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New Knowledge Base tool

March 24, 2008 @ A Girl's Guide to Managing Projects from Elizabeth

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Knowledge Base from The Projects Group (TPG) has been up and running for a month now and it is a very impressive tool. It works a lot like the project management search engine on PMConnection. However, PMConnection’s search is Google-based and will search websites and blogs. Knowledge Base draws on different information, including back issues of Project Manager Today. I met Adrian Dooley from TPG at the BPUG Congress and he sent me some literature about Knowledge Base as I missed their launch event because I was in New York. This is from the section explaining what the tool is all about:

TPG have accumulated a vast amount of knowledge, some previously published and some not, to launch the first version of the knowledge base. This repository will grow to reflect the evolution of the discipline. Users will form a community that is able to access information from generic sources and share experience of best practice. This community will be able to learn from experience, increase the speed with which it develops capability maturity and genuinely achieve continuous improvement.

At the launch of the knowledge base it will contain 100 training modules covering all the mainstream qualifications (some available in multiple languages); seven years of articles from back issues of Project Manager Today and European Project Manager; templates for use with common process models such as PRINCE2; 1,200 encyclopaedia definitions that act as an index to the knowledge base; case studies and technical papers written by TPG consultants and trainers.

It sounds great. The major downside of Knowledge Base is that it’s a service you have to pay for. And there is so much good quality information on the internet about project management that you don’t have to pay for that I see little incentive for the individual to take out membership.

For example, Project Manager Today has back issues available from their site. You could use Knowledge Base as a way to search for something that is relevant, then go to the PMT website and download it with a free guest subscription at no charge. Confusingly, the section of the PMT site that you need to go to is also called Knowledge Base. TPG could have been a bit more creative with naming their tool.

I do see a value for TPG’s Knowledge Base in the corporate sector. Programme Offices could have licences for their project managers and related staff. Then it becomes a useful reminder or source of templates in the office environment, especially if there is nothing internally that exists already, or if a whole group of newbies have just been sent on PM training – access to this tool could be a useful way for them to keep their skills up when they return to the workplace and start putting it all into practice. But aside from that, most individual project managers will find what they want elsewhere, for free.

Have a look yourself on the TPG website and let me know what you think.

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