Supporting Research and Development Processes 169Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without writtenWe distinguish the concept of formal and informal dissemination of knowledge. For
the formal spread of information, there is a start-up meeting to inform all employees about
the new project. Moreover, the project manager immediately sends out important news
so that all employees are “on the same page.” Standardized templates support the optimal
documentation during the whole development process. The existing project management
tool stores these documents. One example of a template is the Project Transfer Matrix,
a generated knowledge management tool for efficient planning, controlling, and manag-
ing the transfer of the project results. The matrix is described more in detail later on. Last
but not least, the accomplishment of “lessons learned” in each project group is very
important at the end of the project. The team members together document the positive
and negative aspects of the whole project and describe how problems could have been
avoided. As result, future project teams can learn from their experience (Probst, Raub,
& Romhardt, 1999).
The theoretical background of the informal exchange of knowledge provides as
basic principle Etienne Wenger’s communities of practice concept. A community of
practice is a group of people with the same interest in a certain topic, informally bound
together with the aim of building and exchanging knowledge. Everyone with interest in
the certain topic can participate in sharing knowledge on a Web site. The community runs
as long as the members are interested (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). Further-
more, we distinguish between work groups and project teams. A work group has the aim
of delivering a product or a service. The members are employees reporting to the same
manager and work together until the next reorganization or reassignment. A project team
has to accomplish a certain task, is assigned by management, and has a specific deadline.
In our concept, thematic groups are built (see section on applied knowledge management
methods), which are a combination of the three types.
Furthermore, regular meetings, discussions between the employees, and work-
shops are possibilities to generate and exchange knowledge. It is also possible to invite
an external moderator to accomplish workshops with the advantage that he/she is not
involved in the processes of the organization.
To encourage employees to discuss and talk about the new project, it is useful to
place charts or whiteboards at meeting points in the company. Meeting points, such as
a cafeteria, where members of different areas of the organization meet, facilitate contact
between employees. One possibility is the creation of a “topic of the week” to enhance
discussions. Possible results and new ideas can be noted on the charts.
There is one more approach of knowledge management in the concept: organiza-
tional learning. It describes how groups and so also organizations can learn from the
knowledge of the individual and how the knowledge can be spread (Van Heijst et al.,
1998). Learning through communication and feedback should be an additional point of
this concept, which involves a combination and distribution of existing knowledge.
Having discussed the theoretical background in knowledge management, the
concept and its development are described in detail below.
Action Plan
In a workshop with the management team and the project managers, the results of
the analysis have been discussed and an optimized situation was drafted. This draft did
not contain any idea about the new concept but it described the “to-be” situation within