Case Studies

Case Study 1

7. Ability to share knowledge and ideas internally within organization

7.1. What is knowledge

Country	Portugal
Title	The price of the missing knowledge and information
Summary	Knowledge is an extremely valuable resource in any organization. Being produced by human beings, it’s of high relevance to make sure that this asset is properly stored within the organization and made available to all interested parts. This will not only allow the organization pool of knowledge to grow as it will also make sure that the existing knowledge is not lost, compromising all the organization efforts.
Key Issues	Knowledge is a powerful resource created only by people. The process of sharing knowledge and ideas within an organization is crucial for its growth and development. Knowledge is built together and grows when shared. Experience and documented knowledge are crucial for knowledge creation. Make sure you create the opportunities to bring the two together and make accessible to all, within the organization
Description of the case study	Pedro is a young yet experienced programmer that took a position as a project coordinator at an IT company. Pedro was replacing the previous project manager in charge of one important company project. He was excited to start working in this reputable company, and in a highly interesting and challenging project. He was going to coordinate a team of programmers but there were some challenges: the project had already started, there were some challenging errors to be solve, there were some new members in the team. When starting his job, Pedro faced his main obstacle. There was no information on the work done so far and the team members were not aware of the work done by those already out of the team and the company. Although overwhelmed, it was time to do his job and avoid the past mistakes. Pedro spent weeks trying to understand the work done, discussing the project with his team colleagues, trying to figure out how pieces of the programme were developed, redoing steps of the work already done, working on solutions for the programme errors and so on. However, it was clear for Pedro, that there was no space to repeat the mistakes of the past jeopardizing the company’s product and reputation. The lack of shared information and knowledge could not be part of his teamwork. To address the problem, Pedro created an online journal where every single step of the programme was documented and accessible to all the team. Procedures, errors, solutions implemented, etc. were all registered in this journal. With this, not only all of those working in the project would have access to the work, information, and knowledge produced by everyone in the team, but, also, this solution become a collaborative tool were everyone could support each other and, above all, anyone that would start working in the programme would find all the required information to complete the job. The tool, with all its best and worst practices, would support not only the development of the current project but would also be available to support future projects, providing ideas, information and knowledge that could be suitable for new projects. If the creation of a mechanism to share ideas, information and knowledge across the project team was a good practice for the company, the previous inexistence of any type of sharing practice cost valuable time to the company and almost put at risk an important project.

Case Study 2

7. Ability to share knowledge and ideas internally within organization

7.2. Interaction and sharing

Country	Portugal
Title	Internal knowledge sharing for an optimal performance
Summary	An established and successful IT company bought a young and promising company in a South America country. To ensure a proper adjustment to the internal culture, processes and knowledge management practices within the company, a team of managers from different departments traveled and spend a couple of weeks with the new team. At the same time, the team was training to use internal tools connecting offices from the different countries where the company operates to support knowledge sharing and support to solutions development.
Key Issues	Socialization plays a key role in the process of knowledge and ideas sharing. While documented knowledge can be of high importance to the acquisition of new knowledge, contextualization, experience, and apprenticeships are crucial to acquire undocumented knowledge (tacit knowledge). IT tools can be very useful to support knowledge and ideas sharing within an organization.
Description of the case study	XPTO, Ltda is a highly successful IT company, ranked among top European best places to work and with a strong and fluid knowledge and idea sharing culture. As part of its expansion and internationalization strategy, XPTO acquired a promising South American company. While this new acquisition was very promising, with a young, hardworking, and dynamic team, the implemented processes, practices and organizational culture was far from being as effective as the XPTO ones and contributed to many flaws that were compromising the performance of the company. Since the first moment, it was clear for XPTO the importance of working with the new team to transfer processes, change the internal culture and implement practices and channels to link this new team with the company teams working in offices in so many other countries. A collaborative working plan was designed and put in place. The first step was the creation of multidisciplinary team that travelled and worked with the new team, in their own offices, for a couple of weeks. This peer-to-peer learning allowed the transfer of knowledge and information to support the new team to engage in the company culture and working processes, as well as the immersion in the company operations. After the personal engagement in the knowledge sharing process, the company followed with the continuous interaction with team through IT sharing platforms and regular in person visits. Making use of the company online sharing platforms, the new team was in constant contact with teams from all over the world, sharing information, knowledge and discussing solutions and opportunities. The successful knowledge transfer allowed the company expansion, keeping its core strategic advantage – having the best place to work, were employees feel happy and are highly engaged and committed with the success of its projects, and have all the tools and environment to share their ideas and knowledge.