Abstract
The importance of knowledge management (KM) in developing business strategies for corporate sector has been widely written about in the literature. However, the concepts, technologies and processes of KM are equally valid for development projects, which aim at making an impact on socio-economic conditions of the identified target groups. Specifically, for development projects to be successful, it is essential to elicit in-depth tacit knowledge of all relevant stakeholders and utilize this knowledge in defining the project strategy. If the project strategy is predominantly based on transplantation of external knowledge without having the benefit of local tacit knowledge, the project strategy may not be sustainable. The effectiveness of development projects also significantly depends upon incremental evolution of required project activities facilitated through action learning, identification of best practices for carrying out the defined project activities, and the scalability of these best practices through documentation and dissemination. To ensure replication of successful development projects, it is also important to identify and harness both “kernel” and “ephemeral” knowledge. This paper critically examines a development project called Human & Institutional Development in Ecological Refrigeration (HIDECOR) in India. This author had been mandated to carry out action learning during the pilot phase of this project from the year 1998 to 2000, and later as a consultant for certain specified project activities during the main phase of the project (2001 to 2004). Many of the typical concepts and processes of KM were put into practice in project formulation and implementation of this project, without being called KM. The paper also illustrates how the issue of scalability and replication of project activities were addressed, and how the systems developed for the project were useful in designing and implementing a follow-up project.
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