To communicate experiences from one project to another

Abstract: The industry trends related to Product-Service Systems (PSS)—namely, the integration of products and service aspects in early development to develop and sell a function—provide one way for companies to manage competition. A key component in providing total solutions and remaining competitive is to bring new technologies and products to the market as quickly as possible. One approach to achieve this is to make the best out of all facets of available knowledge, such as by taking advantage of experiences from previous projects to assist in existing development work. Experience is commonly categorized as tacit knowledge, which is understood without being openly expressed; as such, experience is not simply identified, captured, or formalized. Incorporating experience into the organizational knowledge base involves different approaches and methods than managing information. However, such instruments do not readily exist to aid in the transition of knowledge between projects. Despite this, experts recognise that many early decisions in product development rely on experience. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis is to explore how experience-based knowledge is communicated within and between projects in a cross-functional organization in order to provide support for project teams when sharing experiences as well as sustain a broader knowledge base in start-up projects. In this way, the time to market can be decreased. Empirical data were collected primarily in a manufacturing company working with transport systems and active in a business-to-business environment. The industrial data provide a description of the current situation, thereby enabling challenges to be highlighted. In addition, engineering students were part of an experiment in which individuals’ orientation was investigated to gain insights into how it affects knowledge sharing. The results indicate the importance of supporting the approaches for reflection in routine activities and communicating experiences both inside and outside the project, such asaddressing different kinds of physical meetings and activities which enhance the possibility to introduce a more dynamic way of knowledge sharing. Furthermore, the personal motivation for what knowledge is shared and how it is shared is discussed. Here, the result indicates that goal-orientation/problem-solving and insight-orientation/problem-setting may provide guidance on the knowledge transfer between different projects.