Feb 8, 2002 - mining previous knowledge to reduce time to prepare proposals, reduce risks and estimate ... knowledge management practices into their normal work. .... World's Leading Knowledge Companies, Milford: Capstone. Crawford ...
INTEGRATING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT: EMBEDDING KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES INTO PROJECTS. By Dr Lynn Crawford – Project Management and Economics Program, University of Technology, Sydney. Associate Professor Shankar Sankaran - Graduate College of Management, Southern Cross University, Tweed Coolangatta Campus, NSW. Introduction: Managing Knowledge is being touted as one of the key elements of organisational strategy in both profit making and non-profit making organisations around the world over the last decade. Several Australian organisations have successfully introduced knowledge management initiatives in their organisations (AFR 2002) (HBS 165-2002). Standards Australia has published a Knowledge Management Framework (HBS 275-2001) to help organisations set up knowledge management initiatives and is actively promoting Knowledge Management (KM) across Australia. According to Grant (2002: 134) 'the role of knowledge in today's economy corresponds to that of land in the pre-industrial, agrarian economy and that of capital in the industrial economy'. Knowledge is increasingly becoming the main source of competitive advantage for many organisations. The first generation of knowledge management was information systems focused and tried to capture explicit knowledge found in an organisation's documents, processes and databases. The second generation of knowledge management is people-centric and has been obsessed with capturing 'tacit' knowledge and attempting to convert it into 'explicit' knowledge. (Nonaka, Toyama and Konno 2001) (Von Krogh, Ichijo and Nonaka 2000). Surprisingly it is not so easy to find knowledge management initiatives being used in project organisations. Perhaps this is due to the feeling that projects are temporary endeavours and knowledge management will add an additional burden on already constrained project resources (Olonoff 2000). Yet some progressive organisations like Boeing, NASA, British Petroleum and Compaq have found that knowledge management has benefited their project teams.
Some of these benefits reported in the literature are: • • • • • •
mining previous knowledge to reduce time to prepare proposals, reduce risks and estimate costs better. (Githens 2000); reducing project costs through capturing project requirements during the 'fuzzy' front end of projects (Githens 2000 ); sharing knowledge among members of a project to make optimum use of scarce resources by encouraging the formation of 'communities of practice'. (Steichen 2001); creating valuable knowledge for the customer, who makes use of the facilities provided through a project, as well as the organisation that executed the project (Leven and Gale 2000); sharing best practices through storytelling and lessons learned during projects (Hoffman and Laufer 1999); and using a PMO (Project Management Office) to support knowledge management initiatives for large projects. (Kempf 2001).
There is a considerable opportunity to enhance project management through both 'explicit' and 'tacit' knowledge. Project managers should be made aware of such opportunities and encouraged and assisted in setting up 'knowledge management initiatives' within their projects. This paper will explore how various knowledge management initiatives can be built into a project to share 'tacit knowledge'. It will focus on those initiatives that can be easily embedded into normal project activities so that they will not add an additional burden on a project's resources. This paper will provide examples of such initiatives from actual practice used by organisations and suggest ways in which some of these initiatives can be used during execution of projects. What is knowledge? Before we describe the knowledge management initiatives it is useful to define some terms used commonly in knowledge management to differentiate it from information management. There is still a great deal of confusion about what these terms mean, as knowledge management is still an emerging discipline. The following definitions are from Davenport and Prusak (2000: 2-5) Data is a ‘set of discrete objective facts about an event'. It is usually captured from structured records of transactions. Information is described as a 'message in the form of a document or an audible and visible communication'. It moves around in organisations through both hard and soft networks. Knowledge is 'broader, deeper and richer than data or information…. Knowledge is a fluid mix of framed experiences, values, contextual information, and expert insights that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information.' Knowledge is valuable because it is closer than data and information to action.
