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Managing Knowledge and Learning at NASA and the Jet Propulsion Library
1. What are the implications of "faster, better, cheaper" for knowledge management? That is, what advantages and disadvantages are there for the creation, capture and transfer of knowledge?
Simply put, FBC is incompatible with effective KM. First, there pressure to accomplish more in less time absolutely requires that employees carry huge workloads with little room for revision, evaluation or documentation. It is impossible to ask a project manager who is overburdened to not only document project expertise and new knowledge, but also to mentor other employees. Furthermore, such constraints are not at all conducive to innovation and knowledge creation.
There is also the issue of "project vs. program". FBC policies resulted in project managers stressing the success of their short term project, and with the added pressures from limited time and budget, ignoring the overall success of the program or organization. This type of environment again is incompatible with a knowledge sharing culture, and ultimately successful KM.
Also, the FBC policy resulted in many failed projects. This inherently would cause future project leaders to distrust the work or knowledge obtained from these projects, even if is was good, because collectively, it was a failure. Furthermore, many of the project practice groups were not very conventional and would not provide good information for future projects, such as Spear's Pathfinder project, in which talented yet inexperienced people were hired, because experience people would never have complied with the unrealistic timelines. ...