Information management barriers in complex research and development projects: an exploratory study on the perceptions of project managers

Knowledge and Process Management (2012)Published online in Wiley Online Library(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/kpm.1383

■ Research Article

Information Management Barriers inComplex Research and DevelopmentProjects: an Exploratory Study on thePerceptions of Project Managers

Vitor Ricardo Santos1,2*, António Lucas Soares1,3 andJoão Álvaro Carvalho2,4

1 INESC TEC–Institute for Systems and Computer Engineering of Porto, Porto, Portugal2Department of Information Systems, School of Engineering, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal3Department of Informatics Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal4Algoritmi Center, School of Engineering, University of Minho, Guimarães, Portugal

*CorUnivPorto

Cop

Many organizations depend on the success of rapidly deployed, limited time frame and multipartner projects asan important element of their business strategies. Information management is regarded as a critical and upmostimportant issue, especially in projects. Complex projects require additional team collaboration and a consistentinformation management strategy to support the development of the project. This paper reports the findings of anexploratory study on information management barriers in complex projects, particularly focusing issues anddifficulties recognized by project participants and managers. Our study intends to fill the gap in empirical researchregarding this subject and to provide new insights for project managers of complex projects to devise more effectiveinformation management strategies and tools to set up and run information technology platforms. Copyright © 2012John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

INTRODUCTION

In today’s economy, enterprises need to achieveshorter innovation cycles. There is also a demandfor more and more complex solutions, requiringtime-and-place flexible coordination tasks. This canbe especially seen in geographically dispersedcompanies (Klauß, 2008).

The key characteristics of projects are the inter-dependence of knowledge and skills, the complexityand unpredictability of tasks and problems, andthe time line characteristics (Mian et al., 2008).From this perspective, projects can be consideredas manifestations of structured, collaborative, andcoordinated actions. They involve several partici-pants and organizations that work together toaccomplish goals in a determined period. For the

respondence to: Vitor Ricardo Santos, INESC Porto andersidade do Minho, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, s/n 4200–465, Portugal. E-mail: [email protected]

yright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

purpose of this study, we will define complexprojects as multidisciplinary projects involvingresearch and development activities, carried out bymultipartner international teams of different nature(small and medium enterprises, large companies, re-search centers, etc.) and executed in a geographicallydistributed environment.Information management in complex projects

poses considerable challenges. These may regardlack of management continuity, absence of standardprocesses, limited time frame for the execution,and different organizational and technical termi-nologies. Our study has also identified the follow-ing: difficulties in controlling documentation,inadequate information technology (IT) support atdisposal, information overload, dispersion of in-formation among different institutions and/orparticipants, difficulties in updating and adaptinginformation, lack of time for efficient informationmanagement, and the codification process ofinformation.

V. R. Santos, A. L. Soares and J. A. Carvalho

There are also two critical features that pose achallenge for the design of information architectures:increasing collaborative and distributed practicesand the different social contexts (multi and interor-ganizational) involved. These features introduceone key problem: the effort to set up situationaland contextual information management strategiesand platforms in a time frame compatible with theduration of the project. Therefore, the study anddevelopment of approaches that cuts time andeffort to design and implement information archi-tectures and processes for complex projects wouldbe highly advantageous, thus making more effect-ive and efficient the management of complexprojects.

Information management improvements in com-plex projects not only concern developing new ITconcepts. They also regard providing a sound guid-ance to the setup of collaborative processes in-volving informational content within the projectmanagement activities. The development of suchmethodological guidelines and associated toolsneeds to be informed by the information behaviorof individuals and teams in complex projects andcontextualized by the technological and culturalenvironments. However, current typical projectmanagement frameworks and guides, such as theProject Management Body of Knowledge, dealmostly with “document management” as standingfor information management and “communication”as standing for collaboration and knowledgesharing.

