Is Knowledge Management practiced in Construction Projects?

In the truest sense the answer could well have been NO.

But i choose yes to highlight some aspects of KM that are far better in the construction industry than other industries (say IT for instance).

Treat it as a sign of respect to the industry that gave us project management and non-it knowledge management in the first place.

1. almost every major construction project requires some kind of a project office that acts as the provider of templates,guidelines and master/sub schedules.The drawback with this repository is that it is offline and repetitive at times

2.Construction industry as a whole publishes journals on manpower and material costs along with price variations across the world.Imagine the benefit this delivers to the cost engineers in estimating !

3.The document deliverables in the construction industry (eng. drawings, specs and standards) are quite mature as they invite real life penalties on non-conformance.So willy nilly the knowledge around these

4.Most construction project payments are tied to work packages, necessitating the need to have specific roles (like planning/scheduling engineers) for developing and updating project schedules.

Having said that, where the industry lacks most is in using effective online repositories of communication/collaboration and information access.

In short you may say that they do some good offline KM BUT online KM is where they must have been by now

This should be used and will help the org.

yes i fully support the.. significance  of knowledge management  not only in constuction project rather to every domain of various project.. as it has very broad coverage area that is fully aplied to every stage for devlopment as well...

I agree with Pragya as its important and also wise to utilise whole of the past experience to develop a future project whatever it is. Also KM is the base ofany type of managerial skill too.

KM efforts are infact taken in all projects to varying extent knowingly or unknowingly by the organization / team running the project.

Some of the KM efforts are :

1. Documentation and Sharing of Best Practices.

2. Lessons Learned

3. Project Completion Report itself ia a Knowledge Repository of the Project

4. Project Audit finding and analysis -  Results in Cause and Effect Analysis and Documnetation for Corrective & PReventive Actions

5. Using past project experiences and data in estimation /  work methods - thus avoiding any Reinventing Wheel Syndrome!

6. Sharing of Case Studies in Safety domain, to avoid repeatation of Dangerous Occurences, Unsafe Practices and Conditions thus eliminating Injuries and Fatalities.

KM efforts do help in Project Success and are being implemented, unknowingly, without realizing in true benefits and outcomes on long run for an organization.