About the Knowledge Spaces Tool

Frequently asked questions

What is it?

The Knowledge Spaces Tool provides a quick and easy way for managers to better understand the challenges of managing dispersed and co-located teamworking. It was designed by CENTRIM at the University of Brighton and ISC at Imperial College London to help organisations learn about how best to manage knowledge within project teams.

Using the Tool is easy. It is free, simple and clear. It provides immediate feedback.

All organisations are welcome to participate and all responses are confidential.

• Presentation (PDF)

What does it do?

The Knowledge Spaces Tool shows you:

• how the performance of your project benchmarks against other similar projects both in your organisation and others
• the issues and challenges to watch for with your type of project, together with suggested remedies drawn from empirical research.

Who should use the Tool?

The Tool may be used by anyone involved with projects, for example:

• senior managers
• project managers
• team leaders.

How does it work?

The Tool is organised around an electronic questionnaire. The questionnaire covers:

• the organisation of the project team
• the types of activities undertaken in the project
• the communications media used on the project
• knowledge exchange and transfer
• the performance of the project team.

Classification and 'Issues and Challenges' lessons

Whether yours is a new, ongoing or completed project, having finished the questionnaire the Tool classifies it across three dimensions:

• geographic dispersal —how the team members are distributed over space
• face to face —how much opportunity the team has for face to face contact
• complexity —the extent that diverse elements in the project need to work together.

This classification triggers specific issues and challenges that typically face your type of project. These lessons, warnings and potential solutions are drawn from real cases from our research as well from research done by others. References to further information are also given

Benchmarking performance

If your project is ongoing or completed, you will be asked questions about the performance of the project. The output page will then show you:

• how your response compares with other responses for your project
• how your project compares with other projects in your organisation
• how your project compares against other projects in the global project database.

Performance is measured in three ways; conventional project indicators, such as time, quality and budget; innovation and learning; and the effectiveness of knowledge exchange. Through the Tool's global project database, you can benchmark your project teams against one another and against the world. Alternatively, you can compare views of different members of the project team about a project.

Benefits of using the Tool

• Benchmark your performance —the Tool allows you to compare the performance of your project against others in your organisation, against other projects of a similar type in other organisations and against others in the global project database. It also allows you to compare the views of different members of the project team about a project.
• Learn more about managing knowledge on projects —the Tool provides links and references to the vast literature on how to manage knowledge on projects. By using the Tool, you will learn about the key findings of recent academic research on project management and knowledge management.
• Find and solve the hot spots on projects —the Tool highlights the key management issues and challenges that you might face on your type of project, suggesting a number of remedies and solutions to resolve these potential problems.
• It is safe, secure and confidential —all responses are password protected and the data used in the Tool is aggregated and made anonymous to ensure that all participating organisations' identities are protected. All responses to the Tool are held in a secure electronic format at CENTRIM and Imperial College London. The data will only be used for aggregate analysis for the Tool, and for research purposes by the team. Individual companies and responses will not be identified without their agreement.
• Use at all stages of projects —the Tool can be used for new projects, live projects and completed projects.
• It is free —the Tool is free at the point of use for all organisations who wish to participate.
• It is simple and easy —the Tool takes between 15—20 minutes to complete. It is based on a number of plainly worded and unambiguous questions. The results are represented by graphical images.
• It is immediate —all responses are automatically analysed and by completing the Tool you will receive immediate feedback.
• It is flexible —the Tool can be used for all different types of projects and organisations.

Frequently asked questions

The Knowledge Spaces Tool was developed by CENTRIM, University of Brighton and ISC, Imperial College London with technical help from Runtime Collective. It is based on several years of research on co-located and dispersed team working.

The development of the Tool was sponsored by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's Learning Across Business Sectors research programme.

For more information about the Managing Knowledge Spaces project, click here. To contact the research team, click here.