INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF

PROJECT
MANAGEMENT
International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
www.elsevier.com/locate/ijproman

Exploring the knowledge inventory in project-based organisations:

a case study
Dirk Pieter van Donk *, Jan Riezebos
Faculty of Management and Organisation, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands

Received 28 November 2003; received in revised form 16 January 2004; accepted 14 May 2004

Abstract

Knowledge and knowledge management are nowadays seen as vital areas for most organisations. Only recently, knowledge
management has been introduced in and linked to project management and project-based organisations. However, measuring the
available knowledge inventory has been largely neglected. This paper develops and applies an approach for measuring the
knowledge inventory in project-based organisations that fits the specific nature of this type of organisation. The approach is il-
lustrated in a case concerning an engineering office.

2004 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Knowledge inventory; Knowledge management

1. Introduction • People tend to work shorter for individual organisa-

Management literature, both the popular and scien-
tific, has been paying attention to knowledge and
knowledge management for a number of years. Al-
though organisations and their managers realise that
knowledge is important it is not always easy to find a
starting point for managing knowledge in an organisa-
tion. Only recently, knowledge management has been
addressed within the context of project-based organisa-
tions. Love et al. [1] state in their Editorial to the Special
Issue in the International Journal of Project Manage-
ment that knowledge is a vital resource in project-based
industries and that managing this resource is a new and
challenging process for these industries. In today’s dy-
namic and changing environment knowledge and
knowledge management seem to grow in importance
due to changes in and around projects:
• Projects tend to be larger and more complex, necessi-
tating collaboration of different disciplines (for which
knowledge of capabilities is needed);
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +31-50-3637345.
E-mail address: d.p.van.donk@bdk.rug.nl (D.P. van Donk).
tions (job-hopping) and need help in finding experi-
enced people in their new organisation;
• New products and markets have to be reached, for
which management needs all the information and ex-
periences of all employees at hand.
We also encountered these managerial questions in a
large Dutch engineering office. The above questions
were the starting point for the present research.
In order to deal with these questions, project-based
organisations need to know what knowledge is available
in their organisations. Kasvi et al. [2, 571] state that
‘‘identification of critical knowledge and the ability to
utilise it is a challenge for any project organisation’’.
Bresnen et al. [3, 158] conclude that empirical studies
have shown how difficult it is to learn across and be-
tween projects. One of the underlying difficulties is
probably that the available knowledge in project-based
organisations is not easy to capture. Neither general
literature on knowledge management nor specific liter-
ature on knowledge management in projects provides an
adequate method for capturing this knowledge explicitly
[4]. Two streams can be distinguished in the literature.
On the one hand, literature in the field pays attention to
the importance of knowledge management in organisa-
tions and to explaining how knowledge should be

