Title: Knowledge management in long gestation projects

Authors: Prahlada

Addresses: Director, Defence Research and Development Laboratory, Ministry of Defence, Kanchanbag, Hyderabad 500 058, India

Abstract: When compared to short term, dynamic, profit-driven projects like those in IT, fashion, infotainment and the service industries, long gestation complex high-technology projects pose different kinds of challenges in Knowledge Management. Typical of such programs are defence programmes, infrastructure projects and drug development. These projects run for more than a decade and there is a frequent turnover of specialists. In this paper, issues related to Knowledge Management throughout the various activities of such long gestation programs has been addressed so that the project is brought to successful completion irrespective of the continued non-availability of the specialists throughout the programme. An example of a surface-to-air missile system development project has been taken where the tools and techniques of Knowledge Management have been applied to ensure the success of this long gestation project.

Keywords: knowledge management; long gestation projects; government sponsored projects; R&D management; infrastructure; defence projects; knowledge networking; missile project.

DOI: 10.1504/IJITM.2003.003477

International Journal of Information Technology and Management, 2003 Vol.2 No.3, pp.237 - 250

Published online: 11 Sep 2003 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article