An article I wrote on how we can make innovative use of social media as a knowledge exchange platform of projects-lessons-learnt. The article was originally published on the Project Management Institute's Knowledge Shelf.

1. 5/2/2016 ProjectManagement.com ­ Using Social Media as a Strategic Tool for Projects­Lessons­Learned (PLLs) ­ http://www.projectmanagement.com/article…
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Using Social Media as a Strategic Tool for Projects­
Lessons­Learned (PLLs)
Franco Shuwing Pang ­ August 24, 2011
The growth of social media, fueled by advancing Internet technology, has reshaped the ways people communicate and network
with each other. It allows networks to be built with people who would have otherwise not known each other in a physical sense.
Based on its degree of interaction, the social media can be classified into four categories: (1) private social media, such as
networking sites; (2) online forums; (3) blogs and mini­blogs; and, (4) organizational and professional knowledge portals, with
participative and interactive features. Table 1 illustrates the different features of these four types of social media.
Social media is a powerful source of communication and networking, both personally and professionally. It also gives rise to
new opportunities to foster knowledge transfers within many professional arenas, including project management. Projects­
lessons­learned (PLLs) are cases in point. This article describes the power of social media, as a new means of facilitating
communication and interpersonal interactions, and how such power can be translated into a knowledge­sharing platform of
PLLs.
The Competitive Edge of Social Media
Having grown rapidly over the last few years, social media has reached the point of enjoying the solid advantages of being
deeply entrenched in the public and having an enormous networking capability and high degree of interaction. In particular,
social media brings out the following strengths in the context of professional knowledge transfer:
Huge professional communities are already formed: Many social media channels have accumulated a large
professional audience. For example, more than 120 million professionals have registered on the networking website
www.linkedin.com and about 365,000 readers are registered on the knowledge portal www.strategy+business.com.
Familiarity: It has become a habit for many people to visit social media channels regularly for work and personal
purposes, such as networking with others and acquiring the latest trends and insights into their professions. Also, social
media has become an increasingly reliable source for people’s professional growth and knowledge gains.
Low barriers to access: The majority of social media channels offer free and open access to the general public. In the
case of private social media, access is limited to employees and related employees of particular organizations, but
barriers to information within the media are free for these members; it helps them yield similar benefits while not
maintaining the security and confidentiality requirements of specific industries like defense. This lowers the costs and
limitations for sharing information and participating in other forms of activities.
Multi­dimensional interaction: Social media enables diversified forms of participation to occur. For example, members
can upload speeches on a networking site, update blog entries, contribute articles, and write comments on a knowledge
portal. Such interactions help form virtual relationships among members and participants in the media.
Rapid dissemination of information: The combined power of huge communities in the social media and active
participation among its members result in information and ideas being disseminated easily and rapidly. For example, a
new idea on leadership from J. P. Kotter’s blog can be read by thousands of professionals within a couple of days, which
in turn fuels people’s participation in social media of a similar type.
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2. 5/2/2016 ProjectManagement.com ­ Using Social Media as a Strategic Tool for Projects­Lessons­Learned (PLLs) ­ http://www.projectmanagement.com/article…
http://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/283539/Using­Social­Media­as­a­Strategic­Tool­for­Projects­Lessons­Learned­­PLLs­ 2/4
Untapping the Potential of Social Media on PLLs
The above­mentioned strengths make social media a suitable platform for project, program and portfolio managers, project
team members, and other professionals to build up and share their PLLs. What is a good fit between the social media and the
goal of PLL knowledge transfers? We believe that a good fit lies in the following three areas:
Beyond organizational boundaries: These days, the majority of PLLs are maintained and being referred to within
organizations. Significant benefits will be obtained if portfolios of PLLs can be consolidated and shared through social
media, such as expert groups on networking sites and knowledge portals. Social media allows project managers and
team members to learn from other organizations’ experiences when their own organizations do not have the necessary
expertise and if an organization or a project team starts a new project in a new country, in a new industry, or is applying a
technology it is unfamiliar with. Such benefits will be particularly significant for smaller organizations in which resources
are more constrained in acquiring the additional expertise through traditional channels like consultants.
Efficient collaborative learning: The largest value of PLLs is not only the knowledge itself but also the learning
process. Social media is a good medium for facilitating the learning process for two reasons: first, it has established a
huge base of users and audiences with different backgrounds, which provides a favorable environment that fosters
discussion and collaborative learning among participants. Second, groups of specific industries (e.g., aviation and
defense) and areas of expertise (e.g., quality management, organizational development, and diversity) are already
clearly formed on the various social media channels. Both factors increase the efficiency for PLLs to reach their target
audience and stimulate additional exchanges of knowledge.
Maturing participatory level on PLLs: Discussions about project management experience and insights and PLLs with
fellow practitioners on social media channels (e.g., online expert groups and blogs) are popular these days. What is
emerging now is the trend of “knowledge brokering,” in which professionals make active use of their extended networks
outside their organizational and sector boundaries to look for novel ideas and new perspectives to solving problems or
issues facing them.
For example, if a change manager in charge of a system­related process change program encounters difficulties in meeting
the objective of enhancing local line end­users with new knowledge and skill sets, the manager can seek experience from
outside his or her industry (e.g., business coaches or even school teachers) for brainstorming possible solutions. This example
reveals that an extended network is a key ingredient to the successful application of knowledge brokering; therefore, social
media becomes a good base for professionals to develop such a network in other subject areas.
