Volume 7 - Issue 1

EJKM
Volume 7 Issue 1
April 2009

Balancing Learning and Efficiency Crossing Practices and Projects in Project-based Organisations: Organisational Issues. The Case History of "Practice Groups" in a Consulting Firm
Saverino Verteramo and Monica De Carolis
University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

Project-based organizations received increasing attention in recent years as an emerging organizational form to integrate specialized intellectual resources. A typical problem with these structures is the difficulty in sharing knowledge within and across projects: (i) project teams are temporary and therefore much learning may be lost when they disband; (ii) time pressure and lack of time for reflection can inhibit learning processes; (iii) lessons learned mechanisms can be ineffective: mainly knowledge related to the project output is captured, but there are several difficulties in acquiring knowledge related to processes (knowledge generated during the project, e.g. how the problems have been solved).
Therefore, a contradiction exists between organizing to meet short-term, project related objectives and the longer-term developmental nature of learning processes.
Several authors propose a "Crossing-approach" that leads to design organizational solutions in which project teams and learning groups coexist.
The aim of this paper is to investigate the critical points in designing and implementing these innovative organizational solutions (e.g. group design and support mechanisms). The paper describes a case study research of an Italian IT-Consulting firm: VP-Tech. This firm introduced a particular kind of Community of Practice called "Practice Groups" (PGs) in a typical project-based organizational structure. The Practices are knowledge domains transversal to the projects. VP senior executives chose the main strategic practices to be developed by aggregating the main internal experts (PGs) around these knowledge domains. The goals of PGs are to strengthen and diffuse knowledge developed during projects, to monitor the state of the art, and to support professional training and problem solving for people involved in the projects.
The conducted case study shows:

the different phases in implementing this organizational solution
the innovative mix between formal and informal organizational levers adopted
the circular and virtuous relation between projects and practices

Keywords: project-based organization, communities of practice, knowledge sharing, groups design

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