A Comprehensive Analysis of Lessons Learned in Project-Based Operations Within the Automotive Industry

To improve organizational performance, companies cannot “reinvent the wheel” each time they face a new project. Organizations need to take advantage of the experience gained in past projects through the application of lessons learned. The available literature related to lessons learned acknowledges one of the main issues with those processes is the retrieval and application of the lessons from previous projects. The analysis of the literature has also revealed despite the benefits associated, such as increased project and organizational efficiency, lessons learned remain infective, mainly due to various barriers, such as culture and missed formalization of processes. This paper conducts a case study in a project-based organization in the automotive industry, aimed to investigate its lessons-learned scenario, highlighting the perceived barriers to overcome, pointing out the perceived lessons-learned facilitators, and providing recommendations for improvements on the lessons-learned processes. In this research, a qualitative approach was used, and data was gathered about the project manager's perceptions about the main barriers to the general lesson-learned processes. The results show evidence that lessons learned processes are not a focus either from the organization or from the project managers. To encourage the application of the processes and subsequently enhance both project and organizational performance, this paper proposed some recommendations for improvement addressed to the organizational PMO.