Nonaka, whose writings about knowledge management in Japanese firms have been read with great interest in the West, has been influential in the development of the second generation of knowledge management. Nonaka, Toyama and Konno (2001:15) define explicit and tacit knowledge as: Explicit knowledge 'can be expressed in formal and systematic language and shared in the forms of data, scientific formulae, specifications, manuals etc… it can be processed, transmitted and stored easily'. Tacit knowledge, 'is deeply rooted in action, procedures, routines, commitment, ideals, values and emotions..it is highly personal and hard to formalise..subjective insights, intuitions and hunches fall into this category'. Transferring Knowledge in Projects Let us now examine the types of knowledge that can be commonly found in projects and how such knowledge can be transferred. There is plenty of data and information in projects and organisations do turn these into 'explicit' knowledge using documents, databases, minutes of meetings, quality records etc. Most project organisations also use Intranets to help in managing explicit knowledge. Project organisations also conduct project reviews, problem-solving meetings and informal communication that can help in exchanging tacit knowledge. Members of a project team also tell stories about 'critical incidents' that occur in projects from time to time in social situations. However these opportunities to transfer 'tacit knowledge' take place in unstructured ad-hoc ways. There are opportunities to incorporate them into project activities by looking at how some functional organisations have embedded such activities as on-going processes within their routine day-to-day operations. Compaq Global Services (Kempf 2001) who have established a Knowledge Network to support their project managers have tried to integrate knowledge management practices into their normal work. Let us now examine some initiatives that can help in the transfer of tacit knowledge in a project organisation. Transfer of Tacit Knowledge After Action Reviews In projects we often conduct project reviews as part of quality accreditation procedures or when 'critical incidents' take place such as a safety incident, quality problem, critical delays or budget overruns in a project. While tacit knowledge may be captured during such occasions it is worthwhile considering using a process similar to 'after-action reviews' (AAR) practised by the US Army that have been adopted by organisations like British Petroleum to 'learn before, during and after' an experience when an opportunity to learn arises. Olonoff (2000: 63) states that '"lessons learned" or a similar attempt to extract knowledge is often tacked on to the end of most projects as part of the closure process. Too little, too late. In our economy knowledge dissipates in weeks and months'. By building a process similar to AAR in projects an organisation can create 'learning project organisations’ that capture knowledge as and when an opportunity arises to do so.
The US Army's guide to conduct an After Action review can be found at http://call.army.mil/products/spc_prod/tc25-20/guide.htm. British Petroleum (Collison and Parcell 2001:78) have adopted the After Action Review process to promote the concept of 'learning while doing' using an open and honest meeting to address four questions: 1. 2. 3. 4.
What was supposed to happen? What actually happened? Why were there differences? What did we learn?
Looks simple enough? But some key principles need to be adhered to enable the review to create useful 'knowledge'. First the review should be carried out as soon as an event has occurred and not wait for a review date. The review should be held as soon it is realised that there is some learning potential from an event - small it may be. Secondly a right climate must be created - open and committed to learning. It is not to be used as an apportioning the blame meeting. Openness builds team integrity. The meeting should be facilitated so that everyone is given a chance to speak. People who tend to seize the floor in the meetings have to be managed. First what was supposed to have happened should be carefully analysed. Different members of the team may have had a different understanding of what was supposed to happen. The next step is to find out what actually happened or to get the 'truth from the ground'. Then the plan must be compared with the reality to find out why there were differences and what can be learned from it. The review should be concluded with action plans to keep successes and overcome shortfalls. A summary to highlight learning points is to be organised- not a conventional minutes of meeting. Agreed actions are also to be recorded as a reminder. The idea is to keep it simple and focused to learn and create knowledge. Communities of practice In most projects it will be found that groups of people develop informal relationships to work on something they are passionate about. An example could be a group of software engineers who are interested in exchanging know-how about how to write a software application. Such 'communities of practice' could be very useful in the transfer of tacit knowledge within projects. What is a community of practice? According to Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002:4) 'Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis'.
Communities of practice develop on their own and may flourish even if an organisation does not recognise them. 'They collaborate directly, use one another as sounding boards and teach each other' (Steichen 2001). The health of the community depends on the voluntary agreement between its members. Brown and Gray (2001) point out how Xerox chose to encourage informal discussions as a means of stimulating learning and innovation rather than treating them as ineffective practice to encourage communities of practice in their organisation. It is useful to look at Wenger and Snyder's (2000: 142) comparison of communities of practice with other forms of organisations to get a clearer idea about how they are different.
Community of practice
W h a t i s t h e Who belongs? purpose? Develop member's Members who capabilities: to select themselves build and exchange knowledge
Formal work group
To deliver a product or service
Project team
To accomplish a specified task
Informal network
To collect and pass on business information
Everyone who reports to the group's manager Employees assigned by senior management Friends and business acquaintances
What holds it together? Passion, commitment and identification with the group's expertise Job requirements and common goals The project's milestones and goals
How long does it last? As long there is interest in maintaining the group.