Recommend Practice on the Use of Social Media on PLLs
Social media can be a useful means that fits the purpose of the PLLs to support knowledge transfers. How can organizations
and individual professionals develop better practice in making use of lessons learned?
Strategic deployment of social media: Social media can be used by organizations, project management offices
(PMOs), and program and project teams as a strategic tool for learning and managing knowledge.
The following factors determine how social media is deployed, which social media channels should be selected, what type of
content is chosen and how the content is presented, and what are the best learning and knowledge transfer processes (both
internally within organizations and externally across industries or specialty groups):
Goals of PLLs: Are the goals of PLLs to enrich the project knowledge database for supporting future projects; support
project managers and team members’ growth; build up networks in corresponding industries or areas of expertise,
knowledge­based marketing, or other?
Number of tools: Deploy social media as a stand­alone tool for recording and transferring knowledge or a part of an
organizational project knowledge database?
Degree of interaction: From the more passive use of the media as a knowledge repository, toward more active
interactions among internal staff members or even external communities.
Flexibility for use: The use of social media is aligned with an organization’s (or a project management office’s) objectives.
Therefore, executive managers, PMO controllers, and program, portfolio, and project managers should assess the above
factors before making decisions on how to engage social media on their PLLs strategy.
Make PLLs a structural process enabled by social media: PMO controllers, project, program, and portfolio
managers should take a proactive approach by making use of the media’s interactive nature and managing the learning
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3. 5/2/2016 ProjectManagement.com ­ Using Social Media as a Strategic Tool for Projects­Lessons­Learned (PLLs) ­ http://www.projectmanagement.com/article…
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experience. The process would be incomplete if PLLs were only distributed and shared without proper facilitation of
subsequent idea exchange and the management of knowledge gained.
Recommended practice, which is worth implementation, includes directing the audience’s discussion, conducting regular
reviews on the audience’s feedback, updating PLLs with constructive feedback, nurturing unexplored ideas from being
discussed and developed, and searching for related PLLs to incorporate them into a PLL database. The key principle
here is to make PLLs an interactive document and PLL­making a lively process. Purely sharing lessons learned and then
ceasing further reflection is a passive way of transferring knowledge with limited values. Managing the subsequent
exchanges of ideas is an important value­added component that must be included in a social media deployment
strategy.
Select the right social media channels for your organizations: The various social media channels listed in Table 1
have different features in terms of participants’ relationships and interactions. Matching the right type of social media with
an organization’s needs (or a project team’s needs) is therefore important. For example, boutique practice firms or small
project teams with expertise in a particular area (or a particular industry) may benefit more from focusing their PLLs on
specialist blogs and related expert groups on networking sites so that they can draw the attention of fellow experts
toward exchanging experience and expanding connections.
For larger organizations with a presence in multiple project teams and “areas of practice,” deploying different channels
provides different benefits. Organization­specific knowledge portals are more efficient for the maintenance and tracking
of PLLs and the monitoring and management of external audience’s responses. An affiliated advantage of such portals is
that they attract a pool of professionals with interests about the development of organizations themselves, which may
expose other opportunities. In contrast, networking sites can provide more secure and controlled collaborative learning
environments for organizations’ members if the nature of PLLs is sensitive. In fact, secure virtual collaborative groups
were set up by Harvard University on www.facebook.com; such groups require clearer identification of participants to
ensure that the disclosure of PLLs is restricted.
Open sharing and exchange of knowledge and ideas:• Certain forms of PLLs are particularly suitable to social
media. Focusing on these forms can maximize organizations’ and professionals’ benefits of sharing PLLs through the
media and exchanging experience.
Business cases (mini­business cases) and story­style PLLs are appropriate formats to be shared on social media channels
because they provide the audience with sufficient specifics for others to understand the lessons’ situations and stimulate their
appetites for thought and discussion. The following is a suggested three­part structure for such PLLs: (1) backgrounds or
circumstances of the project (or event); (2) problems, opportunities or solutions that occurred; and, (3) reflections of what could
have been done, what could be improved, or further recommendations. Apart from more comprehensive business cases or
story­style PLLs, question­based PLLs are another format used to draw the attention of fellow professionals and can stimulate
fruitful discussions on particular subjects or cases. They help yield hints on lessons that may have not necessarily been
learned.
Conclusion
This article reveals how the social media opens up opportunities to enhance integrated learning and knowledge transfer in an
organized and systematic way. Many individual project management practitioners and professionals have been actively sharing
their PLLs on networking sites and blogs, but to truly maximize the benefits of social media, larger scale collaborations and
clearer strategies are necessary.
About the Author
Franco Shuwing Pang is a Project Management Professional (PMP)®, a Six­Sigma Black Belt, and a Registered Change
Management Practitioner. He has twelve years of experience managing organizational change and process improvement
projects for multi­national corporations, such as Walmart and P&O Nedlloyd. He obtained a BA (First Class Honours) degree in
geography from the University of Hong Kong and an MSc degree in Information Systems Management from the Hong Kong
University of Science & Technology. He can be reached by email at pangsw@graduate.hku.hk or LinkedIn
http://nz.linkedin.com/in/shuwing
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