Evolution of the virtual project team

The project environment of global virtual teams can create barriers to communication, but the shared context of the team can act as a catalyst for transforming knowledge. Charlotte Tanner discusses reflective practice for virtual communities.

Reflective practice for change

How do successful teams structure knowledge and reflective practices to drive innovative accomplishments? Gerard Datoc discusses the learning process that we all go through to create awareness of how we attain our learning curves.

Learning Through Reflective Practice—Ahmad Alshehri

Learning Through Reflective Practice While Deploying a Load Management System In a Famous Cement Industry
This paper explains the topics of ‘reflective practice and ‘learning through reflection’ in a practical project environment at one of Australia’s major Cement manufacturing companies (referred as ‘X-Cement Ltd’ in this paper). The project was to develop and deploy a comprehensive new load management system including the equipment and software logic automation in X-Cement Ltd using Agile Methodology and Approach of Project Management.

Implementing Agile methodology within X-Cement Ltd involved:
—Analysis of the project management approach already implemented at the X-Cement Ltd.
—Responsibilities assignment to Staff and vendors teams to develop a project management system based on Agile Methodology which met the specific future needs of X-Cement Ltd.
—Training of staff on Agile and operation of the load management system within the Power House department of The X-Cement Ltd.
—The implementation of new logic metrics and measures to validate the success of, the new methodology.

The project explains reflective practice in the form of brainstorming sessions and fortnightly meetings referred here as “Project review meetings” arranged by the project team to discuss the status of the project success so far or time elapsed by a project iteration, what could be improved, and how to achieve more success in the future/ next project objective. These meetings purely represent Social learning as well as Experiential learning.

The project report explains the benefits achieved by X-Cement Ltd through reflection practice as:
—Increased collaboration and trust among staff and vendor project teams
—Increased work performance due to effective reflection
—No loop holes left unattended during the project
—Increased effective and detailed briefing on the project

Author: Ahmad Alshehri
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Knowledge Sharing in a Project Based Environment—Muhammad Haroon Mukhtar

The Importance of Knowledge Sharing in a Project Based Environment as a Means for Performance Improvement – Case Study: HT’s 3G Trial Network Project in Country P
This paper highlights the limitations imposed by an organization’s organizational structure on knowledge sharing among individuals and teams working on similar roles but in different projects that are isolated from each other. It takes as an example a small scale project of novel nature that a specific team was required to deliver having little to no technical expertise of the technology the project was meant to deliver. Some of the key issues that affected the project are discussed in detail along with the presentation of arguments how knowledge sharing between this projects’ team and another project team that had delivered a similar project could have benefitted the project in achieving an improved outcome.

The ever present pressure of delivering the project at the earliest also acts as a barrier to providing such teams a common platform to share relevant knowledge and experiences to enhance their skills and abilities and be better prepared for the unforeseen situations and obstacles. Moreover, quite often developing and maintaining knowledge gained from existing projects is overshadowed by the haste of delivering new projects.

This paper aims at emphasizing the opportunities that are missed due to such barriers, opportunities that promise learning and improvement for individuals, teams and organizations through knowledge sharing.

Author: Muhammad Haroon Mukhtar
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Project Performance Improvement—Denise O’Sullivan

Project Performance Improvement
This paper discusses the benefit of using reflection and improvement techniques in a software development and organisational change project. While the project was reasonably mature in the change management and implementation streams the paper argues that reflection could be embedded in a more structured fashion and that there is always room for improvement when teams are working together in this more virtual and complex world. The dark side of the organisation is explored and the conclusion is that there is plenty more work to be done on this human aspect of project management.

The paper concludes that the company where the new system was being implemented could have reduced costs if three areas of improvement were given more focus, employee understanding of the change, developer understanding of the user experience and more detailed planning of the support required during the implementation.

