Evaluating Benefits and Challenges of Knowledge Transfer Across Projects

Abstract

The complexity of project-based environments (Russell, 1992) is rooted in the execution of multiple projects sequentially and/or concurrently (Nobeoka, 1995). Although the complexity of project-based environments imposes diffi culties in their operations, this complexity also offers the opportunity to continuously improve the organization's performance through knowledge (Kotnour, 2000). In their work on learning in project organizations, Gann and Salter stated the diffi culty of managing knowledge in project environments as: "While learning is generally cumulative, the discontinuous and temporary nature of project-based systems makes challenging the rapid assimilation of new knowledge throughout project-based organizations" (2000). The problem of managing knowledge for the projectbased organization is not only based on the fast assimilation of knowledge. Gann and Salter's statement points out only one of the possible scenarios that can result from the combinations among the nature of projects (Bacarini, 1987;Nobeoka, 1995; Gann and Satler, 2000;Loo, 2002;Kerzner, 2005), and the management of projects' knowledge.The nature of projects group a project's critical success factors in six categories (Tannenbaum et al., 1992): project team characteristics (e.g., available resources, time), project team members' characteristics (e.g., motivation), project tasks' characteristics (e.g., complexity), project team processes (e.g., communication), project management processes (e.g., leadership), and project work structure (e.g., norms).Knowledge management in projects includes the policies, tools, and knowledge processes that projects and project-based organizations can use to take advantage of the knowledge that is available within and outside projects (Kotnour, 1999). Knowledge processes that aid in the management of knowledge across projects include but are not limited to knowledge transfer, creation, assimilation, storage, organization, protection, application, validation, verifi cation, and identifi cation (Kotnour and Landaeta, 2005).Consequently, the relationship between the nature of projects and the management of projects' knowledge creates several combinations that lead to a high number of knowledge management scenarios in project-based organizations. The challenges for managers of projects and project-based organizations are to understand and address these complex relationships between knowledge management and the nature of projects in order to promote project and organizational learning. The demonstrated benefi ts that learning in projects brings to the performance and capabilities of a project-based organization (Nobeoka, 1995;Kotnour, 1999Kotnour, , 2000 impose on its leaders the necessity to understand how to successfully promote learning within and across projects (Kotnour, 1999(Kotnour, , 2000. The problem resides in the fact that many questions remain unanswered on Refereed research manuscript. Accepted by Associate Editor Abel. Abstract:The complex and unpredictable nature of projects generates serious cha...

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