An Exploration of Knowledge Management Practices in IT Projects: A Case Study Approach

The effective application of knowledge management (KM) practices is important for the successful delivery of projects especially as the demands of these projects grow. Studies have continued to show that KM enhances organizational processes; therefore there is little doubt that effective application of KM can improve project competencies and engender project maturity. However, studies have also revealed that KM is not being applied effectively in IT projects. This claim is further supported by the continued reports of high failure rates which may be attributed at least in part, to ineffective KM. In an effort to better understand this phenomenon, a case study of a project management office (PMO) is applied to explore their experiences and challenges in applying KM. The findings underlined that there are challenges in formally applying KM consistently, however there also some positives in terms of tacit components that are sometimes taken for granted in a team collaborative environment that enhances knowledge processing, incidences of contribution to knowledge repositories and the use and application of knowledge that directly impact the management and execution of their projects