Assembling The Project Compendium - Computing Technical ...

APPENDIX A EXTENDED ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION
Research has shown that projects generally have a reputation of failure with many not
meeting budgets, timelines and requirements. Project success is generally measured by a
project‟s performance against budget, timeline, scope and customer satisfactions. Project
methodologies have been introduced and refined to assist with project success. These
methodologies are accompanied by tools, templates and instruments or what this
dissertation refers to as project compendium components. The absence of components is
rarely highlighted as a contributing factor to project failure. However, the use of
components as a contributing factor towards project success is implied because they are
aligned with project management methodologies and their components can facilitate the
transfer of relevant knowledge to project stakeholders. Due to the growing number of
global and virtual project teams, knowledge management has become increasingly important.
The predicament faced by PMs in regards to relying on
components for project knowledge transfer is that much
important knowledge is based on feelings and insights which is
difficult to extract and capture with components. Further,
face to face or personal exchange is often cited as the best
means of knowledge transfer which is not always viable for the growing number of global
and virtual teams, due to costs, time differences and distances. This dissertation attempts to
look at this dichotomy, it aims to understand how valuable individual components are in
their contribution to project success.
RESULTS
Personal
exchange
Compendium
components
Seventy-nine PMs responded to a web based questionnaire which captured data about PMs‟
beliefs and ideas about project success, the value of individual components, why there is
resistance to using components, knowledge management and collaborative software.
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