We Learn From Experience That Men Never Learn Anything From Experience.' - George Bernard Shaw

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
-George Bernard Shaw

Dil Pratap Singh
Pranjal Goel
Rachit Mittal
Shivam Varshney
Tarun Saraorgi
Group: Entrepreneurs
The post project evaluation process consists of
activities performed by a project team at the end of
the projects life cycle to gather information on what
worked well and what did not, so that future projects
can benefit from that learning.

It aims to find out best practices and documenting
lessons learned.

Lessons learned can be determined especially while
discussing the problematic areas and their reasons,
or while developing improvement suggestions.

Introduction
During post project evaluation,

The project is compared with its baseline plan.

Its performance is examined against accepted

success criteria.

A project is considered successful if,

Outcomes are realised;
Project outputs are delivered on time and to the

agreed quality;
Costs are within those budgeted and;
The requirements of all stakeholders are met.

Obviously, project outcomes must please the customer, but they
should also bring value to the organization (Shenar et al., 1997).

Post project evaluations are usually done after project closures.

How Can Post Project Evaluation Be Executed?
Post Project Evaluation
Approaches
1. By Project Team
2. By a Department
This approach has the advantages of being performed in

a relatively short time, with less cost, and ease.
It has the disadvantage of being subjective and

superficial.
This approach is more in-depth and objective.
It has the disadvantage of being costly and time-

consuming.
This is recommended only for large-scale projects.

Steps Of The Post Project Evaluation Process
Data
Collection
Evaluation
Establishing
Lessons
Learned
Verification
Documentation
Information
Dissemination
Data about the project to be evaluated is collected.
The project is evaluated against success criteria, risks, and different
applications.
Evaluation results correctness and sufficiency
are verified.
Evaluation results are documented
as case studies or reports.
Results and lessons
learned are disseminated
for future use.
The advantages-disadvantages are examined after
evaluation and lessons for future projects can be obtained
from them.

Success in the development of new technologies is a matter of learning, what

eventually makes most techniques possible is the object lessons learned from past
failures (Maidique and Zirger, 1985).

High-level
management
support

Availability of raw
materials

Skills Communication
Commitment of
project staff
Need to lower cost Timing
Success Factors of Project

Factors of failed Project
In most cases, failures can be more instructive than successes.

Lack of management
support
Financial problems Uncertain demand
Conflicts
Communication
problems.
Lack of qualified
personnel
Weak project
leadership.
Post Project Evaluation Report

Post project evaluation report provide checklists of dos and donts
which describes important processes and events.
A sample report content for post project evaluation comprise of:

Purpose and scope of evaluation
Review of the system
Project summary
Findings
Conclusions and recommendations
Roles and Responsibilities
The principal responsibility remains
with the evaluation team.
The evaluation team determines the
main discussion points and lessons
learned.
Project leader and teams transfer
their knowledge during interviews
with evaluation team.
Project support office can play a role
as facilitator in the process.
Project
members
Project
support
office
Consultants
A special
department

Benefits of Post Project Evaluation

Learning from past experiences.

Provide help to the planning phases of future projects.

Post project evaluation provides
input to risk management,
especially in identifying risks and developing response strategies

Learning have several positive effects.

Post project evaluation also identifies unique problems.

Post project evaluation provides feedback to the project team about their own
performances. (Therefore, training needs, strengths and weaknesses, clues as to
where to use which resources can be determined by this way )

Drawbacks in Post Project Evaluation
Post project evaluations fall into complete disuse. Even when they are enthusiastically conducted,
their outcomes are poor.

They take time.

Looking back over events are embarrassing . Looking forward to new work is more appealing.

Many people think that experience is a necessary and sufficient teacher in its own right.

Offers extra work (project team is often overworked, under stress and evaluation can be easily
neglected)

Dont wish to face unpleasant facts.

In many situations, it is not understood and told how the findings of the evaluation will be used.
Memory problems as several years spanned on large projects

The tendency to seek the fault external factors in may cause not to diagnose the real reasons
behind the failures and therefore, important lessons will be lost.

Summary
Mistakes are only worthwhile making if you can learn from
the experience.

We have underlined the importance of post-project evaluation and outlined
some impediments to conducting post-project evaluation.

Post project evaluation should not be conducted for their own sake.

Any outcome must be an input to subsequent projects.

Post project evaluation will ultimately be a part of an organisation-wide
learning initiative and thus must receive support of top management.

Organised knowledge sharing is at the basis of competence building and thus a
source of competitive advantage.

We Learn From Experience That Men Never Learn Anything From Experience.' - George Bernard Shaw

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We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

-George Bernard Shaw

The project is compared with its baseline plan.

Its performance is examined against accepted

Outcomes are realised;

Project outputs are delivered on time and to the

Costs are within those budgeted and;

The requirements of all stakeholders are met.

Post project evaluations are usually done after project closures.

This approach has the advantages of being performed in

It has the disadvantage of being subjective and

This approach is more in-depth and objective.

It has the disadvantage of being costly and time-

This is recommended only for large-scale projects.

Success in the development of new technologies is a matter of learning, what

In most cases, failures can be more instructive than successes.

Provide help to the planning phases of future projects.

Post project evaluation provides

input to risk management,

especially in identifying risks and developing response strategies

Learning have several positive effects.

Post project evaluation also identifies unique problems.

They take time.

Dont wish to face unpleasant facts.

Memory problems as several years spanned on large projects

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