Knowledge Sharing Pattern Language

Problem	Projects are not utilizing the lessons learned that are collected in the organization. The same problems are occurring again and again in different projects.
Initial Context	An organization has Established an Experience Base (KSP16). Material collection to the Experience Base has been started, see Contributed Experience Base (KSP27).
Roles	Project manager (including other project team members) and the organization represented by persons responsible for the maintenance of the experience base. If the experience base is automated enough, it could also represent the organization’s role.
Forces	In organizations gained knowledge is "wasted" if not shared. The existing knowledge should not be difficult to find and reuse by project managers, for example. (Komi-Sirviö et al. 2002.) Rus and Lindvall (2002) remind us of the importance of knowledge sharing by utilizing the individual knowledge at the organizational level. They say that: ”Large organizations cannot rely on informal sharing of employees’ personal knowledge. Individual knowledge must be shared and leveraged at project and organization levels.” (Rus and Lindvall 2002, p. 27). One important part of the organization level knowledge sharing is the lessons learned type of knowledge. Any experience system is actually not storing knowledge except information that can be used as raw material of which people create knowledge when receiving (e.g. Nonaka, 1994). Information adapted from the experience base may create innovations or at least stepwise improvements in the use of the receiver (Dixon, 2000, p. 21). These improvements should be utilized also in the experience base.
Solution	Request Knowledge and Study Request. A project asks for knowledge. In practice, this can happen also, so that a project team member is implementing this using the user interface of the experience base. If it is something that can not be solved automatically, a human person is required to study the request and decide the required actions. Collect Information and/or Create Information. If the information required for the requested knowledge is in the experience base or other assets it can be directly retrieved (automatically by the system). If not, then the information needs to be created (and updated into the experience base) or a decision is made that it is not possible to serve this knowledge request. Reply to Request. Reply to the requester with the requested information, information close to it or reply that serving in this case is not possible. Study and Utilize Results. Receiving person/team adapts knowledge for use in particular context (Dixon, 2000, p. 21). Give Feedback. The person/team adapting the knowledge very often improves the solution or notices problems in the information delivered from the experience base. This knowledge should be fed back to the experience base (see Contributed Experience Base, KSP27).
Resulting Context	An organization collecting, maintaining and sharing experience knowledge.
Instances	Follow this pattern always when receiving a knowledge request related to the experience base or other assets. One potential pitfall is that the experience base (or other assets) do not include the information required and the organization has insufficient resources or need to create it. If this happens very often, the motivation for using this kind of system drops.
Process Connection	Supports process improvement and organizational development. This can affect any of the processes.