The grantees set out to achieve very specific and innovative knowledge sharing objectives. Along the way they explored new ideas, methods, and devices for sharing knowledge about natural resources management. Natural resources management and knowledge sharing both have challenges in their own right, however, in each case organizational change had to occur as well for the projects to be successful. Project team members discussed the challenges they faced when the changes required to move a project forward needed to occur outside of their own organization and in that of a partner.

A change agent is someone who engages either deliberately or whose behavior results in social, cultural or behavioral change. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_agent

Project leaders and often the team members as well acted as change agents. The way the projects themselves were conducted required changes in organizational practices. Working across boundaries to create new resources to create specific shared products was new territory for many. The project teams found their traditional project management tools and techniques had to be applied more rigorously to identify and coordinate the changes necessary across all participating organizations. In addition, they noted the need to more consistently adapt to the dynamic conditions of the collaborative efforts. New strategies for working collaboratively across the various boundaries had to be developed. These “innovations” enabled the teams to focus more on the knowledge sharing innovations and less on the process issues.