Abstract

Project reviews are an essential process of learning new things and capturing what has been learned in a project. This is done in order for future projects to benefit from this knowledge. A study conducted revealed that four out of five organisations did not conduct post-project reviews. However, if they do conduct project reviews, there are no guidelines on how to do it. The aim of this article is to ascertain how organisations conduct project reviews, share lessons learned gathered during and after an information technology project. The scope is limited to three organisations in the Netherlands, China and South Africa. The study is carried out using a qualitative research approach through interviews, observations and documentation gathering. It is evident that organisations do not have guidelines on how to conduct project reviews. Moreover, there is no formal mechanism used to integrate lessons learned into the organisation. The value is that it provides insight into current practices which allows for recommendations to be made to improve learning from project reviews. The paradoxical results show that there is an absence of formal processes linking organisational learning to project reviews although respondents were of the opinion that organisations do project reviews.

Key words: Qualitative research, information management, lessons learned, organisational learning, project reviews, case studies.