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This paper aims to present a case of project‐based management development with a group of younger researchers in a medical faculty in a university.

The case is based on documentation and recollections in which the first author was involved as a learning coach. The paper is a way to share a process of conversation between the authors and to highlight some critical issues through the elaboration of three perspectives: a macro perspective where the situation in the medical faculty is related to developments in the organizational field; a description from the consultant's point of view; and a human resource perspective in which the style of intervention is linked to the contingencies facing the organization at this point in time.

In retrospect the program was found to create opportunities for identity‐work and sensemaking involving the participants' individual roles as well as their representations of how the medical faculty was organized. While normal human resource management (HRM) may be seen as a kind of regular maintenance of an organization, it is suggested that the style of management development (as part of an overall HRM strategy) described here is better understood as a form of organizational identity work.

Distinguishing between different styles of HRM and relating them to contingencies in terms of threats to organizational identity contributes to a more nuanced discussion of the practical challenges, possibilities and risks related to different styles. There is a need for both large‐scale studies of the prevalence of new practices and in‐depth ethnographies of interventions like the one described in this paper, especially in situations where there are perceived threats to identity.

Higher education institutions are required to evaluate program quality through cyclical program review processes. Despite often being considered the “gold standard” of academic review, there persists dissatisfaction with the lack of integration of program review findings into other planning processes, such as budgeting, assessment and strategic planning. As a result, the notion of program review action plans “collecting dust on the shelf” is so ubiquitous that the concept is normalized as an expected outcome. The purpose of this paper is to describe a conceptual model whereby teams of faculty members receive education and training from quality assurance practitioners and educational developers, access to institutional resources, opportunities for cross-departmental collaborations and collective advocacy to increase the capacity of faculty members to implement improvement goals resulting from program reviews.

The authors theorize that a professional learning community is a meaningful approach to program review and present a conceptual model – the Academic Program Review Learning Community (PRLC) – as an antidote to hierarchical, fragmented, compliance-oriented processes. The authors suggest that the PRLC offers a reliable institutional framework for learning through formalized structures and nested support services, including peer learning and external coaching, which can enhance the catalytic capacity of reviews.

The authors argue that postsecondary institutions should create formal structures for incorporating learning communities because, without a reliable infrastructure for collective learning, decision-making may be fragmented oridiosyncratic because of shifting demands, priorities or disconnected faculty.

A learning community model for program review fits well with a new way to think about program review because faculty are most engaged when they feel ownership over the process. Furthermore, few models exist for conducting program review; as a result, chairs and academics often struggle to conduct reviews without a coherent framework to draw upon.