INTRODUCTION

As a project is undertaken within an organization, information is created that documents many interesting aspects over its life cycle. Scope statements, project plans, budgets, and related items document the planning that takes place as part of beginning a project effort. Project status reports, issue reports, budget and schedule updates, risk logs, and other deliverables document the project as it is in progress. Upon closeout, contract closeout reports, lessons learned, copies of final budgets and schedules, and so forth document the end result of the effort from a number of different perspectives. When the project is fully completed, closed out, and resources have been assigned to other efforts, these knowledge assets remain, even as resources come and go. As such, these knowledge assets (also referred to as project artifacts ) offer valuable insight into the planning, progress, and delivery of past projects and allow interested individuals to gain knowledge about past successes and challenges in the project environment, hopefully facilitating better project delivery in the future through the reuse of past practices that have worked well and through avoiding issues that have previously created challenges within the project environment.

The PMO is in a unique position to serve as a knowledge manager for the organization from a project and a program management perspective. The PMO has visibility to the project efforts of the organization, even if the PMO does not actively manage projects beyond internal PMO projects, and also has a primary...