The research conducted on information manage-ment in projects, even more large-scale and/orcomplex ones, is very scarce and limited. Addition-ally, the research reported is not directly or entirelydedicated to this subject or even regards empiricalresearch. For instance, Turner (2010) editorial pre-sents the evolution of project management researchas evidenced by papers published in the Inter-national Journal of Project Management. He arguesthat over the past 20 years, the quality of the projectmanagement research has improved. The improve-ment can be seen in the variety of topics covered bythe papers published. In 1987, there was an averageof about one and a half topics covered, whereas in1997 and 2007, an average of two topics wascovered; in 2007, many papers covered three topics.However, from 1987 to 2007, according to the tablepresented, there is only one paper in the topic“Managing information” and it was only publishedin 2007. This demonstrates the absence of workin this area and the upmost demand for researchin the context of information management incomplex projects.

This paper is organized as follows. First, a summaryof the current issues regarding information manage-ment and project activities is presented. Then, themethodology used is addressed. Afterwards,the findings concerning information management

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

barriers in complex projects are presented. Finally,conclusions and implications for informationmanage-ment in complex projects will be discussed.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT ANDPROJECT ACTIVITIES

In the present time, the major organizations havedecentralized and flexible structures, working withinformation systems that need to handle numerousinformation sources. These information systems aresocioeconomic systems that include software, hard-ware, and the organizational structure (Ahlemann,2009).Consequently, information management is more

than just technology because equally importantare business processes and practices that support theuse of information, as well as the informationitself. This includes the structure of information:information architecture, metadata, and contentquality (Wilson, 2002). However, informationmanagement is not an easy task. There are manysystems to integrate, business needs to meet, andcomplex organizational and cultural issues to ad-dress (Robertson, 2005).According to Detlor (2010), there are three

major information management perspectives:organizational, library, and personal. For the purposeof our work, we will follow the organizationalperspective, which deals with the management ofall information processes involved in the informationlifecycle. The goal is to help the organization in reach-ing its competitive and strategic objectives. Accord-ingly, we see information management as themanagement of the processes and systems that create,acquire, organize, store, distribute, and use informa-tion to help people and organizations to access,process, and use information (Detlor, 2010).There are several challenges in managing infor-

mation in engineering organizations, particularlythe increasing volume of information. This is dueto modern industries becoming more dynamic innature and presenting diverse and complex worktasks, trading relationships and environments. Ad-ditionally, the temporary and transitory nature ofworkplaces and workforces has increased (Zhaoet al., 2008). As a result, information flow is essentialin engineering contexts because difficulties inherentto concurrent engineering regard the completeness,timeliness, and interpretability of the information(Johansson, 2009). For instance, in the constructionindustry, information flow is mostly manual.Numerous paper documents and drawings aredominant in practice, and the management of loosedocuments is often very time-consuming, thusreducing the productivity significantly (Wanget al., 2007).

Know. Process Mgmt. (2012)DOI: 10.1002/kpm

Information Management Barriers in Complex R&D Projects

Project management can be considered theappliance of techniques, skills, and tools to projectactivities to attain certain objectives. It is alsoaccomplished through the application and integra-tion of different tasks of initiating, planning,execution, monitoring and controlling, and closing(Mohammadi & Khalili, 2008). Failure in a projectcan be regarded as lack of success of the definedmission or drastically exceeding planned costs orschedule (Valerdi & Davidz, 2009).

In addition, complex projects share the characteris-tics pointed by Eriksson et al. (2002). These concernschallenge in language, time zones, organizationaland personal cultures, policies, regulations, businessprocesses, political climates, cultural differences,distance problems, communication problems, leader-ship issues, differences in perception of the world,and team learning. Ireland (2007) confirms thegeneral perception that project complexity hasdifferent interpretations according to personalexperiences and training. He argues that projectshave two primary areas of complexity: technicaland management. Technical complexity regardsspecification difficulties that lead to a design to meetthe client’s needs, thus providing the product orservice. These may include number of pieces, parts,components, or assemblies; technologies involved;number and types of external-to-product interfaces;and innovative or state-of-the-art technologyinvolved. Management complexity regards thebusiness aspects of the project such as financialarrangements, design of the management structure,schedules, staff with proper skills at the right time,and organizational interfaces.

