Corporate level managers of marketing are in most sectors of the industry pushed by their companies’ CEO to come up with new ideas for market growth opportunities, and to continuously find ‘better’ ways to organise and to lead projects. Due to this, they spend a great deal of their time, and effort, in identifying project managers, and in developing team-building models, tools and processes. However, the problem is that despite their effort, projects tend to be carried out in a traditional, a repetitive way. According to the contemporary literature in the field of strategy, learning and project management, one explanation to a reluctance to change ‘the way things get done’ lies in a failure to recognize that leading and managing projects are two different things, and that project management needs to become strategic, although it also consists of collection of management tools and practices. The overall objective of the course relates to this proposition. Additionally, it relates to the literature that proposes that managing innovation projects is in essence about knowledge management.

As indicated by the name, this course consists of two interrelated themes or fields in the literature. During the first part of the course, the aim is to establish an understanding (from a theoretical and practical point of view) of the concepts of knowledge, knowledge management, knowledge intensive firms and knowledge workers. Thereafter follows a second part within socio-cultural issues related to knowledge creation and sharing is discussed. Thus a broad selection of concepts and issues is taken up - of relevance when addressing project management from a KM perspective. As for example the implication of understanding power as a resource in KM processes, and of linking/addressing the features of the firm’s information and communication technologies (ICT), organizational culture, HRM practices, leadership styles etc. to KM and to PM.  In a third part, the focus is put on PM through the following issues: How to organise, lead and manage projects? How to manage teams and inter organisational relations? How to manage risk? How to audit projects and to learn during and from projects? Finally, within a fourth part of the course we return to the relatedness between KM and PM by discussing prerequisites for successful projects, as for example human aspects of sharing knowledge and implementing knowledge management initiatives (i.e. change management). During this part, we also recognize the organizational context of projects and of teams by discussing what characterizes project management in knowledge intensive, or learning, companies.
 
Progression
The course is linked to the course ‘Strategic Leadership and Brand Management’.

Knowledge Management - An Integrated Approach, Ashok Jashapara, 2004, Prentice Hall.
Project Management, Clifford F Gray and Erik W Larson, 2006, McgRaw-Hill

A selection of influential academic articles in the field of project management, innovation and knowledge management:
Fanggi Xu and Tudor Richards, A Predicted Development from Research into Creativity and Management , Creativity and Innovation Management, September 2007, Volume 16 Issue 3 Page 216-228,
Ming-Huei Chen, Entrepreneurial Leadership and New Ventures: Creativity in Entrepreneurial Teams
Creativity and Innovation Management,Sep2007, Vol. 16 Issue 3, p239-249
Seppo Hânnien and Ilkka Kauranen, A Multidimensional Product-Concept Model Enhancing Cross-Functional Knowledge Creation in the Product Innovation Process: The Case of the Suunto t6 Training Wrist Computer, Creativity and Innovation Management; Dec2006, Vol. 15 Issue 4, p400-409
Astrid Heidemann Lassen, Frank Gertsen and Jens Ove Riis, The Nexus of Corporate Entrepreneurship and Radical Innovation, Creativity and Innovation Management, December 2006 - Vol. 15 Issue 4, pages 359–372
Mats Holmquist, Managing Project Transformation in a Complex Context INCLUDEPICTURE "http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/templates/jsp/_synergy.2/images/free.gif" \* MERGEFORMATINET
Creativity and Innovation Management; Mar2007, Vol. 16 Issue 1, p46-52