Turning tensions in project learning into strategic advantage

Invitation to collaborate in research

By Associate Professor Anna Wiewiora

Projects are often seen as engines of innovation and change, yet they often struggle to capture and transfer the valuable learnings they generate. Despite sophisticated knowledge management systems and ‘lessons learned’ databases, learning often stays siloed, fragmented, or entirely lost. Projects deliver outcomes, but not necessarily organisational growth.

Queensland’s current wave of strategically significant projects, across renewable energy, digital transformations, social infrastructure, and tourism, presents a unique opportunity to capture valuable learnings. These lessons are essential not only for the successful delivery of individual projects but also for enhancing organisational capabilities, policy development, and future investment decisions. Public agencies frequently undertake complex projects involving the implementation of new digital systems, whether health information systems or public service portals. These projects offer rich sources of lessons for future digital transformations and private sector partnerships. Heavy investments in renewable energy projects can generate invaluable learnings for future energy projects, benefiting energy providers, and policymakers. Queensland regularly invests in upgrading and expanding social infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, and public spaces. Learnings from these projects can help better understand and improve environmental and social outcomes such as energy-efficient designs and affordable access. Such learnings from these projects can be beneficial in preventing cost blowouts and resource wastage, especially when public funds are at stake.

Paradoxes affecting project learning

For over a decade, I have been researching project learning across diverse project contexts, including megaprojects and multinational corporations. This program of research reveals that learning within and from projects is shaped by paradoxical tensions. Paradoxes are persistent, contradictory yet interrelated tensions inherent in project environments. Ignoring these paradoxes risks wasted knowledge, learning discontinuities, reduced capability development, and missed opportunities for innovation. But when embraced, these paradoxes can become powerful drivers of strategic learning and capability building.

Learning paradoxes in projects

1. Project vs Organisational Focus
Project managers often identify strongly with their own projects and hold valuable project knowledge but lack incentives or time to share that knowledge beyond their projects. Project Management Office (PMO) and organisational leaders seek organisation-wide learning but lack direct access to the rich learnings embedded in projects. This information asymmetry creates tension between local ownership and organisation-wide learning goals. Additionally, in cross-departmental or cross-organisational projects (e.g., infrastructure, renewable energy, digital systems projects) stakeholders or contractors align with their own organisation, affecting learning integration and contributing to knowledge silos.

2. Learning vs Performing AND Long-term vs short-term Orientation
Immediate project targets often overshadow longer-term learning and capability-building efforts. Especially in public projects, like social infrastructure, renewable energy hubs, or major urban redevelopments projects, project leaders face immense pressures to deliver on-time solutions to justify public investment. Learning from those projects often takes a back seat. Neglecting learning in the expense of short-term performance weakens future performance and limits organisational growth. Bypassing learning often means producing outdated or mediocre solutions, missing opportunities to innovate or repeating avoidable mistakes in future projects. Yet, learning requires time, reflection, and often additional resources. This paradox is about balancing the pressure to deliver immediate project outcomes (on time, within budget) with the need to invest in learning, experimentation, and capability building, which often requires extra time, resources, but it is highly beneficial for the long term competitive advantage.

3. Standardisation vs Flexibility AND Exploitation vs Exploration
Efficient project management demands consistency – standardised templates, tools, governance structures. Standardisation enables learning exploitation via institutionalising proven processes. However, rigid standardisation often clashes with the need for localised solutions such as unique project needs or unforeseen challenges. Flexibility enables learning exploration where teams can trial new methods, adapt to evolving stakeholder needs, or leverage emerging technologies. This can lead to new knowledge and fresh approaches. However, unless mechanisms are in place to capture this new knowledge, it may stay siloed or lost. Projects demand both: routine practices and creative experimentation.

How can leaders of project-based organisations embrace these paradoxes?

Based on extensive research, we recommend a set of actionable strategies:

	Position Project Management Office (PMO) as a Learning Broker Establish PMO as active learning broker. Encourage structured check-ins and informal conversations between PMOs and PMs to capture real-time project lessons. This will provide PMO staff opportunities to identify local learnings that can influence organisational practices. This may result in creation of improved project management guidelines, templates, and governance structures. Provide PMO with ownership to disseminate these learnings across projects through PMO-led forums and knowledge hubs.
	Cultivate Learning Culture Make knowledge sharing and reflection a visible, rewarded part of project performance. Implement mentoring programs where senior project leaders coach junior staff, linking individual learning to organisational priorities. Shift project audits beyond compliance, making them a vehicle for providing feedback on improving future project practices.
	Adopt Flexible Uniformity Approach Standardise critical project management processes (e.g., risk registers, reporting templates) to ensure consistency and transparency. Simultaneously, empower project leaders to tailor processes to fit the size, complexity, and specific conditions of their projects.
	Institutionalise Improvised Routines Encourage project teams to develop solutions organically in response to emerging challenges. Capture these bottom-up innovations and share them across projects. Evaluate potential for broader adoption via formal channels (PMO forums, knowledge repositories).
	Embed Micro-Learning Mechanisms Promote learning as a daily practice, not an afterthought. Introduce live “Lessons Logs” to capture insights in real time. Schedule short reflection check-ins at milestones, asking one simple question: What’s one thing we’ve learned that can benefit future projects?

Let’s collaborate and together turn learning paradoxes into strategic advantage

I am currently seeking forward-thinking industry partners ready to tackle learning paradoxes in their project environments.

Are you a leader in a project-based organisation who recognises these challenges?
Do you see valuable knowledge slipping through the cracks?
Are you seeking research-backed strategies to strengthen long-term capability and performance?

I invite one or two industry partners to co-develop a research initiative focused on managing learning paradoxes in projects. Together, we’ll generate actionable insights tailored to your organisational context.

Interested? Let’s start the conversation. Connect with me directly at a.wiewiora@qut.edu.au

Anna’s profile and examples of relevant articles

LinkedIn: Anna Wiewiora

Identifying and managing persisting tensions affecting strategic learning from projects – ScienceDirect

Surfacing and responding paradoxes in megascale projects – ScienceDirect

Individual, project and organizational learning flows within a global project-based organization: exploring what, how and who – ScienceDirect