Mutual needs
As long as people have a reason to contact
Until the next reorganisation Until the project has been completed
Table extracted for this paper from Wenger and Snyder (2000: 142) If one cannot order communities of practice to be formed how can they be helped? How can they be supported to stay alive once they are formed? Normal organisational practices such as structures, systems and roles are unsuitable to manage communities of practice. Rewards may work but only for a short time as the community will suspect that the organisation has some ulterior motive. Wenger and Snyder (2000: 144) suggest that an organisation can provide opportunities and encouragement to facilitate the formation of communities through: 1. Identifying potential communities of practice that can help in the achievement of the project's goals or objectives. 2. Providing infrastructure to support the communities - like budgets, support teams or sponsors, provide what Nonaka et. al. (2001) call as ba - mental and physical space. 3 . Using non-traditional methods to assess the value that these communities provide publish stories from them or post news about them on the intranet Many companies have successfully supported communities of practice that have in turn contributed to the organisation's strategies. Prominent organisations who have used them are Shell, World Bank, American Management Systems, Xerox-PARC and Boeing.
In Boeing (Steichen 2001) a Project Management Community of Practice has been established to advance project management practice. Boeing found that the community of practice was the place to share failures and ask for help without repercussions. Steichen advises that to encourage the formation of Community of Practices a support system can be organised by working with knowledge management practitioners. Compaq (Kempf 2001) has used communities of practice to share new information on a wide range of topics. One community of practice called the Project Management Competency Circle was formed out of people who were interested in project management. They were interested in PMP certification, news from PMI and other topics related to project management training and publications. They also created Affinity Groups to improve quality and reduce cost of solutions delivered to customers. Crawford (2000: 6) contends that 'As project work becomes pervasive within organisations there is an increasing realisation that project management is being practiced in different ways in different parts of the organisation - divisionally, functionally and globally. There is recognition of shared interests and of the opportunities to bring together project management practitioners throughout the organisation with a view to identify best practices as a basis for overall performance improvement'. Encouraging the formation of community of practices within and between project teams within and between offices located around the world can support such communities.’ Storytelling Storytelling is a powerful tool that is being used by organisations to capture tacit knowledge. The World Bank is renowned for its adoption of storytelling to promote knowledge management. There could be many types of stories told in organisations. Organisational stories could be myths, hero stories, failure stories, war stories or stories of the future. MacMaster (2000: 67) states that the most valuable learning about past projects 'often comes from listening to those few individuals that assume the role of the storyteller. One absorbs the context, nuances and rationale (or lack thereof) behind the project documentation from them'. Hoffman and Laufer (1999) have carried out the 'Learning Through Stories' project to show how project managers have been successful. They feel that stories can be used to: • • • • • •
create self-training tools through stories that are easily remembered; coach less experienced managers in the 'craft' of project management; change the mind set by using stories to substitute direct observation; inspire younger managers especially through war stories; foster organisational identity and value through success stories that reinforce organisational values; and enhance organisational learning by transforming experience into share knowledge.
How can stories be told so that they contribute to knowledge creation? Denning (2001: 197199) calls such stories 'springboard stories' and recommends that they have the following characteristics: • • • • • • • • • • • •
explicit, brief and textureless; intelligible to the target audience; inherently interesting; spring the listener to a new level of understanding; have a 'happy ending'; embody the change message; change message should be implicit; listeners should be encouraged to identify with the protagonist; should deal with a specific individual or organisation; protagonist should be prototypical of the organisation's main business; true is better than invented; and test, test and test to check whether the story will work.
Although Denning seems to suggest that the storyteller has to be trained Prusak and Cohen (2001) consider that this may affect the authenticity and naturalness. They feel that stories require little investment in money and or formal training. What is required is some time, space and permission (or encouragement). They feel virtual 'campfires' could be helpful to generate the story atmosphere. Conclusion The purpose this paper was to provide information and suggestions to adopt some simple but practical tools that can help project managers and project teams to incorporate them into their daily practice to create, share and disseminate useful knowledge. Examples have been provided to illustrate how these tools have been used in both functional and project based organisations. If a Project Management Office has been established then this could be used to support the organisation’s knowledge management initiatives. In Compaq all project experiences through lessons learned are submitted through the PMO for vetting, to take care of confidentiality issues and refining before being stored in the organisation's knowledge repository. The PMO can have members trained to support and foster knowledge management initiatives. Duggal (2001) has predicted that the future PMO will marry project management with knowledge management.
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