Managerial Prompting and Knowledge Sharing

In my previous post I noted that organizational culture influences knowledge sharing in knowledge management system (KMS) implementations. The right type of organizational culture will foster knowledge sharing while the wrong mix of cultural attributes will reduce knowledge sharing. One of the dimensions of the organizational culture that strongly influences employees' willingness to share knowledge is managerial prompting.

It has been previously argued that managerial prompting is related to the willingness of employees to share knowledge. Managerial prompting are the cues managers use to influence workers to work toward a particular goal by articulating expectations, refocusing the employees on the goal, and other methods to influence the workers' drive toward the common goal.

In the context of KMS implementations, managerial prompting is used to remind employees of the value of knowledge, articulate expectations that knowledge should be shared and re-used, and influence the workflows to better integrate knowledge sharing. Managerial prompting is needed to remind and refocus employees on the value of knowledge sharing but misapplied prompting can also reduce knowledge sharing.

It has been shown that managerial prompting that attempts to force employees to share knowledge results in decreased knowledge sharing. Rather than exerting force and control over the employees, managers must try to positively facilitate knowledge sharing and gently remind workers how the organization values knowledge sharing and how knowledge sharing makes their work more effective.

Managerial prompting is an important factor in establishing a successful KMS implementation by increasing knowledge sharing. However, the prompting must be done to increase trust and the employees' desire to share knowledge. Heavy-handed prompting will backfire and result in reduced knowledge sharing and ineffective KMS implementations.

Organizational Culture and Knowledge Sharing

Today I'm working on revisions to a chapter in a new knowledge management book. As part of this chapter I'm discussing the importance of organizational culture in knowledge management system (KMS) implementations. Today I'm looking at a few of the main issues with the organizational culture for organizations unable to realize KMS success.

As I noted in earlier posts, challenges with KMS implementations generally fall into three categories: technical challenges, people challenges, and organizational challenges. When looking into organizational challenges we see that organizational culture plays a significant role in the success of a KMS implementation. Looking at a few knowledge management articles (here, here, and here) I found a few key factors in the organizational culture leading to effective KMS implementations.

The organizational culture supporting knowledge sharing must include managerial prompting, group identification, and proper social value orientation. This means that managers need to support knowledge sharing, the organization must work to create a common goal for the workers, and the firm must hire people inclined to collaborate and share.

Over the next few posts I'll discuss each of these cultural attributes further.

Importance of Project Status Reports

The June 2014 issue of PM Network included an article on the project status report and provided some good advice on what to do and what not to do when preparing a status report. The article noted that status reports should consider the needs of the audience, provide the content and content structure to meet the audience's information needs, and be delivered in a manner (timing and media) to provide the information where and when the audience needs it. The article also included some useful examples and advice for this project deliverable.

The project status report is a critical project deliverable. When we think of project deliverables we typically think about the physical or electronic products that are produced at the end of a project. These primary outputs are indeed important but may not be realized if the project is not properly executed.

Project communications is an important contributor to project success. According to the 2013 PMI Pulse of the Profession report, 20% of projects fail as a result of poor communications. Successful project teams communicate within the team as well as with the project stakeholders. Without sufficient communications, it becomes difficult to coordinate work and ensure the project deliverables meet the stakeholder expectations.

Improving project communications is where the status report contributes to project success. The project status report provides an opportunity for the project team to engage the project stakeholders in the project and stakeholder engagement results in stakeholders that both support and collaborate with the project team. The status report provides the opportunity to remind the stakeholders of the project and its importance to the organization which in turn allows them to continue to provide the needed support and resources to the project team. Additionally, engaged stakeholders are also prepared to collaborate with the project team to coordinate the needed inputs into the project and receive the scheduled outputs from the project team.

The project status report may seem like another administrative task for the project manager but this form of communications is essential to increasing the success of the project. The status report offers an opportunity to frequently engage the project stakeholders throughout the life of the project. Given the importance of this project document, project managers must carefully design these reports to provide the most meaningful and timely information to the project stakeholders. Engaged project stakeholders increase the likelihood of meeting the project objectives.

Scope of Knowledge Management

I received my copy of KMWorld today and read the article on surveillance. Before I began reading the article I wondered why surveillance would be a topic in a knowledge management magazine but I quickly began seeing applicability to the KM field. The example of Tacit Software's ability to conduct an email network analysis to identify subject matter experts based on incoming email messages appears to be a good example of using employee monitoring as a means to capture tacit organizational knowledge. While this application seems to be useful and applicable to KM initiatives, the idea of surveillance as a KM tool is a little unsettling.

