Abstract
M.Tech.
Many organisations rely on Information Technology (IT) projects to react to
competitive pressure and innovation. IT projects are divers and they may
include installing off-the-shelf hardware to developing software to basic
technologies that provide information to support the operations, management,
decisions-making functions within the organisation.
In the past years, there had been an increasing number of Multinational
Organisations (MNOs) working on IT projects together to create mergers and
grow business in foreign countries. While IT projects are being undertaken,
Multinational Project Teams are faced with challenges and among their
challenges project reviews is one of them.
Project reviews are an essential process of learning new things and capturing
what had been learned in the current phase/project in order for future
phases/projects to benefit. Moreover it is a stage where project teams assess
if they had met their key deliverables and project performance. A related study
was conducted on project reviews and the results revealed that 4 out of 5
organisations did not conduct post-project reviews. However, if they did
conduct project reviews, there were no guidelines on how to do it.
The aim of the study was to ascertain a set of guidelines that are used by
MNOs to conduct project reviews and share lessons learned and experiences
gathered during and after an IT projects for future usage. The significance of
this study was to highlight the importance of guidelines for conducting project
reviews in order for project teams to learn from the project. The findings can
be utilised in building guidelines that MNOs can use to conduct project
reviews and to integrate lessons learned back into the organisation.
The scope of the research was limited to an MNO with headquarters in the
Netherlands and subsidiaries in China and South Africa. The study was
carried out using qualitative research approach through interviews,
observation and gathering of documentation. Using Atlas.ti which is a
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CAQDAS, data was analysed to compare and contrast similarities by using
categories. The categories constructed offered the integrative interpretation of
what was learned. From the individual and focus group interviews 5 main
categories were elicited: project review meetings, intervals of conducting
project reviews, lessons learned, knowledge sharing, and information
extracted from project reviews.
Based on the results it was evident that the MNO in question requires a set of
guidelines on how to conduct project reviews. Moreover, there was no formal
mechanism used to integrate lessons learned back into the organisation. A
Generic Model for when project reviews should be conducted was developed
using various models and guidelines that are used by other organisations and
this model could be utilised by MNOs. For each project phase as illustrated on
the Generic Model, there are project review guidelines on what to measure
during the phase review.
This research contributes to the growing literature on the organisational
processes and mechanisms for project reviews and lessons learned.