0263-7863/$30.00
2004 Elsevier Ltd and IPMA. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.ijproman.2004.05.002
76 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
retained and managed (e.g. [5]). This part of the litera-
ture is closely related to the fields of human resource
management, organisational culture, behaviour and
leadership. The emphasis is on developing the right
circumstances (organisational structures, processes and
culture) to stimulate the development of knowledge. On
the other hand, part of the literature related to the de-
velopment of information and expert systems is more
explicit and aims at finding and mapping knowledge on
a very detailed level. Here, the aim is to represent part of
the knowledge, reasoning and decision making of an
expert within a well-defined domain to use it in an in-
formation, expert or decision support system. Such an
expert system decides on certain problems; partly re-
places the human expert and helps and supports a (less
experienced) person in doing an expert job. While the
management-oriented literature aims at managerial ac-
tions for creating a learning organisation, the expert
systems approach aims at the representation of the way
an individual decides. Both are valuable approaches, but
not useful for helping project-based organisations with
the above challenges or with measuring what knowledge
is available in a project-based organisation.
In this paper, we aim at an intermediate level in be-
tween the more normative knowledge management lit-
erature aimed at the organisational circumstances, and
the detailed representation of expert systems. This in-
termediate level will better suit the management of
project-based organisations. Kamara et al. [6] state that
management in these organisations needs more assis-
tance in identifying, making explicit and controlling the
high-grade knowledge of their organisations. Manage-
ment needs this knowledge in order to control the or-
ganisation at both an individual level and an aggregate
level.
Recently some work has been done on knowledge
developed in projects and the distribution among par-
ticipants [2,3]. The aim of those projects is developing
certain specific knowledge. Egbu [7] addresses manage-
rial issues in the construction refurbishment sector, but
hardly pays attention to measuring knowledge. Acqui-
sition of knowledge in a project environment is also
addressed [6]. However, measuring the knowledge nee-
ded in projects is not addressed. This type of knowledge
is specifically useful in multi-project organisations to
support decisions on the allocation of people to projects,
and the development of people.
The central aim of this paper is to develop and apply
a method to measure the knowledge inventory in pro-
ject-based organisations. The knowledge inventory (also
labelled as intellectual capital or knowledge assets) is
described as ‘‘a small number of specialised competen-
cies maintained by the individuals and groups that make
up the organisation’’ [8, 103]. In line with this descrip-
tion, our approach is based on the typical characteristics
of projects and project management. The approach is
implemented and evaluated in a large engineering office.
The results are relevant for other project-based organi-
sations as well, as implied in the remarks of Kamara
et al. [6].
This paper is organised as follows. First, we will
discuss knowledge management in general and in pro-
ject-based organisations. Based on a closer look at the
work of project managers and different types of
knowledge, we develop an instrument to make the
knowledge inventory explicit. This instrument fits the
work characteristics of project-based organisations. We
discuss and show the working and implementation of
the instrument in a large Dutch engineering office. The
last section gives concluding remarks and discusses the
results, along with a discussion of the general applica-
bility of our approach.
2. Knowledge management
As with other organisational concepts, knowledge
and knowledge management have been studied from a
variety of disciplines. Contributions have been made
from learning theory, cognitive sciences, strategic man-
agement, and information and decision sciences. On an
organisational level, knowledge is seen as one of the
main competitive advantages (e.g. [9]). Especially the
resource-based view [10] and knowledge management
approaches [11] suggest that knowledge is a major factor
for attaining superior performance. Some empirical
studies have tried to establish the link between the
knowledge and competencies of firms and their business
performance (e.g. [12,13]). So far, a large part of the
management literature (like the well-known Nonaka
and Takeuchi [5]) stresses that knowledge should be
nurtured. This literature suggests a number of manage-
rial actions to be taken to absorb, transfer, maintain and
exploit knowledge. Especially, organisational restruc-
turing and good human resource management practices
together with appropriate information and communi-
cation technology seem to be important.
Knowledge management refers to the developing
body of methods, tools, techniques and values through
which organisations can acquire, develop, measure,
distribute and provide a return on their intellectual as-
sets [14]. There has been some concern about what
knowledge is and what differentiates this concept from
other concepts as data, information or information
technology (e.g. [5,15]. Wiig [16] gives a good descrip-
tion: ‘‘knowledge consists of truths and beliefs, per-
spectives and concepts, judgements and expectations,
methodologies and know-how and is possessed by hu-
mans, agents, or other active entities and is used. . .to