I view knowledge management as a way to engage people to share what they know and learn from each other. To me, the field encourages collaboration, trust, and just being a good person and a valuable employee. Although I may have somewhat of an idealistic perspective, the knowledge management field has an overall positive connotation. Typically, knowledge management requires active participation and acknowledgement that people are participating in knowledge sharing and reuse. Surveillance as a KM practice makes me a little uncomfortable since the participants are not actively engaged and may not be aware of how their actions are leading to organizational knowledge.

Organizations must conduct certain levels of employee monitoring to address compliance requirements, mitigate legal risk, and other reasons. However, I prefer to classify these activities as part of risk mitigation or compliance rather than a component of knowledge management. Knowledge requires people and should be a people-centric practice that benefits both the organization and its employees (as well as individuals applying a personal knowledge management practice). Employee surveillance does not engage people to develop knowledge. Rather, it uses people to develop knowledge for the organization without direct benefit to the employee. Without awareness and engagement by the contributors, I cannot consider surveillance as a form of knowledge management.

Top Evaluation Models for Project Management Maturity

In my previous post, I discussed the use of project management maturity models (PMMM) as a means to evaluate an organization's project management practices. The article I referred to in this post provided an evaluation of the top PMMM models. I thought I would share these with you.

Using criteria of alignment with a methodology, scope of the model, level of inclusion in publications, degree of industry independence, clarity of calculations, level of tool independence, longevity, and ease of use, many PMMM frameworks were evaluated. The top five PMMM models are:

• Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3)
• Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI-DEV)
• Kerzner Project Management Maturity Model (PMMM)
• Project, Program, Portfolio Management Maturity Model (P3M3)
• Maturity Increments IN Controlled Environments (MINCE2)

Improving Project Management Practices

Organizations are beginning to realize that project management is not just a function within the firm but rather a key component to achieving strategic goals and gaining competitive advantages. Unfortunately, organizations are not fully competent in achieving business goals through these projects. According to the PMI Pulse of the Profession report, success rates have fallen from 72% in 2008 to 62% in 2012. It is clear organizations must improve their project management practices.

The need to improve project management practices has driven me to begin studying the project management field of maturity models. This topic with project management is commonly referred to as project management maturity models (PMMM). These maturity models are used to evaluate an organization's project management practices, identify strengths and weaknesses, and determine a improvement plan to increase the effectiveness (less project failures) of their project management practices.

I recently read an article on evaluating PMMMs remindeding me that, when evaluating project management practices, we must expand our focus to not only include projects but also evaluate programs and project portfolios. It is the program and portfolio evaluation where we will be able to better determine the organization's ability to achieve strategic goals. Therefore, based on the increasing appreciation for projects delivering business value, an effective PMMM should include evaluation of programs and portfolios as well as project management practices.

Based on this PMMM study, it appears the Project Management Institute's Organizational Project Management Maturity Model (OPM3) is most effective in evaluating an organization's project practices as they relate to organizational performance. I will have to begin exploring OPM3 to better understand this tool and identify its strengths and weaknesses.

New Project Management Conference

Yesterday we worked out the details of our initial planning for a new project management conference. The Central Minnesota Conference on Project Management will take place October 16th - October 17th of 2014 in Brainerd, Minnesota. This conference is a result of a joint effort between The College of St. Scholastica and Central Lakes College.

I'm excited to offer this new project management conference and will post more details on this blog as we continue to make further plans.

The Need for Strategic Project Managers

Over the past few months I noticed a trend in the project management profession; the need to include strategy as part of the role of the project manager. During the recent the PMXPO conference, PMI meetings, and journal articles (like this one), there has been a theme of increased focus on the strategic outcomes of projects. Organizations and project managers are realizing that managing the time, budget, and scope variables of a project is not enough; we also need to look at how our deliverables benefit the organization.

As we develop project managers and look for ways to improve our project management practices we need to integrate strategy and business value. If we continue to focus on the operational perspective of project management we will be able to increase our ability to deliver projects closer to budget, schedule, and scope goals. However, this does not mean the projects accomplish what they are intended to accomplish. There is a strategic purpose behind the investments associated with the project and we need to make this intended benefit our real target.

If we deliver the scope of the project on time and within budget but fail to allow the organization to achieve increased performance, the project investment does not pay off. Inability to achieve desired benefits should be the real definition of project failure. My guess is that most organizations would rather have a project go $10k over budget but provide opportunities for $50k annual benefits than a project stay within budget and allow only $5k in annual benefits.

As project managers, we need to keep the real goal in mind. Let's improve our project manager competencies and project management practices but be sure to include strategy and business value considerations. Doing so will elevate the importance of our field and increase our contribution to our organization's performance.