The Post Implementation Report Template
Used After a Change To Evaluate Success
The journey doesn’t end when a change is implemented. In fact, that’s when the real learning begins.
A Post Implementation Report (PIR) offers a structured and detailed review of the outcomes—highlighting successes, identifying shortfalls, uncovering process issues, and ultimately driving continuous service and operational improvement. It’s not just a static document; it’s a key governance artefact that facilitates retrospective analysis, strengthens accountability, and helps teams refine their approach to managing change in complex IT environments.
Whether you’re closing out a high-impact project, assessing a critical infrastructure upgrade, or auditing routine service changes, this report provides the visibility and rigour needed to sustain operational excellence.
Post Implementation Report Template
Download my Post Implementation Report template to use and adapt for your own needs.The Post Implementation Report allows you to evaluate the success of a delivery or project in a structured manner. A is a way to debrief and provide insights into what worked, what didn't, and how to refine your approach in future projects.
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Article Contents
What is the Purpose of a Post Implementation Report Template?
The Post Implementation Report serves a range of important functions across both project delivery and IT service management. These include:
- Assess Outcomes: Determine if the change met its planned goals, success criteria, and business case justifications. Compare planned results with actual outcomes.
- Identify Lessons: Extract actionable insights from both successes and challenges encountered during the implementation. Use these to build a knowledge base.
- Drive Improvement: Use post-implementation findings to refine change management processes, improve risk mitigation, and raise overall IT maturity.
- Ensure Accountability: Formally document assigned follow-up actions, responsible owners, due dates, and completion status.
- Facilitate Governance: Serve as a historical record that supports audit trails, compliance reviews, and IT governance assurance activities.
- Enhance Communication: Provide stakeholders with a clear, objective summary of what happened, why, and what will be done next.
Where and When to Use a Post Implementation Report?
A PIR is a versatile tool that can be used across a variety of operational and strategic IT scenarios:
Ideal For:
- IT Change Reviews (e.g. infrastructure, application, or platform changes)
- Post-Project Evaluations (Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid)
- Programme Governance Boards and Steering Committees
- Regulatory, Contractual, or Internal Audit Preparation
- Continual Service and Process Improvement Initiatives
- Major Incident Reviews or RCA (Root Cause Analysis) follow-ups
When to Use:
- Immediately after completing a significant technical or business-impacting change
- After each project milestone or phase, particularly at closure
- As a routine part of Change Advisory Board (CAB) processes
- Following service outages, upgrades, migrations, or vendor transitions
- Anytime senior stakeholders or compliance teams require assurance
What’s Inside the Post Implementation Report Template?
Our professionally structured and editable report template includes the following elements to guide your review process:
- Executive Summary: A concise description of the change, its purpose, key stakeholders involved, scope, objectives, and overall result.
- Timeline Review: A detailed comparison of planned vs actual delivery timelines, including any deviations, blockers, or escalation events.
- Benefits & Issues Realised: Measures how well expected business benefits were achieved. Also documents unanticipated issues or risks that arose post-go-live.
- Lessons Learned: Captures the insights gained during implementation—what went well, what didn’t, and how similar changes can be improved.
- Follow-Up Actions: Lists required actions, action owners, timelines, and current status. Encourages accountability and clarity.
- Linked RFCs & Projects: Provides traceability to the original Request for Change (RFC), change logs, or associated project IDs.
- Compliance Notes: Supports audit readiness by recording how the change aligns with internal policies, regulatory requirements, or ISO/ITIL controls.
- Stakeholder Sign-Off: Optional signature section to formally close the report and obtain stakeholder acknowledgment.
Why Choose My Post Implementation Report?
Our Post-Implementation Report Template transforms change from a procedural closeout to a strategic learning exercise. Designed to be practical and business-ready, it’s a vital asset for any IT, change management, or governance team.
- Designed by experienced IT project and change professionals
- Suitable for ITIL, ISO 27001, ISO 20000, and internal audit frameworks
- Fully customisable in Microsoft Word format (editable headings, tables, and sections)
- Promotes transparency, learning, and accountability
- Saves time by offering a structured and repeatable template
- Helps teams embed a culture of improvement and learning
Turn hindsight into foresight.
Every IT change—no matter how small—is an opportunity to get better. The Post Implementation Report Template helps you learn from experience, tighten governance, and build operational resilience.
Don’t let valuable lessons get lost—capture them, act on them, and drive your future changes with confidence.
FAQs
What’s the difference between a Post Implementation Report and a Lessons Learned Report?
While both documents reflect on completed work, a Post Implementation Report (PIR) is broader. It assesses whether the change met objectives, analyses timelines, reviews benefits and issues, and includes lessons learned as one part of a wider evaluation. A Lessons Learned Report focuses solely on insights for future improvement.
How detailed should a Post Implementation Report be?
The level of detail should reflect the impact and complexity of the change. For major changes or projects, provide comprehensive data across timelines, benefits, risks, stakeholder input, and follow-up actions. For lower-impact changes, a concise summary may suffice, as long as learning and accountability are still captured.
Who should complete and review the Post-Implementation Report?
Typically, the project or change owner completes the report, often with input from technical teams, service owners, and impacted users. It should be reviewed by relevant stakeholders such as Change Advisory Boards (CAB), governance teams, or senior management—especially if the change had strategic or operational risk.
Can this template be used for Agile projects?
Yes. The Post-Implementation Report works well for Agile environments when used at the end of a release, sprint cycle, or epic. It complements retrospectives by providing a formal and auditable summary that ties Agile delivery back to business goals, outcomes, and compliance requirements.
How does the PIR support IT governance and compliance frameworks?
The PIR provides a documented trail of decision-making, success measures, risks encountered, and outcomes achieved. This supports governance frameworks like ITIL, ISO 27001, and COBIT by demonstrating control, transparency, and continual improvement—key components for both internal audit and regulatory compliance.
Further Reading
Check out this Post Implementation Review Checklist from Projectmanagement.com
Monitoring and Controlling in Project Management
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