Knowledge management and innovative projects

Faced with the considerable challenges of this century, from trade globalization to sustainable development, every company needs to innovate to remain competitive. By making it possible to maintain and even develop competitive advantages in a complex, fast-moving environment, continuous innovation within organizations represents a major objective of knowledge management. However, the processes and tools needed to stimulate innovation have yet to be defined. Several avenues have been put forward, including cross-fertilization and knowledge sharing, which are often facilitated by collaborative tools and virtual spaces.

The management of innovative projects is a process with uncertain outcomes, so the major challenge is to master the process. Today, initiatives in this field are multiplying, but this is only the beginning. In such an evolving context, the management of innovative projects, and more generally, the management of innovation, are still emerging fields which should be greatly enriched in the years to come. More specifically, the management of tacit knowledge, which is deeply rooted in individual and collective practices, and therefore more difficult to explain and formalize, represents a major lever for innovation in multi-actor projects.

The aim of this article is to make the link between knowledge management and innovative projects, by showing the importance of generating and managing new knowledge in projects for successful innovation. After a general introduction, some generalities and definitions of the main concepts involved will be reviewed (section 1). We will then show how methods and processes for generating new knowledge, and knowledge managers, are important levers for innovation in projects (section 2). Finally, we'll focus on the management of tacit knowledge in innovative inter-organizational projects, using the notion of the knowledge frontier and a case study. We'll then put forward some ideas and recommendations for developing innovation in collaborative projects (section 3). In conclusion, a renewal of knowledge management and innovative projects will be called for, taking into account the preceding elements.