Supporting Knowledge Management in Project Settings: the role of Knowledge Oriented Groups

Organizations are increasingly using project teams to accomplish specific tasks and to increase flexibility. Recent studies on Knowledge Management and organizational learning in project environments have emphasized the difficulties of learning from and across projects. Following are the main problems of managing knowledge and improving learning processes in project-based organizations: (1) lack of time and reflection at the level of the project team (project-time pressures and temporariness of project teams can inhibit learning processes); (2) the trade-off between centralized vs decentralized approaches in the knowledge creation, validation and dissemination processes (tendency to centralize learning and to defer learning to future points in time); (3) the reduced interactions with colleagues with similar competencies. Therefore, an inherent contradiction exists between organizing to meet short-term, project related objectives and the longer-term developmental nature of organizational learning processes. From an organizational point of view the problems of managing connections among people with the same area of expertise and people with different areas of expertise (generally collected around a project) are critical. The knowledge capture, transfer and learning in project settings rely heavily upon social processes. This situation emphasizes the value of considering a community-based approach to manage knowledge. Several authors suggest to add a new “dimension” (a “home” for learning, and development of specialized/technical competencies) following a “crossing-approach” that leads to design organizational solutions in which project teams (focused on their strengths eg. outputs and market segments) and Knowledge Oriented Groups –KOGs- (focused on learning and knowledge sharing), like Communities of Practice(CoPs), quality circles, knowing communities, etc. coexist. The aim of this paper is to investigate the evolutionary path and the critical issues in designing and implementing these innovative organizational solutions based on the introduction of KOGs (e.g. group design, reward system, participation modes, support mechanisms, formalization degree). We conducted three in depth case studies in three large Italian IT consulting firms: these firms are organized by projects and have introduced different kinds of internal KOGs in order to improve the management of internal and external knowledge. By analyzing the different stages in the lifecycle of these organizational solutions it is possible to show some general and practical insight for organizational design and support of KOGs.