The Quid Pro Quo of Cross-Functional Knowledge Sharing

Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.

  Career Development   Knowledge Management   Lessons Learned  

I’m not sure that everyone will see the ideas I’m going to share here as strictly philanthropic, but I feel it fits well with this month’s theme. The approach I’m going to describe doesn’t need any formal organizational commitment; it simply needs a group of like-minded individuals to take it on themselves to grow each other’s skills and understanding. It is also something that will benefit every one of the people involved, which seems to me the classic win/win situation we all strive for.

During the management and oversight of more projects than I care to admit, I have seen numerous situations where the project has suffered from team members having a lack of understanding--or worse, a misunderstanding--of the role other individuals play on the team. More often than not, this is caused by the absence of an accurate understanding of the role different functional areas play in the overall business model.

In other words, they may understand the details of what a particular colleague is expected to do as part of the project team, but that understanding lacks the context of the role their functional area plays in the organization as a whole--how it functions, how it integrates with other departments, etc.

Perhaps worse, I have seen many project managers create more confusion for their teams by trying to provide an explanation when they …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.