determine what a specific situation means and how to
handle it’’. The main idea in this description is captured
in the short description by Nooteboom [17] who states
 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
that ‘‘knowledge is understanding plus the ability to
transform it into actions (skills), which yields perfor-
mance’’, and in the distinction between ‘‘knowing
about’’ (understanding) and ‘‘knowing how’’ (the abil-
ity) as made by Grant [18]. Leonard–Barton [19] relates
organizational knowledge to the ability to differentiate
an organization from competitors and provide it com-
petitive advantage.
So far, less attention has been given to what Levinthal
and March [8] label as the ‘‘knowledge inventory’’ of an
organisation: ‘‘a small number of specialised compe-
tencies maintained by the individuals and groups that
make up the organisation’’ [8, 103]. The theory on
measuring knowledge (or the knowledge inventory) and
assessing strategic competencies in organisations in
general seems even more ignored, as is reflected in the
recent statement by King and Zeithaml [20, 763]: ‘‘our
tools for measuring organizational knowledge are crude
and often inadequate’’. We conclude that a directly
applicable method is not available from the general or-
ganisational literature. However, the above descriptions
[8,16–18] show that it is specifically important to mea-
sure knowledge that is necessary for actions contributing
to performance. In our opinion, measuring the knowl-
edge inventory aims thus at finding those specific types
of knowledge that are necessary for the main organisa-
tional activities. Kamara et al. [6] interpret knowledge in
a similar way by referring to knowledge as ‘‘what is vital
for task completion and future repetition of the task’’.
In the context of project-based organisations, the pur-
pose is to find the main elements of projects (and their
successful completion) and project management and
relate those to different types of knowledge.
As mentioned in Section 1, a method for measuring
the knowledge inventory in project-based organisations
is not available. However, King and Zeithaml [20]
present a method for measuring organisational
knowledge, which they applied to non-project-based
organisations. As they tested their method in different
industries, step one and two of their method consists of
selecting industries and organisations, and building re-
searcher knowledge on the specificities of each industry
and firm. Only the succeeding two steps are therefore
relevant for our research aim: (1) data collection: in-
terview CEO’s to identify organisational knowledge re-
sources; and (2) data collection: survey managers to
measure organisational knowledge resources. We can-
not apply their method directly, as it focuses on mea-
suring the organisational knowledge on a comparison
scale with the competency of competitors. Moreover, it
focuses on strategic competencies instead of the main
organisational activities. Still, their knowledge-measur-
ing framework is a good starting point for the devel-
opment of a method for measuring the knowledge
inventory in project-based organisations. A first step is
to relate knowledge management to project manage-
77
ment, as Von Krogh et al. [21] suggest that organisa-
tional knowledge is grounded in a firm and its industry
environment.
Boud
es et al. [22] distinguish three categories of
project expertise. Skills related to project monitoring
techniques, interpersonal skills (related to motivating
project-members, solving conflicts, etc.), and specific
technical expertise. Lampel [23] also relates knowledge
management to project management. Lampel describes
the importance of core competencies of effective project
execution for developing a successful expansion strategy
for engineering companies. On an organisational level,
he distinguishes four core competencies for engineering-
construction-procurement firms labelled as entrepre-
neurial (mainly the ability to acquire projects from
clients), technical (related to technological know-how),
evaluative (ability to plan a project) and relational
competencies (ability to control and manage the pro-
ject). However, the competencies are not measured in
detail. Lundin and Midler [24] provide a number of
papers that describe and analyses the role of projects
and project management in developing knowledge and
stimulating organisational learning. Measuring
knowledge used in project management is not their fo-
cus. Damm and Schindler [25] describe different types of
project knowledge: knowledge about projects, in projects
and from projects in order to built a database/system for
sharing knowledge between firms. The focus of their
paper is to describe the modules of and tools for making
such an information system (including the security and
trust issues) but it hardly pays attention to measuring
the different types of knowledge. Kamara et al. [6] de-
velop a methodology for selecting the best strategy for
business problems related to a lack of knowledge. Their
focus is to select the best knowledge acquisition strategy,
given a more or less defined knowledge problem.
However, their aim is to develop appropriate (manage-
ment) procedures and hardly any attention is given to
measuring or identifying knowledge. Apparently, these
papers are not directly solving our problem.
From the above several conclusions can be draw.
Firstly, different types of knowledge need to be distin-
guished in measuring the knowledge inventory in a
project-based firm. Secondly, we need to find the vital
elements in project management work and relate those
elements to the types of knowledge needed to perform
those activities. Both strongly related subjects are dis-
