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108 Chapter 4

Box 4.1
A vignette: Excerpts of an expert interview

Interviewee 37 (name coded in order to protect anonymity) works in a large government
department and has been responsible for the implementation of knowledge management
in the past fi ve years. His own area of expertise lies in project management — he has over
twenty years experience managing large-scale (over $10 million) infrastructure projects
that typically required on average ten years to complete. One of the major catalysts for
implementing KM was the lack of a good handover process — the passing of the baton
when one project manager (PM) left and another took his or her place. Some turnover
was reasonable in such long-term and complex projects. The trouble was that while each
PM had the necessary training and skills, there was often little time to overlap with the
incumbent PM in order to get rapidly up to speed on the specifi cs of that particular project.
The purpose of the structured knowledge elicitation interviews with senior PMs was to
identify the types of tools and techniques they used to ensure that there was solid conti-
nuity in the management of these large infrastructure projects. Some PMs were scrupulous
and disciplined and kept detailed records (primarily paper-based) while others found ways
of embedding the knowledge about the project within the project itself (primarily digital
annotations). The departmental KM team had recently introduced facilitators to carry out
project debriefs and KM journalists to convert paper narratives into digital annotations,
and were in the process of setting up videotaping sessions to accommodate those PMs
who were more comfortable with verbal rather than textual communications.
An excerpt of the interview with PM #37 follows:
Q: How many project handovers have you been involved with to date? ( an icebreaker question to help
the interviewee feel comfortable and to begin talking )
A: Over twenty at least — it seems to be getting worse actually — when I fi rst joined the department as
a PM we were careerists — we made sure to hang around until the job got done — not like these younger
mavericks — jumping from one project to another — even jumping ship and going to work for another
department! ( subject getting off topic — starting to get a few things off his chest — prepare to cut in with next
question )
Q: What were some of the hardest challenges you faced in doing a handover?
A: The stuff you can ’ t write down! I mean everyone spouts the same stuff — budget overrun, risk assess-
ment fi gures off, and on and on and on. . . . the real stuff — we all know it in our gut but ****ed if I ’ m
signing my name to it! ( he has quickly started discussing tacit knowledge to be transferred during a handover
and his lack of comfort in documenting this in any way — the best way to dig deeper without increasing his level
of discomfort is to reassure re anonymity of interview at this point and ask for an example in order to elicit
substantive knowledge )
Q: Absolutely — it is certainly not the place to start assigning blame or signing names to statements —
and yet, as you say, this is the content that is important for the next PM to know. What would be an
example?
A: Well. . . . in one infamous case. . . . the team just dissolved . . . everyone went their own merry
way. . . . and the supervisor was so concerned about not losing face with the PM that he just waited
too long before saying anything . . . the disasters just snowballed from there. ( at this point, true tacit
knowledge is beginning to surface and this part is particularly important to document as the type of PM handover
knowledge to capture — next, we need to know how it was handed over ).