Project Performance Improvement—Charlotte Tanner
Project Performance Improvement
The emergence of Open Source Software and the broader Communities of Practice are leading the way in terms of creating new dynamics and paths to knowledge creation. Whilst these communities of practice increasingly include global virtual teams, the teams themselves have not yet reflected the highly connected, non-hierarchical structures of Communities of Practice in their own methods and approaches to managing projects. Through the process of reflective practice, global virtual teams have within their power the ability to seek out new ways of thinking and collaborating not just within their own virtual teams, but also within the broader Open Source Software Community.
The project environment of global virtual teams can create barriers to communication, but the shared context of the team itself, can act as a catalyst for transforming knowledge from tacit to explicit by increasing the points of connection within the team. By the sharing of knowledge, teams are able to build trust within the team, which leads to improved performance of the team. Whilst the emergence of new methodologies such as Agile within Project Management seeks to deal with the rapidly evolving development of new software, whereby the end ‘product’ is not always clearly defined when a project commences, does provide a workable approach to Project Management, problems can still arise within the way the team interrelates with one another. The next stage of the process should be a reflection on the way in which teams interact and how new knowledge is created.
Author: Charlotte Tanner
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)
