1

Knowledge Managementand

Project Management

Dr. Silke SchoenertUniversity of Koblenz-Landau, Germany

schoen@uni-koblenz.de

2

Where we are?

Project management

Hardware

Software Systems &

Client-Server

Tele-communications& Data Network

Databases &Datawarehouse

Emerging Technologies

Internet, Intranets, Extranets, VPNs

e-commerceKnowledge-management ERP, SCM,CRM Web Services

App

licat

ions

Infr

astr

uctu

re

3

Outline

What is knowledge?

Why Knowledge management?

How to manage knowledge?

Knowledge Management in Projects

4

Data-Information-Knowledge

Knowledge

Data Information

semantic pragmatic

5

Data - Information - Knowledge

Data

Information

Knowledge

Collect

Structure

Aggregation

Analysis

Synthesis

Decision

6

Knowledge a Key Sucess Factor

Product lifecycle becomes shorter (need for innovative products)

Knowledge is nescessary for decisions on all corporate levels

Globalization of CompaniesConcurrent Engineering (more

divisions cooperate)

7

... but

Knowledge management is highly political, „Knowledge is Power“

Loss of knowledge in case of fluctuation

Hiding failures, Repeating failures Decision making with incomplete

knowledgeKnowledge Management is expensive

8

Sources of Knowledge

2.862.68

2.412.36

2.302.16

1.942.07

1.751.68

Professional EducationCooperation with customer

Research in journalsAnalysis of competitors

Cooperation with SupplierConferences

Market ResearchComparative Analysis

Recruitment of ExpertsCooperation with Universities

Scale from 0:never to 4: very often

9

Types of Knowledge

Explicit

You can communicate

Easy to formalizeSavable on

different mediadisembodied

Tacit

hard to communicate

Hard to formalizeSaved in brain

embodied

10

Combination

Structuring concepts by applying categories, by sorting, combining concepts, exchange of explicit knowledge (documents), communication

11

Internalization

Generation of implicit knowledge through “learning by doing”, new mental models

12

Socialization

Transfer of implicit knowledge from person to person by observation, imitation, practical experience, generation of one’s own mental model

13

Externalization

Articulation of implicit knowledge by using explicit concepts

Usage of metaphorsUsage of analogiesUsage of models

14

Spiral of KnowledgeEpistemologicaldimension

Explicitknowledge

Tacitknowledge

Individual Group Organization Inter-organization

Knowledge level

Ontological

dimension

Internalization

Socialization

Combination

Externalization

15

Why Knowledge Management?

Corporate Processes need more knowledge-> Increasing cost finding knowledge/experts-> choice of relevant knowledge

Knowledge becomes a product (Information Brokering)

Corporate Knowledge increases Company value (intangible good)

knowledge of employees is the most valuable asset

16

What is Knowledge Management

…‘the acquisition, sharing and use of knowledge within organizations, including learning processes and management information systems’

17

Knowledge Management and Technology

Know-ledge

Socialization

externalization

knowledge

Organizational memory

communication knowledge

internalization

learning

Information-technology

18

Information Managementvs

Knowledge Management

IMOffers explicit

knowledge“Connecting data”

KMConverting of

implicit knowledge into explicit

“connecting people”

19

Functions of KM

Goals of Knowledge

Distri-bution

Evaluation

Usage

Storage

Generation

Identi-fication

20

Components

Human ComputerInteraction

Knowledge Portal

Application

Data and Information

Collaborative/Community Technologies

Business IntelligenceData Analysis

Integration of information sourcesMeta Repository

21

Classification

Database ManagementData WarehouseData Mining

Information RetrievalKnowledge RetrievalText Mining

Document ManagementWorkflow ManagementGroupware

22

IS Support of Knowledge Management

Generation Identification Distribution Usage Integration

CommunityTools

SimulationModeling

Categorization

ExpertRepresentation

CollaborativeFiltering

Video/AudioStreaming

Video/AudioConferencing

DataConferencing

PushTechnologies

SummarizationTools

VisualizationTools

Data Warehousing

[Raimann/Back 2000]

23

How to motivate employees

Integration of knowledge workers into requirement engineering processes

Incentives“Management as Paragon”Flat hierarchiesStepwise Introduction of Knowledge

Management

24

Knowledge Ontologies

„People can‘t share knowledge if they don‘t speak a common language“

[Davenport 1998]

„An ontology is an explicit specification of a shared conceptualization“

[Gruber 1993]• Formal, based on mathematics

Davenport, T., Prusak, L. 1998: Working Knowledge: how organizations manage what they know. Harvard Business School Press T. R. Gruber. A translation approach to portable ontologies. Knowledge Acquisition, 5(2):199-220, 1993

25

Knowledge Maps

In its simplest form, a knowledge map is a straightforward directory, pointing people who need access to knowledge to places where it can be found.

26

Example

27

Knowledge Communities

Example: The Babble System

28

Knowledge Management in the Public Sector

Citizens’ and businesses’ oriented service delivery including one-stop service provision,

Inter-organisational co-operation between governmental agencies and

Cross-border support for complex administrative decision making

Milner: Managing Information and Knowledge in the Public Sector,2000

29

Why Knowledge Management in projects

Increasing „Management by Project“Time restrictions of projects make the

reuse of knowledge nescessaryInterdiciplinary workHigh fluctuation of expertsProjects are unique but many processes

are similarCommunication through electronic media

(esp. In virtual projects)

30

Knowledge in Projects

Project team members Relationship between them formal/informal Communication structure Formal/Informal Roles Tasks Schedules Costs Communication processes Corporate processes ….

31

Communication in projects

Team A Team CTeam B

formelle Kommunikationsbeziehung

informelle Kommunikationsbeziehung

32

PROVITweb based project support in virtual organizations

Administration Task Information

Team member information

Information objects

Task information

Project structure Project schedule Responsibilities

Information Request individualized standardized

Information Offer

33

Communicationprocess

Communicationstructure

Visualisation of team members and their relationships

Graph theoretical analysis

Petri-net based visualisation Petri-net based analysis To automate routine

communication processes