Knowledge Management International Conference (KMICe) 2018, 25 –27 July 2018, Miri Sarawak, Malaysia http://www.kmice.cms.net.my/ 123 Project Knowledge Retention in Social Messaging Application Shahrinaz Ismail Universiti Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, {shahrinaz@unikl.edu.my} ABSTRACT Project knowledge is as important as organisational knowledge since it is at the operational level of an organisation. The common ways of retaining knowledge from key employees are merely performed when the people intend to leave the organisation, whereas the retention of knowledge should be done on-goingly during the implementation of projects and tasks. It is also to mitigate knowledge loss during the process of project implementation. With the current technology of social messaging applications being taken for granted as communication tool alone, little did we realise the potential of the tool to be knowledge repository as well. Hence, this research analyses the commonly used social messaging application to understand the personal knowledge management processes within the conversation, in which the signs of knowledge retention happens. Qualitative data gathered from the conversation scripts is analysed to produce quantitative results. The outcome of this research is a proposed measurement technique for project knowledge retention in social messaging application, in which the mapped weightage of personal knowledge management processes is recommended to be used in project knowledge retention scoring model. Keywords: Project knowledge retention, personal knowledge management, GUSC Model, social messaging application, communication pattern. I INTRODUCTION One usually hears knowledge retention and knowledge loss when losing or about to lose key employees from an organisation, hence the techniques like exit interviews are conducted to capture their knowledge with the hope that it could be retained and reused by others in the organisation. Yet, how much of this knowledge is retained and reused? Knowledge retention is important to mitigate knowledge loss not only in an overall organisational level but also at project level, especially for an organisation that often organises events or projects at almost all functional units and management levels. The recurring of the same event may or may not happen, hence the need for knowledge retention is often disregarded. Although it is often being related to organisational memory, by defining knowledge repositories, i.e. individuals, culture, transformations, structures, and external activities (Walsh & Ungson, 1991), with the advancement of Internet technologies, it is believed that the knowledge repositories should include technology as well. This paper suggests that social messaging applications are the emerging tools or technology that could play a role as knowledge repositories for knowledge retention too. The purpose of this research is to put forward the possibility of measuring project knowledge retention to mitigate knowledge loss, by answering the main research question: “How to measure project knowledge retention in social messaging application?” In achieving this, the research objectives are as follows:  To analyse the processes of retaining project knowledge in social messaging application  To propose a measurement technique for project knowledge retention in emerging technology. II RELATED WORK The scope of this research is applying the concept of project knowledge retention by looking into personal knowledge management (PKM) processes over social messaging application. Therefore, this section is divided into two major parts: Project Knowledge Retention; and Social Messaging Applications. A. Project Knowledge Retention A strategy for knowledge retention speaks of identifying the “knowledge resources that are at risk and must be retained, and then implement specific initiatives so as to keep these resources in the firm” (Frost, 2013). In doing so, organisations should identify the knowledge that is at risk of loss, the effect it will have, and how it can be retained (Doan et al., 2011). Despite the well-planned strategy, it still faces the same challenge as the other knowledge management (KM) related processes and strategies. The success of knowledge retention strategy “depends upon successful knowledge sharing and having knowledge sharing and learning organisational culture” (Frost, 2013) embedded in the system. Since not much references were found on knowledge retention, this quote by Frost (2013) on