In the previous articles I have looked at the basic concepts in knowledge management and commented on frameworks and models that can help individuals and organisations in the application of good knowledge management practices.
Here I would like to consider the issues of knowledge management applied to projects and relevant to the project management profession. As said in the previous articles this series was inspired by the reading of a great book on the subject, “Knowledge Management in Theory and Practice” by Kimiz Dalkir. [Those who have landed on this article and not seen the previous ones, please check the previous articles in the Pages section of the blog].
This review has taken advantage also from consultation of additional specialised literature and it will cover:
I hope this can be of interest.
What is project knowledge management (PKM)?
The PMI’s PMBOK Guide defines the management of project knowledge as “the process of using existing knowledge to achieve the project’s objectives and contribute to organisational learning“.
The process is intended to allow the project team to tap into the pre-existing organisational knowledge, for leverage, to produce and improve the project outcomes, but also to ensure that new knowledge is created by the project. This new knowledge is intended to better support the organisation’s operations, future projects and enrich the community. It is therefore a process that should be performed throughout the project lifecycle, at the project inception, during the running of the project operations, (at stage-gate transitions or with ‘after-action’ reviews) and after the project completion (with lesson-learned exercises or post-mortem reviews).
Challenges for PKM
The challenges for PKM are determined by the inherent nature of the projects as “temporary knowledge organisations“, with activities spread over multiple geographies, cultures, fields of work, sectors, and multiple stakeholders as contributing organisations, contractors agents, funders, investors or beneficiaries.
We can group the challenges under four headings:
- uniqueness and temporariness: with projects being unique and temporary, there is an obstacle to the emergence and development of organisational routines; in a project the focus is on immediate deliverables; projects have a higher attrition nowadays, with much focus on early termination if risks are foreseen to exceed the appetite and threatening the reach of the objectives – this can be detrimental to PKM;
- discontinuous working arrangements: projects (especially big projects) and programmes are often characterised by a changing workforce, with constellations of individuals from different organisations, agencies and consultancies working on a temporary basis together, with a fragmentation of locations, cultures, languages, knowledge base, aspirations and interests – this is a challenge for a collective memory;
- short-term objectives: people in project teams have to adapt quickly to new conditions and content of work, that can also rapidly change, with a pressing focus on deliverables (think of Agile projects, with tasks reviews held weekly or fortnightly); projects lack an organisational memory, routines and other mechanisms for organizational learning, which are generally built and sustained over a long term;
- lack of a natural mechanism for learning: projects are platforms for the integration of internal and external experts, often missing organizational mechanisms of knowledge transfer across teams, departments and other projects (upstream or downstream) and characterised by different and often conflicting interests.
“Networks, by definition, connect everyone to everyone. Hierarchies, by definition, don’t”
Kimiz Dalkir
A new framework.. maybe?
While considering the SECI and other models presented in the first article of the series and in Dalkir’s book, some questions arise here: Is the SECI model applicable to the knowledge process in a project? Would we require a different framework for projects?
The management of knowledge, whether through the SECI model or other KM models, is hugely challenged in a project (I said this above). The experts are debating about the best modelling.
I found a very interesting, recent article which may be useful. It is focusing on a concept for project-based organisations called “dynamic capability-based framework” (here is the link to the article for those with a specific interest). This model is about building and shaping the organisational capabilities through the project process, consolidating and spreading project learnings, This will be irrespective of the purpose of the projects, the number of activities developed through the project and the internal organisational structure as matrix, functional or adhocracy (the latter being very contemporary as ‘a form of business management that emphasizes individual initiative and self-organization in order to accomplish tasks, totally opposed to an hierarchical approach‘ – see article by McKinsey).
Would this framework be practical and widely applicable? Would there be scope for its consideration by small-sized organisations? What should the project planners and project managers do? I am still digesting the article, but it looks to me that the article elevates the issue of PKM to a more holistic view, with a clear link to organisational KM. But let’s see what other sources might be saying.
How to succeed with PKM
In an earlier article in the series I quoted a couple of statements about KM taken from Dalkir’s book, that ‘there is no magic black box, data goes in…and knowledge magically comes out the other end‘, and that ‘KM implementation almost always requires a cultural change in the organisation‘. The same would probably apply to PKM – there is a need for a framework, dedicated investments and the right culture. The latter would evidently come from the sponsoring organisation which will have to set the project on the right path, with the right project manager in place, the right dynamics and the right governance. So there is no easy recipe for success…
How to overcome the challenges? I want to mention here another interesting article: “Success factors of knowledge management in temporary organizations“. It is a 2011 paper (I wonder whether the findings are still relevant?) and the authors had an interesting approach. They conducted a survey among 8000 members and other affiliated persons of the German Association for Project Management (GPM), a member organization of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). The target group consisted of project managers, project leaders, project workers and staff of project management offices, as a cross-industry sample. The objective was to consider the main factors influencing PKM effectiveness in a large sample comprising different industries and different project types.
What did they find? Amongst the various factors, they noted the influence of cultural factors on PKM success. A ‘knowledge culture’ was noted as by far the most important factor of success, being characterised by support of informal communication, a tolerance towards mistakes, a positive project culture and the commitment of top management. In ‘temporary organizations’ culture can compensate for the lack of organizational routines and organizational memory.
However, in their findings, not just culture or top management commitment were essential for a successful transfer, but also effective, high quality and useful ICT systems in supporting communication and storage/retrieval of the knowledge. Another key attribute of the success of the PKM was the ability to transfer knowledge between and across ‘temporary organisations‘ (= between projects).
And lastly, they found the organization of multi-project management, and especially the role and setup of project management offices (PMOs), another factor of success. The institutionalization of responsibilities, especially in the form of centralized PMO, ensures a high degree of continuity and professionalism and contributes to the willingness of the users to participate in PKM activities. A central PMO is able to establish a link between the ‘temporary’ and the ‘permanent’ parts of the sponsoring organization. The PMO facilitates knowledge transfer in project environments bridging the gaps and missing awareness between projects. Their findings seem broadly in line with the recommendations from the PMI.
“..there was a positive relation between the effectiveness of managing knowledge and the success of managing projects.”
F. Lindner, A. Wald
I covered here some aspects related to the management of knowledge in projects, as a particularly challenging task due to the nature and dynamics of the projects as ‘temporary knowledge organisations’. I noted interesting and recurring principles and attributes, in line with those presented in Dalkir’s book for KM.
In the specialised literature, there seems to be an indication of what can contribute to a successful and effective PKM. A question may arise on how to ensure knowledge growth and sharing in situations where the contribution to the project team is provided by an array of multiple, small and independent consultancies or solo traders that operate on very short-term contracts. In many studies there is a reference to the importance of the backing with permanent organisations’ arrangements (the ‘organisational’ learning) or the role of the sponsoring organisation culture. These arrangements may be difficult to set up for highly fragmented projects with very small enterprises as contributors. How can we get a successful PKM in those temporary “social networks”? How can we ensure an effective learning process for all the contributors ?
Would there be any practical hints on how to overcome the challenges for PKM? I will have a look at some practical recommendations in the next article, the last in the series. I hope this was of interest to you and I would love to hear comments and constructive feedback.
Marco Bottacini, Senior Portfolio Manager, GALVmed
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinion of GALVmed.
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