“A question that arises from this discussion is themetric that would apply to a project to put it intothe complex category. This has not currently beenestablished and is required to provide somethreshold to the inevitable notion that mostprojects possess some degree of complexity”(Whitty & Maylor, 2009).

We will follow Robertson’s (2005) practicalapproach to information management as encom-passing people, process, technology, and content.Therefore, we will consider people as the projectmanagers, project participants, and researchers;process as the management and technical pro-cesses that compose and drive a project; technol-ogy as the communication tools and platformsused to support team’s work; and content as theinformation that flows in the communication toolsand is stored in platforms.

In complex projects, there are several types of infor-mation, in different languages and formats, flowingin the communication tools and platforms: structured(specifications, requirements, technical drawings),unstructured (notes from meetings, conversationsvia instant messaging), multimedia content (demovideos, product photos), documents (manuals,

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

bibliography), formal (deliverables, authorizations),informal (brainstorm remarks, invitations), adminis-trative (budgets, time cards), and technical (blue-prints, software code). Different communicationtools and information systems can be used tomanagethe several types and formats of information, amongothers are: web content management, documentmanagement, records management, digital assetmanagement, learning management systems, video-conference, enterprise search, project managementsystems, enterprise resources management, instantmessaging, and computer-assisted design.Our research goal was to study the information

management behavior and explain the informationmanagement barriers that occur in the collaborativeprocesses of complex project development. Ultim-ately, we intend to help project managers ofcomplex projects to devise more effective informa-tion management strategies and tools to set upand run IT platforms.

METHODOLOGY

The main focus of this study is to describe andexplain the information management barriers thatemerge from the collaborative activities of complexprojects. The research question addressed is: whatare the information management barriers in thecontext of complex projects?The results presented here are the second and last

part of a wider study on the topics of informationmanagement, knowledge sharing, and project man-agement activities in large-scale/complex projects(Santos, Soares, & Carvalho, 2012). These threecategories were used to analyze what subjects per-ceived about these areas. To achieve the purpose ofour study, exploratory semi-structured surveys withindividuals from six countries (Portugal, Germany,Spain, United Kingdom, Finland, and France) wereconducted.As seen in the works of Ratcheva (2009) and

Ochieng and Price (2010), the data collectioninvolved 24 exploratory interviews (17 face-to-face,6 via videoconference, and 1 via telephone) over aperiod of 4months (November 2009 to February2010). We also followed Ochieng and Price (2010)approach where a range of organizations in termsof status, size, and projects managed was used.The interviews were conducted with complex pro-ject participants, researchers, and managers. Theseinvolve persons with solid experience in the area,working in research institutes, universities, IT cor-porations, and industrial associations. Our intentionwas to explore a variety of multicultural issues inthe context of international project managementactivities. Therefore, multiple sources of evidencewere gathered that would validate general findingsand omit possible bias (Ochieng & Price, 2010). Theparticipant’s background and experience ranged

Know. Process Mgmt. (2012)DOI: 10.1002/kpm

Table 1 Information management barriers results

IM barriers References

IMB1 Documentation control 21IMB2 Inadequate IT support 16IMB3 Information overload 15IMB4 Dispersion of information 10IMB5 Updating and adapting 11IMB6 Lack of time 6IMB7 Codification process 4

IM, information management; IT, information technology.

V. R. Santos, A. L. Soares and J. A. Carvalho

from mechanical systems, information systems,multimedia, power systems, industrial manage-ment, and construction.

The interviews were conducted using open-endedquestions that were derived from the initial researchquestions and literature review. Before the beginningof the interviews, there was a short conversationwith all the interviewed. The context, concepts, andgoals were explained to clear any doubts and obtainaccurate answers. The questions that guided theinterview were the following:

(i) In your opinion, what are the main challengesin managing information in projects? Why doyou think they happen?

(ii) Can you please describe how your team usuallycollects and shares information?

