The KM Cookbook, has kindly agreed to respond to a few questions.

I’ve described in outline why I believe the IOC focuses on knowledge and information management, please describe the how and the what.

Chris: Our mission is to promote and stimulate both innovative and integrated learning in the delivery of the Olympic Games.

More specifically, the “how” starts with getting everyone to understand and believe in the power and potential of sharing collective and individual knowledge. Because we have such a clear and direct knowledge client in each consecutive local organising committee, making this part of our DNA, whilst not without challenges, is not so hard.

We then heavily promote the individual’s right to learn, in ways that best suit them; offering quite a variety of learning options – for individuals in both the organising committees and increasingly in the IOC administration itself. Good organisational learning starts with the right attitude – we need people with a lifelong commitment to learning new things. There is so much change, developing new capabilities is critical, and the “what” focuses on this.

For example, we nurture and develop the natural progression in the way people consume content, from data to information to knowledge to learning. The effectiveness of “what” we do is really judged by how much we help Games delivery stakeholders reach sound conclusions and make robust decisions.

We work hard at what we think is a meaningful source for all key information assets, ensuring the architecture is aligned with the way people work. We help people understand where knowledge can be found, often, for example, by promoting various community discussions, using a network of champions.

And then we promote the learning opportunities, including a lot of social learning, executive education and experiential observation opportunities.

Please tell our readers a bit about you, the composition of your team, the skills you draw on and how you work with the organising committee of the host cities? Why is your function crucial to the IOC?

Chris: I’ve been around the major events world a long time now. I think two things have helped me a lot over the years. I am a huge fan of John Adair’s work on leadership, which I learned about as a young Army officer; it’s been a rock on which I’ve built many teams.

I also use a systems-thinking approach to problem-solving, mostly human systems in the Games world, given the massive cultural variations we see. A practical systems-thinking approach offers tools to challenge complex situations and find solutions.

Overall, we’re working within the framework of the IOC’s Agenda 2020+5 – a collaborative initiative involving all constituents and stakeholders of the Olympic Movement. Its intention is to secure greater solidarity, further digitalisation, increased sustainability, strengthened credibility and a reinforced focus on the role of sport in society.

At a more operational level, we are one year into a new strategy, which is built on four main project portfolios. There is always a lot of room for improvement, but I’m confident this is a good strategy that will help us in the coming phase.

Data and Analytics (DA) is about measurement and insights. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it! We develop self-service options that keep up with the demand for analytic capability.

Information Management (IM) is about structure and standards, orchestrating a consistent information architecture and associated master data that creates, we hope, a cohesive information systems user experience. IM also work hard on information lifecycle management. We quite often retire blocks of knowledge which are no longer relevant to specific learning (though we do keep it all in a reference library).

Knowledge Development (KD) is all about contextualising content to support learning activities, ensuring a good quality foundation for learning.

Games Learning (GL) is about developing capability, aiming to provide fit-for-purpose and thought-provoking learning experiences. We are constantly looking for new ways to deliver learning – aggregating the best of the other three portfolios, to ensure learning outcomes are achieved.

In terms of working with the organising committees, we have a very high cadence dialogue across the full lifecycle, and we do this with up to five organising committees at once. We see distinct phases of demand, usually related, sequentially, to budget, organisation design and operational readiness.

We emphasise a number of evergreen approaches, for example they must grow as a learning organisation. Every Games context is so different, there is no such thing as an Olympic expert or a silver bullet knowledge-source that will solve their problems.

I think KM is important, but organisational development and learning more so. You could say we are an OD consultancy service for them in many ways.

The bottom line is that there is a direct correlation between good knowledge and de-risking delivery. The Games are complex, but they are arguably the most compelling knowledge uptake exercise that exists, especially when you consider that there are no second chances, no delays allowed!

Recognising confidentiality and diplomatic constraints, to what extent have you had to overcome resistance or “not invented here” syndrome at the IOC and with the host cities?

Chris: That’s a really interesting question. And, actually, it’s not something we encounter unduly. The organising committee inevitably has a big appetite for knowledge, and most of what it needs to consume is driven by the demands of the overall Games delivery challenge.

We develop close knowledge-sharing relationships with them which are fundamental. Why? Well, they have to very quickly develop an understanding of what they need and when, with our help, and I think they realise they take huge risks by not availing themselves of the long operational experience of the IOC.

The other aspect to mention here is change. We don’t want a copy-cat approach, we want suitable change, to exploit opportunities to deliver more efficiently. The organising committees get this, everyone wants efficiency, so they know we want to see ideas and challenges to the status quo.

The role of the IOC is to ensure a fertile environment for these ideas to flourish and be aligned with many stakeholders. Even if some of the ideas don’t work out, the important thing is to try, fail fast and learn in time to adjust.

Which brings us back to the knowledge-transfer imperative. We in IKL play our part, but I think the whole eco-system works against any notion of not invented here.

Organising the world’s biggest sporting event during the pandemic must have been incredibly tough. What was the biggest single learning?

Chris: Much of the complexity in the Games comes from the volume and variety of stakeholders. Each needs very specific services to allow them work effectively.

