The business world today revolves around using project teams to accomplish specific goals and tasks. Project management methodologies exist to ensure that project tasks are completed on time and within budget, but the most important outcome of a project (the knowledge) is usually lost after the project is completed. During projects, knowledge is constantly being created but there are very few methods or processes to capture and transfer this knowledge to other project teams or organizations. One underutilized (and under-researched) method of capturing and transferring knowledge is using storytelling techniques to transfer knowledge.

1. Using Storytelling
Techniques to Capture and
Share Knowledge in
Projects
Eric D. Brown
INFS 838

2. INTRODUCTION
Organizations are using more and more project teams
to accomplish objectives
Formal PM methods do not address knowledge share
- other than Lessons Learned
Two approaches to knowledge sharing:
Explicit - documentation, processes, etc
Tacit - Learn while doing

3. MAIN QUESTIONS
How can we share knowledge across teams while
minimizing impact on team member’s time?
Can we use stories to share knowledge across project
teams (and organizations)?
What types of project knowledge best fits the
storytelling method?

4. KM IN PROJECTS
Disterer (2002)
traditional PM is overly concerned with
efficiency and effectiveness of project team
members
knowledge needs of future projects isn’t within
the context of the current project requirements;

5. KM IN PROJECTS
Owen, Burstein & Mitchell (2004) - “knowledge
gained in a project needs to be transferred to an
organization’s memory for reuse in other projects”
Kasvi, Vartiainen, & Hailikari (2003) - knowledge
management practices were “weak and
unsystematic” in project teams

6. KM IN PROJECTS
Leseure & Brookes (2004) -
Knowledge is generated within one project and
then lost. Failure to transfer this knowledge…
leads to wasted activity and impaired project
performance”

7. KNOWLEDGE TYPES IN
PROJECTS
Reich (2007) - Four types of knowledge in projects:
Process Knowledge
Domain Knowledge
Institutional Knowledge
Cultural Knowledge

8. EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE
Explicit knowledge is the ‘know-
what’ of an organization
Explicit knowledge is the ‘visible’
knowledge
Explicit knowledge has been
defined by Polanyi (1967) as:
knowledge that can be
communicated using
formalized language

9. TACIT KNOWLEDGE
Tacit Knowledge is the ‘know-
how’ of an organization.
Tacit Knowledge is the ‘invisible’
knowledge
According to Takeuchi (1998) tacit
knowledge is:
deeply rooted in an
individuals actions and
experiences as well as in the
ideals, values or emotions
that the person embraces

10. CAPTURING
KNOWLEDGE
Current technology is perfect for capturing explicit
knowledge
Tacit knowledge must be transformed to explicit
knowledge
Tacit knowledge can be shared using informal social
processes
Through storytelling, tacit knowledge can be
embedded in narratives and shared

11. CAPTURING
KNOWLEDGE
Roth and Kleiner (1995)
Learning Histories - written document used to
help an organization become better aware of a
learning effort.
The history makes extensive use of participants'
own narratives, as well as outsiders' assessments
of the story

12. LEARNING HISTORIES
Parent, Roch and Beliveau (2008)
Report using learning histories to great success
on an implementation project
Knowledge gathered via interviews, and
learning history created

13. STORYTELLING
Swap, Leonard, Shields and Abrams (2001) use the
term ‘Organizational Story”.
An organizational story is defined as:
“a narrative of past management actions,
employee interactions or other events that are
communicated informally within the
organization”.

14. STORYTELLING
Organizational stories are generated internally and
reflect the organizations values and culture.
Stories must have context and focus.
Stories must be memorable to be effective.
Vivid imagery - key to making stories stick
Stories make knowledge more memorable via the
‘availability heuristic’ - elaboration, episodic
memory.

