Barriers of knowledge base creation in the context of Microsoft Project application

The paper presents the results of an empirical research aimed at determining the level of practical usage of the Microsoft (MS) Project application as a suitable knowledge base for project management support. The main research aim is to identify the barriers to the creation of a knowledge base in the context of Microsoft Project applications. To fulfil the aim of the paper, a questionnaire survey in the form of a guided interview was conducted and two statistical hypotheses were formulated (H1, H2). The research was conducted in the selected region in the Czech Republic, using a sample structure that is a representative sample of the population structure. The research results confirm that there are barriers to creating a knowledge base in the context of Microsoft Project application. These barriers are categorized into three groups: significant, medium, and moderate. The classification is primarily based on the view of insufficient centralization of data, information and knowledge related to key project processes (time planning, resource allocation, budget composition, project status evaluation, and project risk management). The most important obstacles include: MS Project application is used in the project-planning phase only for project time analysis (not for resource and cost analysis); MS Project application is not used in the project realization phase (lack of project baseline, evaluation of project status). Medium barriers include: incomplete initial project setup; failure to use lag time and lead time for dependencies between tasks; failure to use task constraint types; failure to use the function “Effort-Driven Task”. Moderate barriers include: failure to enter project metadata; failure to use shared project resources; failure to use custom reports.