As soon as the project has passed through the testing and implementation phase and is ready to be passed on to the organization, a project post mortem review should be conducted. A project post mortem review is one of four reviews commonly practiced by project managers to ensure all deliverables, goals, and objectives were met in order for the project to be considered complete and ready for release. The other three reviews are an individual assessment of each team member that participated in the project, an audit of resources, and a follow-up review to make sure the project is still running without a hitch. The participants of the project post mortem are the project manager, project sponsors, team managers, and anyone else who has a direct affect to the project. Benefits
There are benefits and drawbacks to the project post mortem review. One of the benefits is that the review ensures that there is a measured organizational value (MOV) to determine success or failure. Depending on how many people passed the compliance exam given at the end of the two-day training will determine if the MOV was successful. As the MOV was clearly stated as, “the project will be successful of 90% of the attendees pass the compliance exam given.” With the number of resources that were available the probability of MOV being achieved is high. Another benefit is that the post mortem reviews the entire process of the project. Here the scope and the project charter are revisited as it is during the entire project. If scope creep or a change in scope had occurred an explanation would be given here if none were given earlier. The management process is also reviewed in the report. Some of the questions about management that are answered in this report are: Was there clear communication throughout the entire project? Did everyone understand the objectives?
Were deliverables met on time and on budget?
Were resources/time/money wasted?
How close to the schedule were you? If there were delays, why? Drawbacks
One of the key drawbacks to a project post mortem is that the report occurs at the end of the project. For our two-day training project this is not an issue, but if a large organization takes on a large drawn-out project then the post mortem will seem tedious and exhausting as developers, implementers, and testers are exhausted and, quite frankly, mentally done with the project. If this is the case, then a proper review might not be done.
Another drawback is that post mortem review is redundant. A good project manager is constantly reviewing as the project is on going. If this is the case, then conducting a review at the end is unnecessary when the project manager can compile the reviews during the project, possibly making an on-going log so all the reviews are in one place. Conclusion
With the conclusion of the post mortem review, we are hoping that the MOV was a success and 100% of all training attendees passed our comprehensive compliance exam and that all deliverables were on time and on budget. If mistakes were made, then we’d hope to document and learn from these mistakes in order to avoid them in future projects
