POST-PROJECT REVIEW

Post-project review should be very important for all organizations. The review is the organization's opportunity to record historical information for future projects. Additionally it enables organizations to learn from the inevitable mistakes made by the project. Advanced projects by their nature involve the whole company or organization. These projects have a unique opportunity to test the mechanisms within the organization. As a result the review can suggest improvements not only for running projects but also for the way the different parts of the organization operate . This unique opportunity should not be lost by any organization. The organization should embrace it and be frank and detailed about the problems that occurred. For a large project a review could take two or three days and involve a large number of people. If carried out effectively the organization will reap rewards.

However, you must undertake the review with care. You need to ensure that it doesn't become a hunt for people who performed poorly on the project. A good way of holding a post-project review is to use a technique similar to the brainstorming technique described in earlier sections. Groups of people within the project should be invited to a meeting where they are encouraged to brainstorm the problems within the project. Since most advanced projects have several work packages it is good practice to invite one or two members from each work package. These participants should be accompanied by customer representatives.

The different work package members should be mixed together and three or four groups formed . You should take care to ensure that each group represents a cross-section of the people within the project. Each group should be tasked with brainstorming the possible improvements that could have been made to the project. You should brief participants to highlight things that should be done on the next project. You should encourage participants not simply to list everything that went wrong.

Once each group has brainstormed their ideas they should bring those ideas together into a common forum. Often you will find that there is a high degree of commonality between the different groups. You should gather these ideas together and in a second session should work through each of them. Ideally the result of the second session will be a list of positive actions for the organization to take. You should then assign the actions to participants or agree to champion them within the organization.

Post-project reviews should be planned early in the project. When the project starts to reach its conclusion you should seek assistance from the customer to help in setting up a post-project review. Early customer involvement will help to ensure a successful post-project review. Customers will gain a lot of confidence in you because they recognize you are trying to do the best for the organization. It is important that customers have this belief. It helps them to believe that the maintenance planning will have been carried out properly with the interests of the organization in mind. Ideally the customer will not think that you are simply trying to close the project and move on.