Lessons learned for managing projects in a Higher Education environment: organisational and individual experience

This study explores the experience of lead academics undertaking externally funded projects within HEIs in the United Kingdom through qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews. It had been expected that the study would reveal that many HEIs had adopted formal project management practices in order to monitor progress, identify and deal with issues that arose, and embed lessons learned from projects into organisational learning to inform future practice. It was found that this was not the case, and although elements of, or equivalent to, project management best practice were in place for monitoring and reporting on progress, there appeared to be little attention paid to the question of transferring knowledge derived from experience from the project team to the rest of the organisation. The lead academics involved approached their work with diligence and enthusiasm, and found themselves subject to complex social situations and feelings of impostorship, and undertaking a significant amount of Emotional Labour in order to keep their projects on track. Although they learned new information, they had not attempted to capitalise on their experience by reflecting upon it for the future