Knowledge management in projects: insights from two perspectives

The article focuses on how managerial options in relation to development and sharing of knowledge in projects can be extended by analysing project management from two different, but complementary, knowledge management perspectives: an artefact‐oriented and a process‐oriented perspective. Further, the article examines how a similar project management model is used in two different organisations and how its role in knowledge management differs dependent on other knowledge management initiatives and how the production processes are structured. Following the artefact‐oriented perspective, the explicit dimension of knowledge can be captured, retrieved and reused using knowledge management systems. From the process‐oriented perspective, focus is on the tacit or implicit dimension of knowledge and the context for understanding the information is more important. It is concluded that if a company offers standardised products, a codification strategy departing in the artefact‐oriented perspective will be most effective, whereas the personification strategy departing in the process‐oriented perspective will be most effective if a company offers customised solutions.