Page 73 -

56 Chapter 2

Box 2.1
(continued)

example would be a lessons learned that addressed attitudes that were not compatible for
good teamwork. Another project team may decide to use some of the documented lessons
learned for storytelling sessions where participants are asked to take on the perspective of
another team member. In this way, the team members acquire some experience in walking
in someone else ’ s shoes that should afford them a different view on the events that
occurred.
8. Knowledge application A project manager embarking on a new project calls up the
lessons learned from similar projects from the organization ’ s lessons learned database. A
quick scan of the sorts of things that went wrong in the past help the manager to prepare
a risk management and contingency plan for these known challenges. At best, the same
mistakes will not be repeated (which is not to say that human creativity being what it is,
new ones will not arise!)
9. Knowledge evaluation A few people in the organization access the same learned lesson
but fi nd that the lesson is neither quite relevant nor valid in their particular contexts.
They contact the KM team to have additional tags added to this documented lesson — tags
that indicate the specifi c situations in which this is a valid lesson as well as the specifi c
conditions under which the lesson is not to be applied (an example may be one subsidiary
where the workforce is represented by a union and another subsidiary that is not
unionized).
10. Knowledge reuse/divestment The KM team performs its annual cleanup of the lessons
learned database and fi nds that some can be replaced by newer and more comprehensive
lessons. A few lessons are no longer relevant due to changes in the organization, changes
in the business environment, or both (e.g., technology issues with an older version of
software that are now moot with the newer version being used).

formation of knowledge, much like information products are processed, in order to
ensure that the knowledge objects reach the intended end users and are put to good
use. The objective is to retain and share knowledge with a wider audience. Informa-
tion and communication technologies such as groupware, intranets, and knowledge
bases or repositories provide the necessary infrastructure to do so. Business processes
and cultural enablers provide the necessary incentives and opportunities for all
knowledge workers to become active participants throughout the knowledge manage-
ment cycle.