Managing knowledge in distributed projects

A hybrid approach to knowledge management helps maximize the benefits of the centralized and P2P approaches. In today’s organizations the common unit of work is the project. Turner defines a project as “an endeavor in which human, material, and financial resources are organized in a novel way, to undertake a unique scope of work, for a given specification, within constraints of cost and time, so as to achieve beneficial changes defined by quantitative and qualitative objectives” [6]. Projects have moved from being simple phenomena to manage to more complex entities spanning geographical locations, multiple occurrences, and different organizational affiliations, with IT being the key enabler for the transformation. For instance, a co-located program involves multiple projects running at one location, whereas a distributed project is a single endeavor conducted from multiple locations. Finally, the most complicated scenario is multiple projects conducted at multiple locations. Complexities can be attributed to managing multiple interdependencies across time, space, and projects