(iii) Do you use information and/or knowledgemanagement software? What are the maindeficiencies that you can identify? How wouldyou improve it?

(iv) How does your team create and organize theinformation in the information system? Why itis done in that way?

(v) How do you think information managementand knowledge sharing could be improved ina project management context?

Because of the lack of an informationmanagementtheory in the context of projects, we followedShachaf’s (2008) approach. Consequently, theexploratory interviews were recorded, transcribed,and the interpretation of the text passages wasperformed using a coding scheme that was devel-oped according to the literature review. This waythe coding process allowed additional concepts toemerge from the data, and the subcategories of thecoding scheme were developed during the process.“The theory was generated through an inductivemethod because of the lack of a comprehensiveframework for conceptualizing the important ele-ments and their relationships” (Shachaf, 2008).Additionally, the coding scheme was developedusing of a concept map. The concept map addressedthree major areas: information management, know-ledge sharing, and project management activities.

According to Kvale and Brinkmann (2009), typicalmodes of interview analysis consist of analyses focus-ing on meaning, analyses focusing on language, andgeneral analysis. The mode chosen for the interviewanalysis was the analysis focused on meaning. Thisapproach follows the traditional understanding ofknowledge as pre-existing elements that can be col-lected, that is, coding that attempts to bring out whatalready exists in the texts (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).The qualitative analysis software used was NVivo 8(QSR International, Cambridge, MA, USA). A similarapproach can be seen in Hanisch et al. (2009), Kvaleand Brinkmann (2009), and Ochieng and Price (2010).

Following the findings in each area, the key refer-ences and area of work of the participants will be

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

presented, providing evidences and allowing a bet-ter understanding of complex project environment.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT BARRIERSTO PROJECT MANAGEMENT

This section addresses the findings regarding infor-mation management barriers in complex projects.The categories were used to code what subjectsperceived as difficulties and problems in the devel-opment of the project work. In the succeeding text,the evidences (only some key references) thatsupport the conclusions will be presented, thusenabling a better understanding of the complexproject environment. Table 1 shows the seven majorbarriers to information management that emergedfrom the content analysis. A total of 83 referencesto such barriers were identified in the 24 sources.

IMB1: Documentation controlThe results demonstrate that documentation controlis the major information management barrier incomplex projects and that it can influence theefficiency of the projects. Participants argue that itis not easy to develop standard templates for theproject documentation. However, they are crucialotherwise will lead to inconsistencies in contentand structure as well as the development of docu-ments that are not uniform. This issue is impactedby the different organizational cultures becausewe are dealing with teams that have differentmethodologies and work practices.In addition, a project participant is usually

assigned to gather and deal with the different con-tributions to the work package at hand. However,because the document sections were written by dif-ferent participants, the final document is not coher-ent. This refers to the absence of work in real time ina document, thus allowing the other partners tomonitor the changes immediately. This aspect leadsto what the subjects referred to as “document ping-pong”, where the documents are constantlyexchanged within the project network via email.Complex projects require a more flexible

approach to documentation and multimedia com-ponents to facilitate the comprehension and avoid

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Information Management Barriers in Complex R&D Projects

misunderstandings among participants. Addition-ally, instead of creating and using formal documents(creating a document or chapter and sending it byemail or uploading it to a portal), it is necessary toadopt an iterative and real time work approach todocuments (for instance, as Google Docs).

In short, documentation control in its variousforms (structured and unstructured, administrativeand technical, draft and final) is a critical aspect inprojects. This barrier refers to such aspects as thefollowing:

• absence of document templates, leading to incon-sistent content and formats;

• issues in numbering and versioning documents;• issues with user hierarchies and permissions in

the update and overwrite of documents;• excessive exchange of documents via email;• issues in controlling published and updated

documentation;• convergence of approaches and methodologies in

a single deliverable or work package;• need for more iteration of long documents (for

instance, requirements or proposals); and• need for more customer participation in develop-

ing documentation.