cussed in the next section.
3. Different types of knowledge in project-based organi-
sations
To start the discussion and to show how many dif-
ferent aspects are needed in project management, the
description of Kerzner [26, 162] is illustrative: ‘‘the ideal
78 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
project manager would probably have doctorates in
engineering, business and psychology, and experience
with 10 different companies in a variety of project office
positions, and would be about 25 years old’’. This
quotation stresses as in the above findings that a method
for measuring knowledge should be closely linked to the
most important tasks to be executed in a project-based
organisation and related to its industry environment, as
was proposed in [21]. A consequence is that we need
insight into the work of project managers as a first step
to build an instrument for measuring the knowledge
inventory. In other words, our method should fit the
specific characteristics of a project-based organisation
and the work of people in these projects.
Some recent papers address a number of aspects of the
work of project managers. Blackburn [27] distinguishes
two different directions: the engineering and management
tradition emphasising the set of techniques, methodol-
ogies and tools that can be found in the well-known
project management literature (e.g. [28,29]) and opposite
to that the sociological network approach stressing the
interplay between the project manager and the project
methodologies. Another study Ogunlana et al. [30]
mentions as essential skills for project managers con-
ceptual, human, negotiation and technical skills. Lampel
[23], in line with earlier work [22], also distinguishes dif-
ferent elements, which can be summarised as entrepre-
neurial, technical and project management knowledge.
In summary, we conclude that there are three main
aspects of knowledge in an engineering firm (and gen-
erally in project-based organisations): entrepreneurial,
technical and project management knowledge. The first
type is restricted to acquisition. The second to technol-
ogy in a narrow, technical sense and the last type com-
bines aspects of know-how on project management
(techniques) and real experience in conducting and
managing projects [23,27,30]. Theoretical and empirical
work (e.g. [23,26,30,31]) shows that experience is con-
sidered as the best possible proxy for project manage-
ment knowledge in the above sense. Ogunlana et al. [30]
also mention experience as the most important variable
in selecting a project manager for a specific project.
The distinction of the core aspects of the knowledge
inventory in project-based organisations matches quite
well with other research in knowledge management.
These aspects are comparable to those that Helfat and
Raubitschek [12] distinguish in their approach to ‘‘the
system of knowledge’’ in technology-intensive compa-
nies. They define core knowledge as scientific or tech-
nological knowledge that is at the heart of, and forms
the foundation for, a product or service. This is well
covered by our technical knowledge above. The other
type of knowledge is integrative knowledge defined as
knowledge that integrates, or knowledge on how to in-
tegrate different activities, capabilities, and products.
We label such knowledge as entrepreneurial and project
management knowledge. Our distinction is also com-
parable to approaches that are more general. Technical
knowledge can be compared with ‘‘knowing about’’ [18],
explicit knowledge [5] or codified knowledge [2,4] while
project management knowledge is comparable to
‘‘knowing how’’ [18], tacit knowledge [5] or personal
knowledge [2,4]. We consider entrepreneurial, technical
and project management knowledge as the core know-
ledge types in project-based organisations.
4. Measuring the knowledge inventory
The previous section concluded that in order to
identify the knowledge inventory of an organisation
three aspects need to be measured: entrepreneurial,
technical and project management knowledge. More-
over, a method for measuring the knowledge inventory
should consist of two separate stages of data collection.
The first stage specifies usage of the knowledge inven-
tory and applies interviews to collect data from the user,
and the next stage uses surveys to collect data from the
knowledge resources. In the experimental setting of
King and Zeithaml [20], the usage was specified as the
identification of the competitive advantage of the firm,
and the user was the CEO of the firm. Other managers
were considered as knowledge resources. We use this
framework to design a method for measuring the
knowledge inventory in project-based organisations.
First, we have to specify both users and usage. Our
method is oriented towards the management of a pro-
ject-based organisation, so managers are considered as
the users of the knowledge inventory. Managers require
transparent reports with key figures on the actual state
of knowledge in the organisation. They will use the in-
formation on the knowledge inventory when deciding on
strategy, markets, innovation and investments, which
specifies the usage of the method. Decisions on project
selection, personnel development, and allocation of
employees to project phases have to be supported by this
information as well. The method should therefore ex-
plore the three core elements of the knowledge inventory
of various employees in different markets (to support
project selection), and different phases of projects (to
support employee allocation).
We want to explore specific facets of the knowledge
inventory of knowledge resources (particular employees)
in a set of predetermined project phases and markets.
