Elsevier

Long Range Planning

Volume 41, Issue 1, February 2008, Pages 74-92
Long Range Planning

Visualizing Knowledge in Project-Based Work

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2007.10.006Get rights and content

This article considers how visual practices are used to manage knowledge in project-based work. It compares project-based work in a capital goods manufacturer and an architectural firm. Visual representations are used extensively in both cases, but the nature of visual practice differs significantly between the two. The research explores the kinds of knowledge that are (and aren't) developed and made visible in strategizing and planning activities. For example, whereas the emphasis of project-based work in the former firm is on exploitation of knowledge and it visualizes its project context largely in commercial and processual terms, the emphasis in the latter is on exploration and it uses a wide range of visual materials to understand physical interdependencies across the project boundary. We contend particular kinds of visual tools can help project teams step between exploration and exploitation within a project, and articulate the types of representations, foci of attention and patterns of interaction involved. The findings suggest that business managers can make more deliberate choices about how knowledge is made visible, and can change visual practice to align the project with exploring and exploiting opportunities. It raises the question: What don't you see within your organization? The work contributes to academic debates about managing through projects, strategising and organizing, while the focus on visual representation disrupts the tacit-codified dichotomy in the broad debate on knowledge and learning, and highlights the craft skills central to strategizing and organizing.

Introduction

Traditionally, knowledge has been viewed as something that can be captured, codified and transferred.1 However, in the recent literature on organizational knowledge and learning an alternative ‘practice-based’ view is proposed, where tacit and codified knowledge are seen as inseparable, and knowledge is understood as emergent, developed through interactions between people and objects.2 Our work builds on this latter perspective, focusing on the role of a particular class of objects – visual representations. These have particular characteristics as they are made to convey meaning. They provide a ‘holding ground’ for different types of practitioner knowledge and are often changed and evolved as knowledge develops.3

With the widespread adoption of project-based forms of organization there is a pressing need to deepen our understanding of how knowledge is developed and evolved within projects, and how that knowledge and the associated learning is shared across projects. This article explores the roles that visual representations play through a detailed qualitative study of project-based work in two contrasting settings: a capital goods manufacturer (which we have given the pseudonym HighTech) and an architectural design practice, Edward Cullinan Architects (ECA). The overall question that guides our work is: How are visual practices used to manage knowledge in project-based work? We approached our data with a number of related questions: What kinds of visual representations are used in the project-based work? What is the focus of visual practice (i.e. what is made visible and what remains invisible)? Who ‘owns’ the different visual representations? What are the patterns of interaction with the visual material?

Recent interest in strategizing and organizing as practical activities draw attention to the hands-on crafting work that undertaken by the practicing manager, and highlights the power of deliberately using objects or symbolic artefacts in strategizing and planning activities.4 Our empirical work shows ways in which visual representations become mobilised as objects in practical activities and draws out the implications of their use for managing through projects. Through an analysis of the findings we develop and ground the argument that visual tools can help project teams to step between exploration and exploitation within a project, bringing into view new connections with organizations, communities and networks across project boundaries. The next section describes practice-based approaches to knowledge, in which interactions with objects (such as visual representations) are seen as important in knowledge development and learning. The next section outlines the literature on project-based learning and innovation, which identifies the challenges associated with learning through projects in various contexts. The following sections give details of the two cases that are the focus of empirical work, and then describe our findings, which show the important roles visual materials play in project-based work. Here we explain how the nature of these practices is markedly different in the two setting, and articulate the types of representations, the foci of attention and the patterns of interaction that are involved. Finally, the practical implications of the work for both managers and researchers are drawn out.

Section snippets

Practice-based approaches to knowledge

Practice-based approaches to knowledge view it as a social accomplishment, situated in ongoing interactions between people and objects. Through these interactions the meaning of words, actions, situations and material artefacts are negotiated. Learning takes the form of a ‘conversation with materials’, involving interactions with an object that may itself be changed and reconfigured as part of this knowledge work, and it also involves story-telling and conversation between people and groups. It

Project based learning and innovation

Recent interest in project-based learning and innovation is challenging the dominant view of projects as fast and flexible ways of organizing knowledge resources.19 Rather, it shows how the episodic nature of projects can lead to the loss of knowledge as teams disband and go onto other projects, and highlights the dangers of disjuncture between the project and the wider context of organizations, communities and networks in and through which projects operate.20 This leads to questions about how

Our empirical study

We use design as a context for studying knowledge and learning in project-based work because new product development has been discussed as one of the most knowledge-intensive and dynamic processes in business.26 The two cases we study, HighTech and ECA, represent different kinds of project-based settings, within which work addresses contrasting kinds of design. HighTech (a pseudonym) is the UK division of a global high-tech equipment manufacturing firm, where the emphasis of project-based work

Findings: visual representations and design problems

The data suggests that visual practices play an important role in the project-based work of both firms. Exhibit 1 illustrates similar types of visual practices observed in the two settings, where project progress is being presented and explained, and work-in-progress is being discussed by the teams.

