 Chapter VIII Lessons Learned as Organizational Project Memories Raul M. Abril Universitat Pompeu i Fabra, Spain Ralf Müller Umeå University, Sweden and Norwegian School of Management BI, Norway Copyright © 2009, IGI Global, distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. absTraCT This chapter suggests established research approaches to capture and validate project lessons learned. Past research indicates that due to the temporal nature of projects, improper management of knowledge, especially lessons learned, constitutes a risk for present and future projects. The authors argue that case study research is appropriate for developing lessons learned and that an inductive methodology can be used to generate hypotheses. These hypotheses are validated through an analysis of their Goodness of Fit into learning related business questions. Quality assurance in a lessons learned process should include a formalism to avoid loosing knowledge in the coding process, a formalism to avoid equivocality in the knowledge transfer to third parties, and validation techniques for the identifed knowledge items. Furthermore, the authors argue that a common understanding should be achieved before organizational learning infuences decisions and/or actions. inTrodUCTion Projects are intrinsically of temporal nature, they exist for a limited period of time and are char- acterized by frequent change of team members, depending on the skills needed at any particular point in time in the project (Turner & Müller, 2003 ). Continuous dispersion and re-formation of project teams causes brain-drain problems through people leaving projects and simultaneously integration problems by people joining projects. Improper management of knowledge, especially lessons learned, constitutes a risk for present and future projects (Reich, 2007). Under the term “organizational project memo- ries” we include any organization that is project