Lessons learned in projects as a strategy of systematization of organizational knowledge: a case of a federal public university

Abstract

Managing the Organizational Knowledge is still a challenge to the current public organizations: manage it in internal consulting projects can be even more laborious. The organization studied is a Federal Public University, which has faced great organizational growth in recent years. To follow this development, this organization adopted a management strategy based on internal consulting. This model brought with it, in addition to the benefits of internal consulting, a significant increasing in organizational knowledge that has been routinely created by this team. Thus, a strategic gap in the determination of a tool capable of systematizing this knowledge was perceived. Based on the knowledge conversion model of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1997), we sought to investigate how consulting projects can use the practice of lessons learned for the effective knowledge management within these projects. The research is a unique, applied, descriptive and qualitative case study. It was identified that the application of lessons learned to knowledge management is intrinsically linked to the dynamics interaction between tacit and explicit knowledge that this practice can provide. The conclusion of the study is that the lessons learned systematize the knowledge in consulting teams at the moment this is a tool able to create a dynamic interactions between the individuals that crosses the whole spiral of knowledge creation in an upward and continuous movement.