Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Knowledge ...

2. The PUS-project
Anandasivakumar Ekambaram and Agnar Johansen
The PUS-project had an ambition <strong>of</strong> focusing on leadership and culture connected to practical
management <strong>of</strong> uncertainty in major public and private projects. Lot <strong>of</strong> work was done on <strong>the</strong> issue <strong>of</strong>
uncertainty analysis both in Norway and abroad, and much <strong>of</strong> this kind <strong>of</strong> work was carried out in <strong>the</strong>
early phase ("front end loading") <strong>of</strong> projects. But, <strong>the</strong>re was less research on <strong>the</strong> issue <strong>of</strong> how to
manage opportunities and threats in a project’s life cycle in a practical manner. Fur<strong>the</strong>r more, <strong>the</strong>re
was not much research on how and what <strong>the</strong> project owner role should be with respect to
management <strong>of</strong> uncertainty; from <strong>the</strong> very start <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> project to <strong>the</strong> phase where <strong>the</strong> intended
benefits <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> projects are realised. PUS had an ambition to shed light on <strong>the</strong> owner's role related to
uncertainty management throughout <strong>the</strong> project life cycle. The project had a keen interest in
influencing large organizations’ thinking patterns and actions associated with identification and
management <strong>of</strong> uncertainty elements in projects.
The idea to start up <strong>the</strong> PUS-project was appeared in 2005, and <strong>the</strong> project was started in January
2006. The project was collaborated with <strong>the</strong> Research Council <strong>of</strong> Norway and Norwegian Center <strong>of</strong>
Project Management (NSP). The main industrial partners <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> project were:
Statoil (an international energy company with operations in 34 countries, headquartered in
Norway),
Norwegian Directorate <strong>of</strong> Public Construction and Property Management (Statsbygg),
Telenor (one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> world’s largest mobile operators with 33 200 employees worldwide,
headquartered in Norway)
Norwegian Armed Forces (Forsvaret)
Norwegian Public Roads Administration (Statens vegvesen)
Norwegian National Rail Administration (Jernbaneverket)
Apart from <strong>the</strong>se main industrial partners, o<strong>the</strong>r Norwegian organizations were also involved in <strong>the</strong>
PUS-project. The project’s cost frame was around 30 million Norwegian kroner (NOK) (ca 3.8 million
EURO). This frame included spin-<strong>of</strong>f projects and own efforts.
3. Theoretical background
In this section, we shall present <strong>the</strong>ories that are relevant to this paper. In this regard, <strong>the</strong> following
aspects are described:
• Knowledge management
• The role <strong>of</strong> project owner
3.1 Knowledge management
There are several definitions <strong>of</strong> knowledge management. Our intension here is not to present different
definitions. We shall present a major categorization <strong>of</strong> knowledge and a definition that we consider
with respect to this paper.
There are two major perspectives that can be associated with <strong>the</strong> topic <strong>of</strong> knowledge management
(Hislop, 2009). They are:
Objective perspective: This perspective considers knowledge as an object and incorporates a
positivistic philosophy. Application <strong>of</strong> information technology traditionally tends to approach
knowledge management from this perspective.
Practice-based perspective: This perspective considers that knowledge is embedded in practice
and is socially constructed. And hence, <strong>the</strong> approach suggests that it is not possible to consider
knowledge as objective “facts”, completely free from <strong>the</strong> context.
In this paper, we shall consider <strong>the</strong> following definition, given by Davenport et al. (1998):
Davenport et al. (1998, page 5) say
Knowledge is a fluid mix <strong>of</strong> framed experience, values, contextual information and expert
insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and
information. It originates and is applied in <strong>the</strong> minds <strong>of</strong> knowers. In organizations, it <strong>of</strong>ten
becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational
routines, processes, practices and norms.
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