Post-project reviews in R&D

Post-project reviews - sometimes called post-mortems - are opportunities to improve performance in subsequent R&D projects. However, most companies have not established a structured approach to learning from projects after their completion. Even worse, most projects that have been prematurely terminated never undergo a retrospective analysis of what caused them to fail. A recent survey indicated that 80% of all R&D projects were not reviewed at all after completion, and most of the remaining 20% were reviewed without established review guidelines. Companies that neglect post-project reviews as a tool for systematic inter-project learning throw away invaluable potential for competence building. A five-level post-project process model is presented that helps to build such a learning organization in R&D: 1. initial review practice, 2. repeatable review processes, 3. defined review standards and processes, 4. managed review capability, and 5. optimizing review maturity.