A Case Study on Project Lessons Learned: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

Abstract

This paper reviews the literature on lessons learned and presents findings from an exploratory case study of mega projects in the oil and gas industry. Based on the meta-level analysis of interviews, the findings indicate that lessons learned reflect the maturity of project management practices within companies. Our findings support the importance of management sponsorship in terms of continuous improvement practices, incentives, and financial investments to help embed individual and team behaviours, best practices, and standard operating procedures into the company’s routines. Consistent with the challenges faced in knowledge management, our findings also suggest that more work is needed to support and encourage informal knowledge sharing practices because these practices can be sources of competitive advantage.