Lessons learned...whats that?

I keep being amazed about the fact that in most projects we do not learn from previous projects. Most executed projects do have a lessons learned report afterwards. Projects that are PRINCE or even PINO (PRINCE In Name Only) usually have something like points to improve or reviews of the projects. But what do we do with these reports and all those wheels which were invented along the way?

I can be very short about that: NOTHING!

At least that is what I see within projects of myself, but in other projects as well. To give an example of how we do not use our Lessons Learned in new projects:

A colleague of mine asked me to help him with setting up an issue tracking tool. The client did not have anything yet and the money pot was already depleted. So I asked;
"what do you currently use then?". Where his answer was: "We log the issues in an excel sheet and mail (!!) this to India to be solved." If he could have seen my face at the time it would probably have been hilarious....for him.....I was stunned to even hear we are still in the stone age with the most basic things....namely traceability.

How would they know what the status of an issue was or even know what has been solved and when? So I started setting up an Open Source issue tracking tool and made it available (already filled in) to the project manager. After not hearing anything for a while I contacted him again. And this was the answer:

"The client and the project manager decided not to use the tool in the end." So I asked what they were doing now: "We now get issues by mail and have to distribute this to India somehow." This is a project within our own company where in prior projects we do have lessons learned which all state that we should have something already available at the beginning of any project....but we don't read them apparently.....and if we do, we have no interest in using them.

Because why should we invest in something that from the past tells us should be used to prevent problems (which will cost more money in the end)?? I see it every time with new projects: You start by setting up a whole new test process with templates and issue trackers and all. Which is good for that project, but in fact a waste of time for future projects. You are going to do it all over again anyway. No, let me rephrase that; you are going to use the same setup of prior projects in new projects (of other customers) again, but you are going to set it up mapped to this specific project and match it to the customer anyway.

For me as a tester/consultant, it's not a big problem to do this obviously...keeps me busy and the customer paying. But it would be so much better if we just used our lessons learned (within the companies, not as testers) instead of doing it all over again.