Analysing the data from each case we found that visual practices provided a bridge between project work and wider organizational processes. In both firms, multiple projects are being worked on and

Acknowledgement

We would like to thank the LRP editor and the Special Issue editors for their formative suggestions, guidance and encouragement in developing this article. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the support of the UK's ESRC under the Evolution of Business Knowledge (EBK) program, award no. RES-334-25-0007, and the support of the UK's EPSRC through the Innovative Manufacturing Research Centre, BEIC, held at the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London. We would like to thank Jon Sapsed

Jennifer Whyte is Reader in Innovation and Design at the University of Reading, having previously been a Senior Research Fellow at the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, UK. Her research covers the fields of design, visualization, technologies and organization, and involves in-depth qualitative studies that explore decision-making processes within firms. She has a particular interest in engineering, architecture and construction contexts. School of Construction Management and

References (32)

  • S.D.N. Cook et al.

    Culture and organizational learning

    Journal of Management Inquiry

    (1993)
    D. Yanow

    Seeing organizational learning: a cultural view

    Organization

    (2000)
  • W.E. Steinmueller

    Will new information and communication technologies improve the ‘codification’ of knowledge?

    Industrial and Corporate Change

    (2000)
  • H. Tsoukas

    The firm as a distributed knowledge system: a constructionist approach

    Strategic Management Journal

    (1996)
    K. Knorr Cetina

    Epistemic cultures: how the sciences make knowledge

    (1999)
    S. Gherardi et al.

    To transfer is to transform: the circulation of safety knowledge

    Organization

    (2000)
  • K. Henderson

    On line and on paper: visual representations, visual culture, and computer graphics in design engineering

    (1999)
  • R. Whittington et al.

    Practices of strategising/organising: broadening strategy work and skills

    Long Range Planning

    (2006)
  • S. Gherardi

    Organizations knowledge: a practice-based approach to learning in the workplace

    (2006)
    D.A. Schön

    The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action

    (1983)
    K. Knorr Cetina

    Objectual practice

    Y. Gabriel

    Storytelling in organizations

    (2000)
  • P. Hancock

    Uncovering the semiotic in organizational aesthetics

    Organization

    (2005)
    P. Gagliardi

    Exploring the aesthetic side of organizational life

    A. Strati

    Organization and aesthetics

    (1999)
    A. Strati

    Organizations viewed through the lens of aesthetics

    Organization

    (1996)
    B. Ewenstein et al.

    Beyond words: Aesthetic knowledge and knowing in organizations

    Organisation Studies

    (2007)
  • Y. Engeström et al.

    Introduction to the Special Issue on the Rise of Objects in the Study of Organizations

    Organization

    (2005)
  • P.R. Carlile

    A pragmatic view of knowledge and boundaries; boundary objects in new product development

    Organization Science

    (2002)
  • J. Sapsed et al.

    Postcards from the edge: Local communities, global programs and boundary objects

    Organization Studies

    (2004)
  • B.A. Bechky

    Object lessons: workplace artifacts as representations of occupational jurisdiction

    American Journal of Sociology

    (2003)
  • B. Ewenstein and J. Whyte, Knowledge practices in design: The role of visual representations as ‘epistemic objects’,...
  • J.K. Whyte et al.

    ‘Visual practices and the built environment’, Editorial for the Special issue on Visual Practices: Images of Knowledge Work

    Building Research and Information

    (2007)
  • M. Schrage

    Serious play: how the world's best companies simulate to innovate

    (2000)
  • K. Henderson (1999) (op. cit at Ref...
  • S. Kaplan, Strategy and powerpoint: communication genres and the practice of strategy making, in Organization Studies...M.J. Eppler

    A comparison between concept maps, mind maps, conceptual diagrams, and visual metaphors as complementary tools for knowledge construction and sharing

    Information Visualization

    (2006)
  • Cited by (0)

    Jennifer Whyte is Reader in Innovation and Design at the University of Reading, having previously been a Senior Research Fellow at the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, UK. Her research covers the fields of design, visualization, technologies and organization, and involves in-depth qualitative studies that explore decision-making processes within firms. She has a particular interest in engineering, architecture and construction contexts. School of Construction Management and Engineering, Whiteknights, PO Box 219, Reading, RG6 6AW UK tel: 0118 378 5228 e-mail: [email protected]

    Boris Ewenstein is a consultant in the Berlin office of McKinsey & Company, having completed this research while working as a Research Associate at the Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London. His research interests include the epistemology of organizational knowledge and knowing, reflexivity theory and the sociology of formal and informal learning processes. McKinsey & Company Inc, Kurfürstendamm 185, 10707 Berlin Germany tel: +49 30 8845-2402 e-mail: [email protected]

    Michael Hales is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research) at the University of Sussex. His research interests centre on the contributions made by artefacts (notably representational artefacts and representational technologies) in knowledge work, design and management, interpreted to include activity by ‘ordinary’ members of organizations. SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), The Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, East Sussex BN1 9QE UK tel: 01273 324 650; email: [email protected];

    Joe Tidd is Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at SPRU (Science & Technology Policy Research), University of Sussex, UK. He has worked for the CBI (Confederation of British Industry), is Managing Editor of the International Journal of Innovation Management, and author of six books and more than sixty papers, including Meeting the Innovation Challenge (Wiley, 2006). SPRU (Science and Technology Policy Research), The Freeman Centre, University of Sussex, East Sussex BN1 9QE UK tel: (01273) 877160 e-mail: [email protected]

    View full text