Author: Denise O’Sullivan
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Project Performance Improvements—Sepideh Habibipour

Project Performance Improvements
This reflective report explores the topics of ‘reflection’ and ‘learning through reflection’ within the context of the project environment within one of the major worldwide rail (brake system) manufacturer companies in Australia (hereby referred to as ‘The Rail Company’). Due to company development and changes in business strategy, implementing new processes, new modules in SAP and some minor changes in hierarchy organization structure were required. Therefore executive management has decided to define a project named ‘Operation Performance Improvement’ (hereby referred to as just ‘The Project’) to manage the requirements successfully. The project manager, to achieve continuous performance improvement and benefits in the project and organization level, has picked and implemented the reflective practice approach similar to Theory-in-practice (Winter et al, 2006) and SECI model(kujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, 2000). These approach and model have been implemented through the meetings named‘ Service Center improvement’ (hereby referred to as just ‘The weekly meeting’). The highlighted benefits that have been achieved through this project were increasing efficiencies in different department, increasing team member’s competencies and changing team members from trainers to reflective practitioner, increasing the level of trust through deferent departments by sharing knowledge and experiences in not judgmental environment and at the end adding knowledge Asset to the organization by creating processes of dynamic converting knowledge (from tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge). At the end this paper will focus on specified lessons learnt that have been achieved through this project and the works which team members and project manager will do differently in future projects.

Author: Sepideh Habibipour
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Tacit Knowledge in the Workplace—Brenton Conway

Tacit Knowledge in the Workplace
Tacit knowledge is not easily transferred to another person as it is not formalised or standardised and thus must be experienced by the learning party in order to be interpreted and transformed into actions. It is through the everyday experiences that employees build up their knowledge and skills which, in turn, allow them to solve complex problems based on previous experiences.

Tacit knowledge in the workplace entails the transfer and communication of skills and competences that are hard to quantify as these capabilities are not entirely known to whom possesses them. The project under discussion in this article is an upgrade in 2007 to the telecommunications system used in the chain of Bunnings hardware warehouse style department stores across the eastern seaboard using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology.

My role was that of an onsite Project Manager, and I was employed on a contract basis for this upgrade. Until this project was completed and I had studied tacit learning at university I had not realised how important this type of knowledge was to ultimately complete said job.

Reflective practice is a tool I was able to use to understand what lessons were learnt. In the beginning, while being a contractor, I considered that my contributions to the project were not presented in a way that added value in a corporate environment. Looking back on it, without realising it, I was emulating the behaviour of the senior engineers, observing and learning the protocols of big companies which eventually led to my full time employment.

Author: Brenton Conway
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)

Performance Techniques: Reflective Practice and Action Learning—Alexandra Secerbegovic

Performance Techniques: Reflective Practice and Action Learning as Leadership Developmental Tools in the Pursuit to Improve Project Performance within the Project Organisation
The purpose of this article is, using a literature review, to discuss the processes of Reflective Practice and Action Learning using a project based organisation as a case study and to discuss the advantages and importance of these processes to improving project performance through leadership development. Some of the barriers to effective implementation within such workplaces will also be discussed. The article will first provide the definition and importance of both Reflective Practice and Action Learning. This is then followed by linking these processes with the concept of the Learning Organisation in order to create an environment where leadership development is encouraged as part of employee engagement attract and retain strategies and the overall continuous improvement process.

The organisation used for this article is an Australian medium sized oil and gas company. A project based organisation undertaking exploration, construction and eventually operations of assets. The organisation does not currently undertake Action Learning, however realises that if it is to attract and retain skilled project managers, then it must offer a strong leadership development program, because a high salary is no longer the sole motivating factor for many project managers. It is my belief that this case study organisation will benefit from implementing a leadership development program based on Reflective Practice and Action Learning because the future of improving their projects is not just going to be through traditional technical training of their project managers but raising it to the next level.

Author: Alexandra Secerbegovic
Review status: Postgraduate assignment (University of Technology Sydney)