An architecture for learning in projects

This paper reports upon a two‐year, qualitative, case study action research investigation into “learning within a project team”. This project team undertook a significant socio‐technical redesign project within a major Australian heavy engineering/manufacturing operation. The paper identifies and elaborates upon a number of elements that form a potential “learning architecture” for intra‐project learning. In unison with these elements, the paper also argues that project teams pursuing a learning objective within a project must pay systematic attention to the “situated learning” aspects of their project context. It is concluded that the potential learning architecture presented has implications for research in the learning and project management fields and, most importantly, for learning processes within project management workplace practice. These implications may extend beyond the project management boundary researched and be applicable in other similar group settings where managers attempt to facilitate learning.