“It is common not to have a common template,and what happens? Everybody collaborates inthe other person’s documents, and when we tryto merge the documents they do not fit, not onlyin format but also in structure. Frequently, theresult of a determined task is a document that iscomposed of different parts that are not similar,so the document is not a whole unit as it shouldbe” (x1, Power Systems).

“When we use email several versions of the samedocument are created, which are all the potentialreceivers of the document, then someone willhave to deal with the individual contributions”(x7, Manufacturing Systems Engineering).

“. . . I was looking for a document from a projectthat has been finished. I had 27 versions of thatdocument, and I wasn’t sure if the last one wasthe updated one. Of course I contacted the projectmanager and he had it, but this is not very reli-able” (x15, Power Systems).

IMB2: Inadequate IT supportThe second major barrier to information manage-ment was inadequate IT support. Participants arguethat existent platforms do not support projectactivities properly, and they cannot find tools thatadequately facilitate collaborative work. Accordingto them, platforms should be able to deal withindividual contributions to the work packages and

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

provide efficient coordination. Specific issues includedifficulties in uploading large documents forcingthem to use parallel systems, such as web storage.Consequently, this hampers the informationcentralization in a unique platform. Additionally,platforms used only provide search and retrievalfeatures in textual documents. However, in complexprojects, different types and formats of documents(photos, videos, diagrams, schematics, mathematicalfiles, etc.) are used and exchanged.It has also been pointed that there is no proper

integration between the technical and administra-tive areas. Teams have to use two or more platformsto control activities, deliverables, budgets, humanresources, and schedules. Consequently, informa-tion is scattered along different systems. Thishas also been pointed by Eriksson et al. (2002)because they argue that complexity increases whendifferent systems grow together. For instance,control systems merge with administrative businesssystems, and data is expected to flow betweeninformation systems. Therefore, integration ofdifferent areas should be considered and the devel-opment of a standard interface and interoperabilitybetween systems.In a nutshell, this information management

barrier concerns the absence of IT platforms andtools to effectively support complex projects.Limitations include such aspects as the following:

• information system’s failure in handling largefiles or different file formats (forcing participantsto use email in exchanging files) and

• inadequate IT platforms to support collaborativework in geographically distributed environment,absence of multiformat search features (text,graphical/visual).

These inadequacies typically fall in these areas:

• Technical: limits of size and types of files (audio,graphical, video) for transfer and upload, multifor-mat file indexing, inappropriate support for meta-data or semantics, absence of interoperabilitybetween systems and interfaces (different systemsfor different purposes) for the management ofadministrative (schedules, participants, resources)and technical information (tasks, domain).

• Behavior: not user-friendly information systemsinterfaces, force teams to change their normalwork practices, require too much time toperform the operations (participants stop usingthem and/or it is necessary constant motiv-ation/persuasion).

“There is an aspect that is very important, exist-ent tools do not facilitate information sharing indifferent formats, languages from graphic to amore mathematical, to a graphical design, and

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V. R. Santos, A. L. Soares and J. A. Carvalho

Co

even text information” (x11, MechanicalEngineering and Industrial Management).

“. . . we abandoned that because we cannotcentralize in the same solution everything that weneed, and that is document management, informa-tion sharing, time, schedules and resourcesmanagement, project management, milestonesand activities. We never find a solution that cancentralize all of that, so it became very complex”(x20, Manufacturing Systems Engineering).

IMB3: Information overloadThe third barrier to information management incomplex projects is information overload. The findingsare consistent with Karim and Hussein’s (2008)perception that advances in information andcommunications technology (ICT) may haveimposed immense challenges to managers to handleoverly loaded information. This leads to decrease ingetting relevant, timely, and accurate informationand in managing information flows. Additionally,Robinson (2010) reports an extensive empirical studyof information behaviors in engineers. It demon-strates the importance of such behaviors to thesetechnical roles, where 40% to 60% of working timewas spent processing, communicating, and dissem-inating information. Empirical evidences presentedby Robinson suggest that moderate levels of commu-nication lead to the most effective performance ofengineering teams, as both insufficient and excessivelevels lead to performance decline.

