This paper suggests 'intelligent participation' as a framework through which members of cross-functional project teams can engage productively in communicating knowledge. It identifies the transmission model of communication, and its accompanying discourse, as an implicit, but restrictive, conceptualisation underpinning much current research. It critiques that model as an oversimplification of energetic team exchanges into inert information transfer and proposes instead that communication be understood as a complex, living process. Understanding communicating knowledge as an ongoing series of interactions among participants, this paper fuses complex responsive process theory with the perspective of complex adaptive systems. It argues that focusing on local interactions within a systemic context enables a more realistic account of project interactions. This approach augments project management work on knowledge transfer with current communication theories, and also suggests specific capacities that may be developed to integrate cross-functional conversations that foster innovative, emergent outcomes.