Tacit Knowledge: How Can We Capture It?

Abstract

The importance of knowledge transfer or mentoring as a way to pass tacit knowledge (experience) across generations is discussed widely. Within project management this tends to rely on proximity and mutual exchange. The sender/receiver approaches used to transfer learning from one project to another is inhibited by the context of the projects, and the lack of time, which may obscure its relevance or purpose. There is concern that the knowledge captured in the minds of senior project managers is not being passed on to the next generation. Conversely it may be that much of the knowledge senior project managers have is obsolete or has been superseded by new methods and systems. This study used a grounded theory approach when interviewing 25 construction project managers from Australia on the management of project risk. Experience accumulated over time was considered by almost all interviewees to be the most important way of accumulating knowledge. Methods such as lessons learnt and close off reports are poorly used; most tacit knowledge is transferred through mentoring with very limited use of technology in this process. Changing construction technology did not concern the PMs as they perceived their job as managing processes and their role being flexible enough to adapt to change. From an industry perspective this lack of concern with the sharing of tacit knowledge and the lack of effective systems to capture it is going to be detrimental for its future. Project managers tended to still rely on traditional and the often poorly utilized methods such as lessons learnt and mentoring to capture this knowledge. Using this information, the study examines the key issues around knowledge management in project organizations and possible avenues for capturing tacit knowledge. Tacit knowledge will potentially be lost unless better systems are developed. This paper questions how Building Information Modelling, IT systems and the more visually based techniques such as pod casting, 3D photography, time-lapse cameras, web-based methods can to be used to accumulate and enable more effective knowledge transfer. The conclusion derived is that experience accumulated to generate tacit knowledge is essential for the successful management of future projects.