PathMaker: Re-using Knowledge in Management Projects

Are you concerned with management project?
And did you develop management methods for your project?
But are your management projects re-usable?

PathMaker: The basic approach

PathMaker is a software solution to plan, run, and control management projects such as strategic planning, performance improvement, TQM, Balanced Scorecard, and a lot more. At the center of PathMaker is the Project Pathway. The Project Pathway consists of the single project steps associated with a tool to perform the step. You further can include hyperlinks and link to documents. Finally, you can launch the tools, but also forms, slideshows, or agendas directly from the Project Pathway. For a better overview you can group singles project steps into stages. In PathMaker all this information is put into a single file.

PathMaker allows for virtual teams and virtual projects. Hence, it is very flexible with regard to the users' specific needs.

After all the efforts to plan, run, and control the management project it would be a waste to simply trash the expertise gathered during the project. In PathMaker you can store your project pathway as a template and make it available for future management projects.

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PathMaker Software and Knowledge Management

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What knowledge should be collected?

Knowledge management is done in all organisation where at least a filing system is established. However, this is not always sufficient. Knowledge management focuses on collecting knowledge, improving it to a best practice and make it ready to be reused. Therefore, indicates for knowledge to be selected with priority are:

Knowledge value: certainly, you have an impression of the general value you assign to a process. In reverse it can be asked which impact a loss of knowledge would have for the process. Is it easy to re-gain the knowledge?
Re-usability: This enquires the frequency of reuse. How often is the process used? What is its criticality in terms of quality, cost, and schedule for an organisation?
Improvement: Can improvement of the process (needs knowledge to do so!) lead to a significant leverage effect?

Phase 1: Designing a management project in PathMaker

Management projects formally resemble each other. They all use the same steps to achieve their goals. Therefore, it makes sense to use just one tool instead of a lot different once for management projects.

PathMaker contains a range of tools to successfully manage management steps. Just integrate these steps on your project pathway and you will create your own management project as you need it. PathMaker's tools are:

Tools for creative thinking: Creative thinking is the process of innovation. It introduces new, fresh ideas to meet future challenges. PathMaker's brainstorming and affinity diagramming software tool combines two important creative processes in a split window.
Tools for analytical thinking: Analytical thinking is the process of refining the understanding of a specific situation or process. It helps to lock into details and open uncovered aspects. Make use of Cause and Effects Diagrams, Flowcharts, Tree Diagrams, and Form Designers to create forms specific to your needs.
Tools for better decisions: Business is about decision making, i.e. you select your favourite by giving up less favourite options. PathMaker makes decision making much easier. Tools for decision making are: Force Field-Analysis and Consensus Builder
Tools to analyse, monitor and collect data: PathMaker's Data Analyst tool helps you integrate actual process data with management and planning tools. That's unusual in itself. The Data Analyst also has innovations which mean that non-statisticians can easily make useful, accurate, professional charts. With all the statistics done for you. The Data Analyst includes lots of pre-defined charts.
Tools to run effective Meetings: You can schedule team meetings right on the Project Pathway by placing meeting brackets and stretching them to include the steps you want to cover. When you do this, an agenda is automatically created, which includes the designated steps and a list of attendees.
Tools for Just-in-Time-Learning: One of the classic problems of quality training has been the lag between training and action. It doesn't work to sheepdip an employee in quality management theory, and then have six months go by before he is involved in a process improvement project. Everyone, and especially adults, are impatient with learning something that they don't see themselves using right away. Plus, the half-life of knowledge is very short, unless it is cemented by being used. PathMaker doesn't stop at tools. It also teaches, combining learning with doing.

Excerpt of a management project pathway for a balanced scorecard

Phase 2: Running a management project in PathMaker

Of course, quite often both phases would run next to each other rather than subsequently. To run a step is very simple because you just click the launch button on the project pathway and open the tool as planned.

Phase 3: Learning from a management project

After completing a step, a stage or even the entire project it is wise to take the lessons learnt in order to improve the project pathway. Step by step you will work towards your best practice. This best practice is your transformed project pathway. And it is re-usable for the next management project. The next management project team will not need to start from the very beginning but can continue with the expertise learnt from previous knowledge. This saves time and money - and it adds to a better quality.

PathMaker supports using templates. What is a better template for a management than having the project steps, tools, links to documents at your fingertips? A PathMaker template is much more valuable than common quality management process documentations or flowcharts.

Phase 3 is the phase of harvesting knowledge, transforming to a best practice and making it ready to re-use.