Following this drive, subjects point several issuesregarding information overload. However, most ofthem are concern of the use of email because it isthe primary tool used for communicating withinthe project network. This regards, for instance, theexcessive use of email and mailing lists for theexchange of technical literature. Consequently,project participants have difficulties in trackingupdates and the current state of the domain.

In addition, considerable time and effort are takento consolidate the vast volume of informationdispersed in platforms and required for the develop-ment of a deliverable. It is usually necessary toappoint a project participant to deal with the individ-ual project participants’ contributions, keep trackof exchanged information, and compiling it in aunique document.

In brief, information overload regards two mainaspects:

• massive number of documents in platforms andrepositories and difficulties in retrieving theproper documents; and

• email issues (considered the primary communica-tion tool in projects and used as a central hub forexchanging information with other systems):excessive exchange of emails, not using the sub-ject field correctly, excessive number of mailing

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lists, difficulties in keeping participants at thesame information level, inadequate use of emailleading to misunderstandings, and difficulties inestablishing priorities when exchanging informa-tion to avoid overloading the other participants.

“We have a repository that is a file server wherewe have the papers and articles, and then wehave Adobe Acrobat, meaning that I can open,insert comments and close, and when someoneopens it the comments are there. What are the pro-blems? Suddenly, that has grown and we havethousands and now how to manage that?” (x3,Manufacturing Systems Engineering).

“The main challenge is to pass the requirementsthrough the chain, because maybe there is a bigcompany and there is a costumer, so they are a glo-bal company they have costumers all over theworld and those costumers give small piece of in-formation, and they should collect this informa-tion. There is a huge amount, lot of costumers,huge amount, what is important, what is lessimportant, so, how they could filter this vastinformation from the information, let’s call it musthave information or knowledge” (x24, SoftwareDevelopment).

IMB4: Dispersion of informationDispersion of information was pointed as anotherinformation management barrier. This concerns thedispersion of information among different partici-pants, groups, or partners. Additionally, it regardsthe dispersion of information in different tools andsystems (emails, portal, file servers, computer-aideddesign). For instance, administrative and financialinformation flows in one system, and technicalinformation flows in a separate system.Furthermore, there is the challenge of integrating

information that is gathered during a projectbecause it is collected by several means: meetings, in-dividually or by teams, from clients, and in differentformats and structures. Consequently, content needsto be linked despite the different infrastructures,systems, and technologies used. As an example,project participants may collaborate in Twitter,Facebook, Skype, and MSN. As long as new ICTtools are introduced into society, it is necessary tointegrate dispersed information that flows in them.Because information has different formats, rules,

and flows in different applications, time should beestimated and provided to manage the dispersedinformation. Nevertheless, the effort is only estimatedfor the development of the technical tasks. Projectmanagers assume that during that time, information(or documentation as participants call it) will beproduced and managed. However, in reality,this does not happen, and information is poorlymanaged, and tasks start to get behind schedule.

Know. Process Mgmt. (2012)DOI: 10.1002/kpm

Information Management Barriers in Complex R&D Projects

In brief, this barrier regards dispersion ofinformation among the following:

• different participants (within the same or dif-ferent organizations, with different levels ofresponsibility);

• information systems (administrative, technical);• collected in different occasions and places (meet-

ings, informal discussions, institutions, countries);• used in different contexts and purposes (teams,

clients);• in different formats (paper, digital) and types of

files (audio, video, graphic); and• different devices (desktops, notebooks, personal

digital assistants).

“The main challenge is essentially the administra-tive information. There isn’t any application forthe management of administrative informationin project management. There is a financial appli-cation, but then there isn’t any for the manage-ment of the resources of a project. The reportingis done according to European, national, consul-tancies. It’s all done in a dispersed way, ad-hoc,Excel, these things, but there isn’t any applicationfor the administrative management of projects.There is only a financial application, costs center,and the only way to follow up a project is withbilling and expenses” (x4, Information andComputer Graphic Systems).

