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PROJECT-BASED ORGANIZATIONS AND KNOWLEDGE WORK 109

Learning boundary

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Knowledge boundaries

Figure 5.1 Learning and knowledge boundaries

At the project level, on the other hand, experimentation and knowledge
creation is exactly what is required, because a project is trying to create new
solutions to problems or opportunities. If nothing new was required, a project
would not typically be set up. This then creates a learning boundary between
the project and the organization – the new practices that are developed within
the project are often so different to the ongoing practices within the orga-
nization; this makes it very difficult for the organization to learn from the
project. For example, in a university setting, a project may be set up to design
a new programme and new methods may be developed to recruit students
to the programme; perhaps involving faculty members who were involved
in the development of the programme actually doing a lot of the recruiting
themselves, rather than relying on a central administrative team. However,
other faculty who have not been involved in the project to develop the new
programme are not going to easily accept and learn that they should be play-
ing an active role in student recruitment – this is therefore a learning bound-
ary. Such learning boundaries help to account for some of the difficulties of
transferring knowledge across projects or more generally from projects to the
wider organization.
Noting these difficulties of sharing knowledge across projects or from proj-
ects to the wider organization, many organizations have attempted to institute
mechanisms to facilitate this sharing, we take a look at this next.

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