15. STORYTELLING
Stories are better used to share values, managerial
systems and tacit knowledge.
Stories are not good methods of sharing critical skills
You wouldn’t want your doctor or pilot learning
their job by listening to or reading stories

16. STORYTELLING
Sole (2002)
describes three areas to pay attention to for
effectively using stories in organizations.
Story-crafting
Story-telling
Story-listening

17. PROJECT KNOWLEDGE
MODEL
Based on Reich’s Project
Knowledge Typology Behavioral Technical
Knowledge Knowledge
Breaks project
Cultural Domain
knowledge in to Knowledge Knowledge
behavioral and technical
Much research states Institutional Process
Knowledge Knowledge
that stories are great for
sharing cultural and
organizational
knowledge

18. STORYTELLING MODEL
FOR PROJECTS
5 Steps:
Step 1:
Capturing the
Capture Story
Feedback
from Journaling
Craft Step 2: Step 3:
Crafting the Telling the
Story Story
Tell
Step 5: Step 4:
Internalize Documenting Internalizing
the Story the Story
Document

19. STEP 1: CAPTURE THE
STORY
New Team Members are
asked a set of questions
New Team
Member
Every team member keeps Questions
a weekly journal (weekly
Project
reporting) Weekly
Learning
Journals
Journal
Weekly meetings - taped
Weekly
and transcribed Meetings
Weekly activities are
combined into a Project
Learning Journal

20. JOURNALING
The key to journaling is to have team members
provide their narrative of what has happened during
the week.
This is done by asking open ended questions such as:
What went right this week?
What went wrong this week?
Have the goals of this project changed? If so, in what
way?
Share a story of something you’ve learned this week.

21. STEP 2: CRAFT THE
STORY
Roth and Kleiner (1995) - Four necessary pieces of a
Learning History Story:
Notable Results – What message is the story trying to
convey?
Curtain Raiser – An Attention getter for the reader.
Kernel Paragraph – One or Two paragraphs that
contain the thematic point of the story.
Closing – What will the reader take away from the
story?

22. STEP 2: CRAFT THE
STORY
In addition:
Plot - What keeps the reader engaged in the
story?
Exposition – Description of the details of the
story. What, When Where and Who.
Right-Hand Column – Contains the Story
Left-Hand Column – Contains Questions and
Comments about the story.

23. STEP 2: CRAFT THE
STORY
Each week’s project learning
journal is combined with
previous learning histories
Project
Project Learning History Learning
generated using text Journal
Project
classification algorithms Learning
Previous History
Learning
Project team members review the Histories
electronically classified stories for
accuracy and conformity.
Users can add their own
narratives as required.

24. STEP 3: TELL THE STORY
Left Column Right Column
Story is ‘told’ by
allowing project team
members to access
learning history
2 column layout
Left - Questions/
Comments
Right - Story

25. TELLING THE STORY
Readers have the ability to rate, comment and
provide their own narrative if it differs from the
presented story
During weekly meetings, project learning history is
reviewed and discussed with one story being chosen
that best highlights

26. STEP 4: INTERNALIZING
THE STORY
Project team members submit story’s about ‘lessons
learned’ during the previous week
This feedback is then fed into the users’ weekly
journal for inclusion in the following Learning
Histories.

27. STEP 5: DOCUMENT THE
STORY
Since the Storytelling
Model for Projects is
built on an electronic
journaling medium, the
documentation is taken
care of

28. VALIDATION
Worked with 2 small project teams
One team used normally PM methods of reporting
One used a rough Storytelling model

29. VALIDATION
Team members were from different backgrounds,
different cultures and different technical levels (some
non-technical)
Teams consisted of a mixture of long-term
employees, newer employees and contractors
3 month projects

30. VALIDATION - CONTROL
GROUP
Used normal weekly reporting tools
email
spreadsheets
Weekly meetings held. Meetings focused on
deliverables.

31. VALIDATION - MODEL
GROUP
Weekly journaling using WordPress
Weekly meetings conducted to review weekly journal
entries
Weekly meetings recorded and transcribed
Learning histories created weekly
Learning histories reviewed by each team member
NO SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR JOURNALING

32. VALIDATION RESULTS -
CONTROL GROUP
Control Group
Control group saw no noticeable knowledge
transfer between team members.
Most members stayed within their ‘comfort zone’.

33. VALIDATION RESULTS -
MODEL GROUP
Model Group
Interesting dynamics began to occur after the 2nd week
Members began enjoying sharing their stories of what they
did, how they did it and what they learned
At week 4
non-technical people were beginning to understand the
basics of the technology
Technical people began to understand the business drivers

34. FURTHER RESEARCH
Additional avenues for further research:
Text classification research to attempt to
automatically select story elements from journal
entries
Research into best methods for capturing stories
using journaling. What questions to ask? How
do we get people interesting in sharing stories?
Research what aspects of the project knowledge
framework best fit into the storytelling model

35. THANK YOU