This is the final article in the short series dedicated to knowledge management. 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.
In the previous articles I have looked at the basic concepts in knowledge management. I commented on frameworks and models that could help organisations in the application of good knowledge management practices, but also looked at the issues of project knowledge management (PKM). Inspired also by the reading of Project Management Institute (PMI) material, in this article I look at some recommendations, such as:
- Define knowledge management and state its importance
- Make knowledge management a work package in the project
- Establish a connection for KM with the organisations
- Establish a connection for KM with CoPs
- Ensure availability of an appropriate ICT platform
- Ensure knowledge management orientation and training
- Track and map the PKM.
I hope this can be of interest.
Recommendations
The PMI has written about the challenges with PKM. In 2010 the institute provided practical guidelines for PKM which I think they might be still relevant today. In the previous article in the series I have looked at success factors identified by other authors, so let’s see if the recommendations by the PMI are in line with those factors. I summarise the PMI’s key points below, with some personal comments.
Define knowledge management and state its importance
All project management standards (PMBOK, Agile etc) have PKM included in their practises, but these practices can be quite different. With the considerable fragmentation of the project management standards it is likely that project team members will come to the project table with different experience, different lexicons and views about KM. Also KM may have different meanings and definitions across the various organisations represented in the project team.
In a project team, a definition should be agreed and it should be ensured that the members of the team align to that. PKM communications should be included into the project communication plan as a statement of importance and commitment.
Make knowledge management a work package in the project
If possible, a dedicated workstream should be set in the breakdown structure of the project, with activities to allow for knowledge capture, review, sharing. In programmes, it will be critical the sharing across the various sub-projects, downstream and upstream, and with other teams.
Roles and responsibilities for KM communication should be clear. For big projects or programmes it may be appropriate to assign a role of KM Officer (KMO) in the team.
Does the PMI state the importance of a PMO? I am not sure, but certainly where a PMO is instituted this unit will take a specific responsibility with the PKM.
Establish a connection for KM with the organisations
Each project will report back to the sponsoring organisation and will communicate to the communities of stakeholders in a variety of ways. For major programmes the recommendation from the PMI is to ensure that the programme manager is an integral part of the organization’s strategic business, not an independent contractors. This helps in the organisational learning with the knowledge acquired by the programme . For smaller projects, where the leadership is sometimes assigned to a third party or a contractor, the sponsoring organisation must use the governance board reviews at key stage gates (or at periodic project health checks). These reviews offer an opportunity for asking questions about the creation of new knowledge, its value, sharing and to ensure embedding as organisational learning.
I don’t think the PMI specifically mentions a PMO office, but the PMO can play a key role in establishing a link between the ‘temporary’ and the ‘permanent’ parts of the sponsoring organization. The PMO will facilitate knowledge transfer in project environments bridging the gaps and missing awareness between projects.
Establish a connection for KM with CoPs
The Communities of Practice (CoPs) are ‘the groups of people having common identity, professional interest and that undertake to share, participate and establish a fellowship‘. These CoPs will be established in projects, either formally or informally, and they can serve as a way to facilitate knowledge sharing and transfer. Think CoPs as focus groups, task forces, troubleshooting teams, committees etc.
The PMI recommends for the CoPs to have facilitated events, such as webinars or discussion sessions, focusing on knowledge sharing among the CoP members. Within the CoP, members can develop best practices and directories of people with expertise in specific areas.
A CoP is effective in aggregating project team members which may come from small enterprises or are individual consultants. This would help in giving a structure to the process of knowledge management for those who may not have the backing of supporting knowledge functions like big organisations do. This is an area where the new technologies and social networks can be useful enablers, by offering inexpensive tools with easy access and a long reach.
Ensure availability of an appropriate ICT platform
The conversion of tacit into explicit knowledge is particularly challenging in projects due to the time constraint and lack of standard mechanism of learning, known challenges for ‘temporary knowledge organisations’.
It is critical to establish a suitable information and communication technology (ICT) platform to allow that during the course of the project there is an effective capture of tacit knowledge and there is translation into portable and transferable (= explicit) knowledge. Digital technologies offer a wide range of tools (see also Dalkir’s book).
It is possible to speculate that the more individualised and fragmented the composition of the project team is, the deeper and tacit the knowledge will be, adding issues to externalisation and sharing.
A central KM repository should be set up, as a minimum, ensuring that users understand its importance and the reasons why a single repository should be used.
Ensure knowledge management orientation and training
Many members of the team will need an orientation session about the importance of PKM, the use of the tools, harmonisation of language, the alignment within the project and about the need for the use of a centralised project knowledge hub. They also need to know their own roles and responsibilities in the process, with a promotion of the notion that the ‘power is with knowledge sharing‘.
The need for a single repository for the project information should be emphasised in the kick-off meeting and in the briefing of the project team. Guides and training sessions should be arranged as appropriate. This is another area where the PMO or a KMO could play a role.
Track and map the PKM
Periodic reviews of the usefulness and value of the knowledge assets in the PKM repository are essential. For highly-paced, dynamic projects (like when using Agile methodologies) a specific effort may be required for effectively tracking the learnings during the process.
It could be beneficial to build a dedicated infrastructure for measurement and tracking of ‘knowledge nuggets’, with dedicated roles assigned, like knowledge brokers or knowledge stewards (or PMO and KMO, as mentioned earlier). This may be difficult to implement and it will require dedicated investments. However, it could become essential in consideration of highly volatile circumstances in which project teams are operating, staff turnover and to the increasing pressing need to protect the organisations’ knowledge capital. Solutions with artificial intelligence may assist in this aspect in a not-so distant future.
Some final words…
In this article, the last one in the series, I covered some aspects related to the management of knowledge in projects, as particularly challenging due to the nature and dynamics of the projects as ‘temporary organisation’. In specialised articles I noted interesting, recurring principles and attributes that are in line with those presented in Dalkir’s book for KM and broadly in line with the PMI.
It would be very interesting to see if (and how) PKM has changed in recent years. There is now greater availability and use of artificial intelligence. “Agile-extreme” projects and adhocracy organisations are more common. There is generational change in the workforce and greater complexity in projects and programmes. The structure and the reality of the business today has changed. Also it seems that I didn’t find any suggestions on how to get a successful arrangement for PKM in highly fragmented projects, where very small enterprises contribute to temporary “social networks”. These appear to me as situations and circumstances where a traditional and structured PKM is hard to apply.
I cannot claim to be an expert in the matter. I tried to report a few things I have learned from readings, from personal experience and shared some thoughts. After reading the book and the supporting material, I am now left with some open questions: How can we ensure an effective learning process for all the project contributors in highly fragmented and dispersed project teams? Would the PMI recommendations for good PKM be still relevant and applicable to the ‘social networks’ of the future? Or would there be a need to re-think PKM completely? I hope this series 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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