We consider the types of knowledge inventory as the
domain of a function. Each knowledge type is affected
by decisions on project selection and employee alloca-
tion. The set of historical decisions is considered as the
function that maps the domain (the selected facets of the
knowledge inventory) into the range of the function
(measurable knowledge within the sets of employees,
markets and project phases).
 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
d r
Entrepreneurial o
m a Employees
Technical a Identify n Markets
i g
Project management n e Project Phases
Scales Measure Validation
Item level Aggregate level
Report
Fig. 1. Stages in the method of exploring the knowledge inventory.
In order to explore this inventory, we first have to
identify the set of employees, project phases and mar-
kets, and specify what knowledge we want to measure.
Next, measurement should take place and, finally, re-
ports should be generated. Hence, the method consists
of three stages: identify, measure and report, as shown
in Fig. 1.
The first stage identifies what to measure. It consists
of both domain and range specification. Domain speci-
fication formulates the core knowledge types that have
to be measured. This process has to be performed in
close co-operation with both the users and the owners of
the knowledge. Range specification is a decision of the
users of the knowledge inventory only. It specifies the set
of employees whose knowledge inventory has to be ex-
plored, and defines the markets and project phases that
have to be distinguished.
The next stage measures the knowledge inventory. It
consists of three phases: selecting the measurement
scales, performing the measurements, and validating the
data.
The final stage reports on the knowledge inventory of
the organisation. Reports can be generated on item or
aggregate level. Item level reports provide information
on the elements of the range specification. For example,
a report on the specific knowledge inventory of an em-
ployee in different project phases and markets. Another
example is a report on the knowledge inventory in a
specific project phase, with details on the type of
knowledge of employees and the markets where this
knowledge was gained. Aggregate level reports provide
information on a higher level. They abstract from dif-
ferences within the set of employees, markets, or project
phases, and generalise the knowledge inventory to the
organisational level. Both reports have value for the
management of a project-based organisation.
The exploration method is a generic method for ex-
ploring knowledge in project-based organisations, and
provides more details than King and Zeithaml [20].
However, each organisation will have to make its own
choices when applying this method. The actual design
and application of the method depends on the require-
ments of both users and usage (frequency, purpose) in
the real-life setting in an organisation. The next section
79
describes an application of this method in an engineer-
ing office.
5. Case study: application of the method in an engineering
office
The Dutch engineering office traditionally operates as
a subcontractor for specific phases in large projects.
Examples of these phases are pre-design and detailed
engineering design. They are increasingly involved in
earlier stages of these projects. Some complex projects
are run over several years, but most take a few months,
are restricted to a small part of an overall project, and
involve only one or two engineering disciplines. The
organisations basic structure is functional: the 250 em-
ployees are organised in departments around specific
disciplines such as processing, piping, product routing
and logistics, mechanical, civil, electrical and instru-
mentation engineering, environmental issues, and con-
struction. Each department has specific knowledge on
applications in branches such as food processing,
chemical engineering, utility building, or sport facilities.
Employees from different functional departments are
allocated to projects. In general, they are simultaneously
involved in a number of projects. Employees from the
Project Control department co-ordinate the large multi-
disciplinary projects. This type of organisation and the
type of projects can be characterized as multi-project
management [32,33].
The management of this organisation was interested
in detailed information on the involvement and know-
ledge of their employees in different phases of projects
and markets in order to be able to broaden the scope of
their activities. This would help them in exploring new
markets, provide a basis for investment in new personnel
and training programs, and help them to improve the
allocation of employees to new projects from a strategic
point of view.
The method for exploring knowledge in project-based
organisations was applied in this engineering office.
Both the general manager and department managers
were identified as the main users of this knowledge. The
intended usage was on a frequent basis, so the method
should provide at any time an up-to-date status of the
knowledge inventory.
The first stage of the method identified both the do-
main and range of the knowledge inventory manage-
ment system. For the domain representation decision,
all three knowledge types (entrepreneurial, technical and
project management) were explored in a meeting with
departmental managers. Note that these managers are
involved in projects as well, so they are both users and
owners of knowledge. With respect to E(ntrepreneurial),
it was decided that the activity level of the employees
was to be measured. With respect to T(echnical), the
80 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83