“. . . this information is becoming all over theplace as suggested, we have seen something’s onmobile phones recently, you could write textmessages and you get a response, and thesethings would be necessarily connected togetherin an particular thread. Youmight send amessageby text and get a response by email, so also thesewould be in 2 different places. So increasinglywe are seeing mobiles and PCs, which allowconversations in a more generic way so it islooking at the content and not the different infra-structure, systems and different technologies”(x21, Software Development).

“We have weekly or periodic meetings, from 15to 15 days, depends. And, those are also timesto share information. That is good because every-body discusses, but information gets dispersed,right? Everybody takes their notes. Then wedon’t have anyone that is in charge of collectinginformation and share it with everybody”(x23, Telecommunications and Multimedia).

IMB5: Updating and adaptingAnother barrier that emerged from the contentanalysis was difficulties in updating and adaptinginformation. These regard the challenge of usingthe appropriate language and/or using different

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language levels within the project network.Complex projects encompass different profes-sionals, such as craftsman, engineers, and research-ers. Some of them may not have higher formaleducation levels, but they possess considerabletechnical expertise. Therefore, it is necessary toadapt the information according to the formaleducation level of the different participants.In addition, this barrier also regards providing in

a timely manner the relevant information producedin the course of the project to all the participants.This includes using a common structure and theappropriate language level. According to the parti-cipants, the effort to share relevant information thateach one is producing in a determined moment stillposes considerable challenges.To sum it up, the barrier updating and adapting

information regards difficulties in:

• adapting and updating information in a languageand format that is adequate to the level andcontext of the other project participants;

• updating (keeping participants at the sameinformation level); and

• syncing (ensure that everybody is working withthe same information) in a timing that is usefulfor the other participants, informing otherparticipants of information updates.

“. . . use appropriate language with people. Useinformation with different levels. Some peopledo not have high education levels, but theyare good technically and professionally, so youhave to adapt the information for all kinds oflevels” (x8, Information Systems Development).

“One of the main is to keep information in sync,so meaning that everyone as the same informa-tion at the same time and sometimes people workwith outdated information. For example, olddeliverables, old templates and those kinds ofthings and I think that mainly happens becausepeople, for example miss messages and some-thing like that. One of the most challenging partsis to keep people and information in sync” (x22,Software Development).

“Most of the time I am monitoring the latestnews of the portal, but we have a huge project,so there are so many contributions it mighthappen I lost something, I don’t notice if some-one updated something that I am alreadywaiting” (x24, Software Development).

IMB6: Lack of timeAnother barrier referred by participants was lack oftime. According to subjects, project teams workunder a tight schedule, and there is lack of time toconduct information management activities

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V. R. Santos, A. L. Soares and J. A. Carvalho

properly. Consequently, participants argue thatplatforms and tools need to be more user-friendlyand not so time-consuming when performing tasks.Otherwise, even with the proper motivation orpersuasion, information management strategies willbe destined to fail.

“. . . if the closing requires much supplementarywork people simply won’t do it. On the otherside, currently what we do is to put everythingin a big black bag and close it, and one year laterwhen someone needs to get something, every-thing is unstructured” (x15, Power Systems).

“. . . people spend so much time registeringadequately what is necessary that eventuallygive up. We cannot motivate people to do it”(x20, Manufacturing Systems Engineering).

IMB7: Codification processThe last barrier to information management incomplex projects was the codification process. Thisconcerns the inherent difficulties in:

• presenting information in an appropriatelanguage (different professional and technicalterminologies);

• information structure (different rules) and format(different systems); and

• participants tend to formalize (write) strictlythe necessary information (because of absence oftime and the perception that is leverage overthe others).

“. . .what happens many times is that informationhas different formats, has different rules, usesdifferent applications to be codified, uses, weuse different technical terms that are professionaltechnical dialects, so it is not easy to automatethese processes” (x11, Mechanical Engineeringand Industrial Management).

