Knowledge and Collaboration for Project Managers

Knowledge and Collaboration
for Project Managers
K n o w l e d g e a n d C o l l a b o r a t i o n f o r P r o j e c t M a n a g e r s w w w . k m s c i e n c e s . c o m
Knowledge and Collaboration
The sharing of human experience expressed in a medium of Knowledge communication and organized in a way to share the value of that experience with others.

The capability of a group of people to contribute dynamically and Collaboration interactively on a professional or creative endeavor.

Who can assign a value to knowledge that is sitting static in a repository? Why Focus on Knowledge However, the minute a worker is seeking knowledge, as soon as two Collaboration? workers are sharing knowledge, whenever several workers are debating and presenting; knowledge quickly attains value. Therefore, we see that the crucial element to defining value in knowledge is when it is in action, used by people. We see the value magnified when it can be utilized by a group in dynamic ways. This is what we would call collaboration.

The most important work takes place at the level of the project group. By a Why Focus on the Project project group, we mean an interactive group from 3 to 6 at the small end to Group? 20 to 30 at the high end. Notice we are not using the term "team". This is because "team" normally implies a role, responsibility and placement in a larger organizational structure. The project groups we are talking about may be defined within a department, division, and corporation or may span multiple corporations.

1 K n o w l e d g e a n d C o l l a b o r a t i o n f o r P r o j e c t M a n a g e r s w w w . k m s c i e n c e s . c o m
The Landscape of Knowledge and Collaboration
There are actually numerous landscapes within which knowledge and collaboration appears. We can talk about them in several ways, starting with historical "problems" and their "solutions":
Problems: ? Too much information. ? People can't get the information they need. ? People can't find an "expert" ? Explosion of new media. Tools for creating, organizing and publishing content most constantly adapt to these new media types.
Solutions:
Numerous solutions have appeared for the knowledge "problems" workers have encountered. Please realize that neither the "problems" nor the solutions always fall into precise categories. These categories have emerged out of dialog between vendors, customers and industry analysts. They are useful for discussing similarities and differences among these various solutions and for determining the suitability of a product in a specific setting. We're focusing more on "knowledge collaboration", which we'll define for the purposes of this paper.
1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2006 Document management Project management and life-cycle tools Collaboration tools Workflow management Content management Portals Knowledge Mgmt
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Solutions - Examined more Closely:
Document Management
Large organizations needed to keep track of large numbers of documents. ae Document management should not be confused with creating a shared dI drive to hold documents. The revisions and versions of documents have gni high-stake consequences, organizations needed to be able to distinguish dn between revisions, and to be able manage updates. Access should be uo controlled by user permissions, yet be facilitated via directories, keywords, F and perhaps summary abstracts. s Does a very good job within its defined scope (see above). htgnertS
s It becomes more of a library or archival function and is thus removed from es the key location of knowledge creation and sharing. senk aeW

Project Management and Life-Cycle Tools
Large organizations need to keep track of complex interdependencies among a large numb... [download for more]