level of experience with document preparation in the skills in planning, controlling and managing project
distinguished phases of a project as well as the know- phases had to be explored.
ledge on special products or services was to be mea- The range decision was taken by the general manager
sured. With respect to P(roject management), the type of and human resource manager. Based on the strategic

Questionnaire

1 In what markets and project Food Shopping

Dairy processing Chemical Schools Hospitals Offices malls
phases have you applied this Acquisition
Initiation
entrepreneurial knowledge? Pre-design
Design
Plan of Specifications
Realization
(Indicate level with A or P)1
Utilization&Maintenance

2 In what markets and project Food Shopping

Dairy processing Chemical Schools Hospitals Offices malls
phases have you applied
Acquisition
Technical knowledge on Initiation
Pre-design
document preparation? Design
Plan of Specifications
Realization
Utilization&Maintenance
(Indicate level with 0, 1,or 2)2

3 In what markets and project Food Shopping

Dairy processing Chemical Schools Hospitals Offices malls
phases have you applied Acquisition
Initiation
special Technical knowledge? Pre-design
Design
Plan of Specifications
Realization
(Indicate level with 0, 1,or 2)2
Utilization&Maintenance

4 What type of specialist Handling3 ……

Storage ……
technical knowledge have you
Processing ……
applied (see question 3) Measuring ……
Packaging ……
Cleaning ……
Pneumatics ……
Climate control ……
Other …… ……
5 In what markets and project Food Shopping
Dairy processing Chemical Schools Hospitals Offices malls
phases have you applied Acquisition
Initiation
Project management skills? Pre-design
Design
Plan of Specifications
Realization
(Indicate level with 0, 1,or 2)2
Utilization&Maintenance

6 What colleagues do you regard Food Shopping

Dairy processing Chemical Schools Hospitals Offices malls
especially knowledgeable in
Acquisition
what markets and project Initiation
Pre-design
phases? Design
Plan of Specifications
Realization
Utilization&Maintenance
(Indicate name of colleague)

1
A: Active; P: Passive
2
0: No experience; 1: Junior level; 2: Senior level
3
Column pre-filled for Mechanical engineering department, other departments used a different list

Fig. 2. Part of the questionnaire on exploring the knowledge inventory.

