I need your help. What are the impediments to sharing project knowledge?
don’t have time / takes too much time
not invented here
divisional stove pipe
geographical scatter
people afraid that sharing will make them less valuable
unwillingness to share
leadership
lack of trust
legal constraints
culture
systems
memories fade
people don’t want to appear vulnerable and stupid by admitting to mistakes
difficult to find what went wrong
we look at others as inferior to us
internal politics
lack of an actual organizational process to identify knowledge learned
lack of an actual organizational process to communicate knowledge learned
post-implementation audits are not done
takes too much time to document lessons learned
no way to classify lesson for easy retrieval
No one is assigned the responsibility
the lessons won’t apply to my projects
lessons Learned are not seen as useful
to use lessons learned would reflect badly on my reputation
unbiased information is not forthcoming
teams wont share mistakes and dirty laundry
Time / Schedule pressures – “Fire Fighting Mode” “Leave it until later”‘
Costs involved
Don’t want to draw the crabs/seagulls
“Dangerous Attractiveness” of immediate fix
not trained in the use of software tools
What am I missing?
Regards, Stephen
@brown_note I think time to mentor needs to be built in. Chasing project deadlines makes for a brittle capability.
How about lack of an actual organizational process to identify knowledge learned and communicate it to others.
Thanks Mark, I guess process was a given…your right, its now on the list. Stephen
Found some more from Wysocki (2009, p.346)
Post-implementation audits are not done
Takes too much time to document lessons learned
No way to classify lesson for easy retrieval
No one is assigned the responsibility
The lessons won’t apply to my projects
Lessons Learned are not seen as useful
To use lessons learned would reflect badly on my reputation
Unbiased information is not forthcoming
Teams wont share mistakes and dirty laundry
found some more from a recent ISSEC conference paper…
•Time / Schedule pressures – “Fire Fighting Mode” “Leave it until later”
•Costs involved
•Don’t want to draw the crabs/seagulls
•“Dangerous Attractiveness” of immediate fix
•We won’t be doing this again in this project
What is a divisional stove-pipe?
How about using project management software that you have not been properly trained to use?
And people don’t want to appear vulnerable and stupid by admitting to mistakes.
Thanks for the comments Rebecca, I understand divisional stove pipe to mean here that projects operating within a division of the organisation find it difficult to share lessons with other projects in another division of the same organisation. I have often seen over the many years of PM experience divisions of organisations not talking to each other… Wikipedia quote: Stovepipe (organisation) where the structure of the organization restricts flow of information through rigid lines of control.
I will add your comments of ‘not trained in the use of software tools’. ‘People don’t want to appear vulnerable and stupid by admitting to mistakes’ is sort of covered by ‘don’t want to admit to errors’.
Thanks again for your input and I hope all goes well with your projects. Regards, Stephen
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