“Most of the times things stay in peoples headand are not written, and this brings obviousdifficulties. One way to eventually deal with thatis, it is not easy, is to calculate and provide time toproduce documentation in projects, and some-times this is not done” (x13, ManufacturingSystems Engineering).

CONCLUSION

Conclusions and implications

The effort to manage information in complexprojects is considerable, and project teams do nothave good results in this aspect. A consistent infor-mation management strategy could significantlyinfluence the overall effectiveness of the project.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Our study derives several implications for thepractice and wider disciplines of informationmanagement and project management.Complex project platforms and tools should

integrate graphical and multimedia features. Itallows moving beyond textual information, thusenhancing collaboration in the several phases of theproject. This is supported by Reed and Knight(2010) that argue that electronic media has providednew methods for communication and new modelsfor project team communications. Therefore, thefollowing diversity of tools, platforms, and methodsshould be included to improve collaboration withinproject teams: web conferencing, instant messaging,texting, document sharing sites, blogs, wikis, and so-cial networks.Despite the current limitations of the use of key-

words (generic thus not providing accurate retrieval;specific thus turning into time-consuming), projectplatforms should advance to semantic-enabledsystems. Additionally, it is necessary to developand integrate multiformat handling and searchfeatures in project platforms. Otherwise, as someparticipants mentioned, they will be forced tocontinue to work with information in the nativeformat and then convert it to standard office formatsfor exchange and storing.Reported by a significant number of subjects is

the excessive and inadequate use of email. At theend of the day, most projects have a big andcomplex mailing list consisting of hundreds ofemails. In practice, participants are unable to keepan overview of all of them. This aspect is alsolinked with the issue of information overflow keep-ing participants at the same information level.Information should be centralized in a platforminstead of circulating via email and parallelsystems, thus requiring additional effort in consoli-dating the information.One aspect that is transversal to this discussion is

the fact that the majority of the subjects surveyedworks in several projects simultaneously. In reality,they move from one project to another when thedeadlines are closing in. The absence of work exclu-sivity in a single project and the lack of permanentteams add an extra level of difficulty because com-plex projects integrate large teams, and participantsare often replaced causing further instability. As aresult, project managers and participants feel thatbecause of the multiplicity of projects and theirlimited time frame, it is not worth the effort learninghow to work with the different collaborativeplatforms and tools. Some subjects mentioned thatproject portals have been tested and are easy toadapt to project specific context. On the otherhand, some subjects argue that existent platformsand tools do not support efficient collaborationand that this forces them to use email fromsimple and unstructured to more structuredand complex interactions. However, taking into

Know. Process Mgmt. (2012)DOI: 10.1002/kpm

Information Management Barriers in Complex R&D Projects

consideration that participants work in severalprojects simultaneously, and each project has itsown platforms and tools: it is more reasonable tothink that they rather prefer to use a “general” com-munication tool that can be used across projects,thus avoiding a learning curve, time, and extraeffort. Consequently, the reason why project collab-orative platforms and tools are not usually adoptedand/or properly used is due to individual andorganizational practices rather than technicallimitations.

Work limitations

Our study, as any other work, has importantlimitations that must be taken into account whenconsidering the results. Our qualitative researchapproach relies in open-ended interviews as datasources. Despite the use of a significant number ofproject managers and participants from severalorganizations with multiple backgrounds, theremight have been some bias. All subjects surveyedare from different countries; however, all countriesare from the European Union. Consequently,subjects might have presented the Europeanperspective of the information management barriersin the context of complex projects.

Future work

The general goal of this research was to contribute tothe understanding of the information managementbarriers in complex projects. The starting pointfor future work would be to identify social andtechnological aspects of information and projectorganization practices and to study how theseinfluence the quality of the project outcomes. Thismay include knowledge sharing between projectpartners. In particular, it would be interesting toknow how the project’s information processes,architectures, and platforms influence the project’scollaboration and knowledge sharing processes and,ultimately, the quality of the project outcomes.These goals could be achieved by conductingin-depth case studies of collaborative research pro-jects with considerable dimension involving multiplepartners (multiorganizations and countries).

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