We received an enquiry this week from a member of our network asking for our help! We believe this may be a topic which other people in our network are questioning, therefore we at PLP thought you may find this read beneficial.

The question was; should my organisation be conducting a post project review for our projects? 

The answer is of course YES! But before we discuss the beneficial details of post project reviews, let us familiarise ourselves with the APM’s project lifecycle. 

The project life cycle includes 4 distinct phases: 

1. Concept – includes everything up until the creation of the business case.
2. Definition – includes the creation of the project management plan (PMP) and all component plans.
3. Development – includes the creation of the different components that comprise the end product of the project according to the plans constructed in the Definition phase.
4. Handover & Closure – Handover is the process of handing over the products and the migration for the practical use. Closure is the administration completion of the project and dissembling the team.

Reviews

Structured reviews take place at various points throughout the project lifecycle; gate reviews take place at the Concept and Definition phases, stage reviews take place in the Development phase and, finally, a post project review will occur at the Handover and Closure phase.

At PLP, we often find that, with some of our clients, post project reviews are overlooked because the project has been completed and everything has been delivered. Organisations can be in a rush to begin other value adding projects and post project reviews become forgotten as a result. We get it, you are busy! But there are so many benefits in conducting post project reviews, some of which include: 

• Capturing lessons learned to help inform future projects.
• A formal record of financial outcome, this assists with estimating future project budgets’ and risk management.
• Ability to identity positive behaviours.
• Ability to recognise particular individuals or teams’ success.

For more information, The APM Project Management Qualification Study Guide (2014) is an insightful resource to read, but there is also tonnes of information on their website, like this blog for example; https://www.apm.org.uk/blog/project-reviews-assurance-and-the-pmo/.

APM, 2014, The APM Project Management Qualification Study Guide, RefineCatch Limited, Bungay Suffolk.