KMForum

From the desk of: Knowledge Management for Project

Brian (Bo) Newman Managers
Founder
The Knowledge Management Forum Applying Transformational Knowledge Management
[email protected] to improve project performance
509-967-2286

© Brian D. Newman, 2000 Brian (Bo) Newman, PMP

All rights reserved. March 3, 2000

Scaleable across all levels of the organization, The author's

transformational approach to Knowledge Management includes two major
tools that enable project managers to improve project integration,
formulate better scope and staffing decisions, improve communications,
and more readily understand and manage project risks. These tools,
Knowledge Flow Analysis and Alignment Analysis, enable project
managers to gain new insights into how knowledge is created, retained,
transferred and used within their projects. Based on over ten years of
development, these tools will allow project managers to identify
knowledge flows within their projects and target critical alignment paths
for additional attention and monitoring.

Knowledge Flow Analysis

For the project manager, the work breakdown structure (WBS) is at the
heart of project planning. Each entry represents tasks and decisions that
are critical to the successful completion of the project. However, it is often
what is not on the WBS that can make or break a project. Making sure that
the right knowledge is available to the right people at the right time is one
such element that is often over-looked. Knowledge Flow analysis provides
a way to illuminate and plan for the provision of the knowledge needed to
enable and increase project performance. Each task requires specific
knowledge. The understanding of how that knowledge becomes available
to the people who are doing the work is just as important as how raw
materials, parts, and assemblies flow through a factory.

To understand the required knowledge flows, it is essential that the project

manager develop an understanding of the types of artifacts (documents,
data, etc) through which knowledge flows between tasks and the types of
agents (people, organizations, and technology) that create, retain, transfer,
and transform those artifacts. It is also important to understand that each
agent type has different characteristics. For instance, computer systems
are better than people at dealing with very large amounts of explicit data.
However, people can apply their tacit understanding of a situation whereas
computers can only work with explicit artifacts. Organizations can retain
and transfer knowledge over longer periods of time than individuals
through tribal knowledge and corporate culture but are not very good at
making decisions. It is therefor important that the right agent type be
assigned to each artifact transformation activity.

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Alignment Analysis

In use for nearly 50 years, CPM, PERT, and precedence diagramming

have served project managers well by allowing them to analyze and
manage complex multi-path projects. Other techniques such as Activity
Based Costing and Management and Goldratt's Theory of Constraints have
provided management with additional tools for dealing with the dynamics
of business planning. It is possible to draw from this body of research and
extended it into the development of tools that further our understanding of
the dynamics of knowledge flows.

Based on a collection of methods broadly term "alignment analysis," my

colleagues and I have developed the means to extend knowledge flow
analysis into the examination of how agents can be expected to interact to
either enhance or hinder the flow of knowledge throughout the life of a
project. Similar to the way a CPM analysis looks at project duration,
through alignment analysis we can model the series of critical interfaces
between agents and identify the chain of events which represents the
highest risk based on the way project knowledge flows between them.
These I call the critical alignment paths. Using standard project
management tools such as Microsoft Project Manager, I have developed
simple ways for project managers to model and understand these critical
alignment paths and explore ways in which the associated risks can be
mitigated. This allows the project manager to look at the real impact of
problems based on such things as organizational perspective, language
differences, and possible conflicting objectives.

Applications to Project Management

Project management, or any other analysis method, only has value if the
knowledge developed through their use can help us better plan, monitor,
and perform in the real world. In their Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK), the Project Management Institute (PMI) identifies
nine knowledge areas critical to project management performance.
Looking at the improvements knowledge flow and alignment analysis can
make in just a few of these areas, such as project integration management,
scope management, staff or human resource management, communication
management, and risk management should serve to illustrate their
effectiveness as powerful additions to the project manager's arsenal.

Project Integration Management.