The pandemic created a huge challenge, but it drove the stakeholder community together in a way that was remarkable. A really strong commitment to a clear and compelling stretch target promoted closer working and a willingness to overcome seemingly unsurmountable problems. I think this will influence how we work better in the future.

The net result was stronger relationships to support the incredible amount of change that was necessary to ensure delivery. This change was organisational, but also individual, with, for example, rigorous respect of health protocols and always erring on the side of precaution.

One aspect of this worth mentioning is the critical importance of communicating horizontally and vertically, openly, transparently, and continually. I think our Games delivery leadership did this incredibly well, and there are many lessons there too.

And what else did you discover that would be relevant for the CILIP community?

Chris: One interesting project we have developed, working closely with our Olympic Studies Centre (OSC), is what we are referring to as an institutional memory of the Covid experience. By interviewing key actors in the process to develop solutions to allow the Games to go ahead in a pandemic, we aim to preserve, safeguard and archive an unprecedented situation. We will essentially create a blueprint for the IOC and future Games editions, looking carefully and various countermeasures, processes and scenarios, in case another such delivery threat emerges. This has been a fascinating process as the Covid impact has evolved in many unexpected ways and the learnings are considerable. We hope to use such experiences to produce a comprehensive case study for the public record in due course.

Many will have experienced the acceleration of hybrid working that Covid provoked. The IOC was no exception. We had the huge adoption of many tools and were happily well set up in advance to exploit these tools. We remained very effective and productive, despite being all home-based for a long period. We’re moving into a hybrid rhythm now, but I’m not sure we’ll ever quite go back to the previous norm.

Did the IOC/IKL invest in any specific innovations that enabled you to deliver the Games? If so, what and how did it/they help?

Chris: Several, but I’ll mention one specifically. Many experiential learning opportunities were not possible in Tokyo and that will be the same in Beijing. We did, and will deliver again, an observation programme, but heavily reduced. To compensate for this, we have increased our work on virtual 360 camera-based tools that allow people to still visualise key locations, efficiently capture lessons, analyse them, and generally get some learning done remotely. The technology allows us to see spaces in various states of evolution as the Games approach. Kind of a virtual time machine for key Games job sites. The benefits extend to a reduction in cost, time and carbon. There will be a lot more of this in the coming Games.

I think perhaps this is taking us closer to engines that will allow cost-effective development of an artificial but scaled and realistic 3D landscape for any given host city. And the really exciting thing from my perspective is the placement of knowledge assets in the right context and space in this virtual environment, plus many VR training opportunities. Currently, these kinds of solutions are cost-and time-prohibitive for a specific Games edition, but things are evolving quickly.

Now that Tokyo 2020 is over, what new learnings might you expect from the second Games to be held during the Pandemic, in Beijing in February?

Chris: I think it will be more of the same, but who knows? The really tricky thing is expecting and planning for the unexpected or unknown, especially given an entirely different cultural context in Beijing. The trick, I think, is to equip leaders with the right potential scenarios, and to link those scenarios with executive decision-making processes and relevant levels of delegation. This in a nutshell is the highly effective Playbook approach developed by our Games delivery leadership. It’s worth having a look at the Playbooks, they are very interesting knowledge artefacts in their own right. We will operate within the Playbook constraints again in Beijing and take a formal, structured approach to making the various scenarios actionable in our own context – for example, delivering the observer programme, or conducting data capture. And above all, of course, respecting the health and safety imperatives.

Paul: I’ve watched the development of the IOC’s knowledge and learning capability over the last decade with great admiration. Underpinned by information management and data analytics, it has become one of the “go to” examples I use when describing what effective knowledge transfer looks like. I find it compelling that their current strategy is organised into four portfolio projects:

• Data and Analytics (DA) is about measurement and insights.
• Information Management (IM) is about structure and standards
• Knowledge Development (KD) is all about contextualising content to support learning
• Games Learning (GL) is about developing capability

When Chris Collison and I were working on their contribution to our KM Cookbook, what struck both of us was how aligned their activities are with the ISO KM Standards 30401 and specifically the clarity of its mission.

“Our mission is to promote and stimulate both innovative and integrated learning in the delivery of the Olympic Games”

Over the past year in these Presidential Musings pieces, I have called upon a wide range of people in different disciplines to share thoughts and ideas on topics that I thought might be of interest.

My sincere thanks to: Patricia Eng and Carol Aldridge, Martin White and James Robertson, James Macfarlane, Kate Thompson, Mike Wall, Luis Suarez, Neil Usher and Rob Cottrill and, of course, Chris Payne, for giving their time and sharing their thoughts.

I hope you have enjoyed reading them as much as I have working on them.

About Chris Payne

“I’ve been working in the Olympic world for many years, notably spending nine years end-to-end with London 2012, before moving to the IOC a year later. We currently run 43 information, knowledge and learning initiatives, and are always looking forward to the next evolution. We have already started with Los Angeles 2028 and Brisbane 2032, laying knowledge foundations. My current mild obsessions are finding ways to do cost-effective natural language processing of unstructured data, and really exploiting the potential of hypertext as a tool for thought and knowledge exchange. I am married with three children and live in the hills behind Lausanne. In my spare time, I like to get lost exploring the Swiss countryside on my e-bike, always with a spare battery!”