 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83 81

plan of the company, they decided on the markets and
project phases that had to be distinguished. For project
phases, they decided to distinguish the usual phases (see
e.g. [28]) such as acquisition, initiation, pre-design, de-
sign, plan of specification, realisation, and utilisation
and maintenance. The markets to be explored were:
dairy industry, food processing, chemical, municipali-
ties: schools, hospitals, offices, and shopping malls. Fi-
nally, the list of employees whose knowledge had to be
explored was prepared. From the construction depart-
ment 66 employees were selected, equally distributed
over the disciplines civil engineering, installation, and
construction. From the industry department, 86 em-
ployees were selected, half of them from the mechanical
and manufacturing engineering disciplines and the other
half from the electrical and control engineering disci-
plines. Finally, 11 employees from the project control
department were included, which makes a total of 163
employees involved in the exploration of the knowledge
inventory of the organisation. As a result, all employees
were included, except supporting staff.
The next stage of the method is the measurement
stage. First, it had to be decided how the knowledge
should be measured. Due to the large number of em-
ployees and the usage requirements of the system, the
costs of gathering (and updating) the knowledge in-
ventory had to be limited. The department managers
and general manager decided to use simple scales for
measuring the knowledge inventory. E(ntrepreneurial)
knowledge was to be measured on a two-level scale
(active versus passive). T(echnical) knowledge on doc-
ument preparation was to be measured on a three-level
scale (no knowledge, limited experience i.e. 6 2 projects,
extensive experience). T-knowledge on special products
was to be enumerated. P(roject management) knowledge
was to be measured on a three-level scale (no experience,
limited to one project, extensive experience).
Second, a questionnaire was used to measure the
knowledge inventory of the employees. The question-
naire has been constructed in co-operation with de-
partment managers. It contains general questions on the
level of knowledge in different project phases and
the application areas. Fig. 2 shows the questionnaire for
the mechanical engineering department. Question 4 lists
specific categories for this department. This list differed
per department and contained generally between 20 and
30 items. The original questionnaire was in Dutch and
contained more possibilities to specify subcategories for
both markets and technical knowledge (i.e. knowledge
on specific documents per project phase).
Finally, validation was performed, partly by specific
questions in the questionnaire (e.g. question 6 in Fig. 2)
and partly by comparing the answers of various em-
ployees and by discussing the answers with their super-
visors.
The final stage of the method is the report stage. Two
types of reports could be generated. Reports on item
level are generated for each knowledge type. They pro-
vide a crosscut of the total knowledge inventory.
Fig. 3 shows an example of a report that represents
the experience of employees with technical document
preparation in the dairy industry in several phases of a
project. Each phase requires specific documents that
have to be prepared, such as detailed designs, budget
plans, license requests, strength calculations, etc. The
figure shows the experience level of individual employees
with technical document preparation in this industry for
each phase.
The second type of reports that aggregate the infor-
mation on the total knowledge inventory is more ap-
propriate to use when reconsidering strategic plans.
Fig. 4 shows an example of reports on an aggregate
level that can be generated using the explored know-
ledge inventory. It shows the weak points of the

Technical knowledge inventory

Report item level Market: Dairy industry
Experience with document preparation per project phase
Acquisition No No No Senior Senior
Initiation No Junior Senior Senior Senior
Pre-design No Senior Senior Junior Senior
Design Senior Senior Junior Junior Senior
Plan of specifications Junior Senior Senior Senior No
Realisation Junior Senior Senior Senior No
Utilization&Maintenance No No Junior Senior No

empl. 1 empl. 2 empl. 3 empl. 4 ··· empl. N

Legend
No experience
Junior Employee has gained technical knowledge through 1-2 projects
Senior Employee has gained technical knowledge through ≥ 3 projects

Fig. 3. Example of a report on individual knowledge inventory.