PMI identifies three activities, 1) project plan development, 2) project plan
execution, and 3) over-all change control, which are primarily focused on
the coordination and integration of project specific tasks, and ongoing
business operations. These activities must also address the fact that
deliverables (artifacts) from different functional specialties must be
integrated if they are to properly support knowledge transfer within the
project. Where knowledge flow analysis adds value over conventional
methods, is in the recognition of how the agents responsible for a given
task will use the knowledge developed in previous tasks, or will contribute
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 to knowledge needed in follow-on activities. Previous attempts to
understand this critical aspect of a project though just data and/or
information flow analysis often fell short because they only dealt with
explicit artifacts. Knowledge flow analysis can go beyond just explicit
artifacts, to address both tacit and implied knowledge as well.

Scope Management.
All aspects of scope management can be improved through a better
understanding of the way knowledge is developed, retained, transferred
and used within a project. Stakeholders want to see that the planning effort
addresses the full scope of the project. This is one of the more critical
aspects of gaining their confidence and securing their commitment.
Demonstrating that the project scope addresses not only the basic set of
tasks, but that it also addresses the means for insuring that all participants
will have the knowledge they need to perform those tasks, when they need
it, can go a long way in instilling such confidence.

Understanding how the knowledge needed to perform a task will be

obtained, and how knowledge developed though project tasks will be used,
allows the project management staff to develop more comprehensive
written scope statements, and identify those knowledge development,
retention, and transfer activities that might otherwise go unassigned.

Finally, as the need to make changes in the project scope surfaces,

knowledge flow analysis will insure that all aspects of the change are
properly recognized. This includes insuring the recognition of often
overlooked cost and schedule impacts, like updating previously developed
knowledge, retraining staff members, and updating automated tools used
to create, retain, and transfer knowledge between members of the project
staff.

Staff Management.
All too often, project staffing becomes a hit or miss situation. How people
are selected for a project and assigned roles can be based on anything from
simply using those that happen to be available, to trying to work within
organizational politics, to what is perceived as optimum case where each
individual selected is the best at what they do. Compounding the problem
is the fact that over the life of many projects people come and go,
organizational roles and responsibilities change, and the nature and
number of project stakeholders often changes as the project moves from
phase to phase.

Good project managers understand the importance of the knowledge that

people bring to a project. They also understand the importance of
selecting people who can work together. What they have been lacking are
the definitive tools that tell them how to adjust project plans to
accommodate the realities they face once the staff is on board. Knowledge
flow analysis gives them just such a tool. Additionally, critical alignment
path analysis enables the project manager to predict where potential
alignment problems will pose the greatest risk to the project and more
importantly, identify those corrective actions that can have the greatest
positive impact.

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 Alignment analysis also equips the project manager to better address those
previously gray areas such as individual to group alignment, group to
group alignment, and the alignment between people and the automated
agents.

Communications Management.
Both knowledge flow analysis and alignment analysis can have a major
impact on the effectiveness and efficiency of project communication
activities. Knowledge flow analysis clearly identifies what knowledge
needs to be communicated by whom, to whom. This becomes even more
important when you look at the communications that extend beyond the
primary project team. Because it is based on identifying the knowledge
needed to enable specific actions and decisions, knowledge flow analysis
highlights the why behind what we communicate to our external
stakeholders and allows us to better support their knowledge needs

Once we know what knowledge needs to be provided to whom, and how

that knowledge will be used, alignment analysis then provides an easily
used tool to understand just how that communication should be designed.

Risk Management
The insights and understandings gained though the use of tools like
knowledge flow analysis, alignment analysis, and the rest of the
Transformational Knowledge Management methodology do not eliminate
the need for a well designed and executed risk management program.
Rather, they allow the project manager to understand certain project
dynamics that might otherwise go unrecognized. Knowledge flow and
alignment analysis provides the project manager with the capability to
identify and quantify those factors that pose threats or opportunities to the
effective flow of knowledge within a project. It is important that today's
project managers have a sufficient understanding of knowledge
management methods and techniques so that they can effectively define
enhancement steps for opportunities and responses to threats effecting the
flow of knowledge throughout their projects.

Summary
Knowledge has proven to be one of the most critical enablers within a
project. It has also come to be one of the most important products of many
projects companies undertake in today's business world. This fact clearly
makes the case that all aspects of effective project management must now
include the tools and methods that allow the project managers to identify
how their projects create, capture, retain, transfer, and make use of this all
important corporate asset.

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