82 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
Report aggregate level
Experience with document preparation per project phase
Acquisition Extensive
Initiation Extensive
Pre-design Extensive
Design Extensive
Plan of specifications Extensive
Realisation Extensive
Utilization&Maintenance Extensive
Dairy
Legend
No experience
Limited 1-2 employees are either junior or senior in this segment
Extensive ≥ 3 employees are either junior or senior in this segment
Fig. 4. Example of report on aggregate knowledge inventory.
organisation in covering market segments with technical
knowledge in the field of document preparation. For
example, government regulation requires market specific
knowledge for preparing legislative documents in several
phases of a project. This information can be used when
deciding on investments in new personnel and the allo-
cation of employees to new projects.
6. Evaluation of the method
The users of the method were asked to evaluate the
method. It turned out that the management of the en-
gineering office was satisfied with the method as it pro-
vides adequate insight in the knowledge inventory of the
firm. Management uses it for strategic issues such as
decisions on markets that can be served, investment in
new personnel and training programs, and for analysing
the risks of knowledge losses. Finally, it is used for de-
cisions on the type of training and education that is
needed to increase the level of knowledge.
For the managers of the departments, the gathered
knowledge inventory is useful for deciding upon the
career and development of individual employees. The
knowledge inventory is also used for allocating people
to projects in order to benefit optimally from available
knowledge. Moreover, looking at the inventory showed
that certain stages of project management were not well
covered within a department.
Project leaders use the reports when staffing their
projects and if they have to find experts to consult for
specific problems. Moreover, as it is now clear on what
markets employees have experience, it is easier to com-
bine experienced and knowledgeable employees into
new projects.
The knowledge inventory supports individual and
new employees in finding their way into the organisa-
tion. It enables faster learning, as it is easy to find out
who are the experts on project stages and markets.
Technical knowledge inventory
Extensive Limited Extensive Limited
Extensive Limited Extensive Limited
Extensive Extensive Limited Extensive
Extensive Extensive Limited Extensive
Extensive No Extensive No
Extensive Limited Extensive No
Extensive No Extensive No
Food Shopping
Chemical Schools ···
processing malls
The evaluation showed that updating and maintain-
ing the knowledge inventory is an important issue.
Within each department, one person is made responsible
for updating and maintaining the department’s knowl-
edge inventory. The actual inventory status is accessible
on the intranet of the organisation.
7. Conclusion and discussion
This paper addresses the subject of assessing the
knowledge inventory of project-based organisations.
Based on literature on knowledge management and
project management it is concluded that the measure-
ment of knowledge in project-based organisations is
insufficiently treated. There are no instruments available
in literature that can be used to explore the knowledge
inventory of a project-based organisation. This paper
develops such an instrument. The basic idea is that the
knowledge inventory is closely related to the core ac-
tivities of the organisation. Literature shows that for the
core activities in project-based organisations three types
of knowledge have to be distinguished: entrepreneurial,
technical and project management knowledge.
The method for exploring the knowledge inventory
consists of three stages: identify, measure, and report.
We applied this method in an engineering office. The
evaluation showed that the instrument is relatively easy
to implement. Moreover, gathering the necessary data is
relatively easy. Management reports good results and a
high usability.
Whilst the success of the instrument in the engineer-
ing office, some points for discussion need to be raised.
The first point addresses the precision in measuring
knowledge. There is no simple rule to determine the level
of precision. It requires a trade off between the usage
requirements and the cost of gathering the data. More-
over, the usage requirements may even be conflicting.
We suggest to give this issue explicit attention in the
 D.P. van Donk, J. Riezebos / International Journal of Project Management 23 (2005) 75–83
identification stage of the method and to give sufficient
room for the aims of the users.
A second point is related to possibly unintended
consequences for employees. There is always a possi-
bility of using the available information on employee
knowledge for other purposes than intended. Hence,
mutual trust is a necessary condition for the success of
such a knowledge measuring system. In case of mutual
trust, both parties can benefit from such a system.
However, if one of the parties becomes suspicious, the
system will fail and no one will benefit. This point needs
to be monitored on a regular basis. Agency theory and
transaction cost theory deal with issues regarding trust,
control and governance structure.
A third point to discuss is whether the knowledge
inventory can be used to improve the long term learning
processes of the organisation. This might be an inter-
esting question for further research.
A fourth point is the applicability of this approach to
other types of organisations. We argue that some di-
mensions of the model (domain: various knowledge
types, range: employees, markets, and project phases)
may be omitted, while other dimensions may have to be
added when adapting the approach to other organisa-
tions. However, this is relatively easy to accomplish.
More empirical work should be done to report on ad-
ditional implementations.
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