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Documenting the Lessons Learned for Every Project
Michelle LaBrosse
Project Management
It’s easy, given the pace of business today, for managers of peo-ple and projects to shift gears quickly to the next item on theagenda without giving adequate consideration to the lessons andlearning opportunities of the previous project.
However, collecting and analyzing successes and failures is avaluable tool to improving performance. This information, oncecaptured, can be used to streamline future projects and ensure asuccessful launch for the next project or team. Everyone benefitsby reviewing past activities and decisions to learn what worked,what didn’t, what can be changed, and what must be managed—not just annually, but on an ongoing basis as each project is com-pleted.
Project-management professionals use a project closeout pro-cedure to capture this information, using a postimplementationevaluation report (PIER). The PIER records the history of theproject and contains suggestions for other projects of similar sizeand scope. Each PIER contains information about the projectobjectives, the start and end dates, the total actual project cost,and much more. A less technical and detailed approach that isstill very effective is to conduct an organized lessons-learned ses-sion at the end of each project. The lessons-learned session is aforum for team members to document what succeeded, whatfailed, and what should be changed for similar projects in thefuture. The session should take place as soon as possible afterthe completion of the project—no more than a week shouldelapse.
A lessons-learned session includes collecting the information,planning the topics checklist, preparing for the session, conduct-ing the session, and summarizing and sharing the data.
© 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ert.20289
Employment Relations Today
COLLECTING INFORMATION
Both the team unit and individual members can contribute to this aspect ofthe lessons-learned session.
Individuals can keep a weekly log of lessons learned as the project pro-ceeds rather than try to remember and record them all at the end of the pro-ject. A good project-management habit to remember is to spend a few min-utes regularly to review what has been learned. Many people prefer to dothis once a week, on Fridays. A weekly time frame gives a bigger-pictureview than a daily log and allows patterns to emerge more easily. It is helpfulnot to overthink or spend too much time collecting lessons learned eachweek; no more than 15 minutes should be spent reviewing the week.Although there are many ways to approach collecting information, the high-lights can be captured by completing four simple statements:
1. Three things I learned this week when working on my project were (a) ________, (b) _______, and (c) _______.2. When implementing ______ on the project, I felt _____. (Attaching a feeling toa learning experience makes it easier to remember what was learned and why it wasimportant.)3. When I tried _______ on the project, the following happened: _______.4. Next week, I am going to try ______ on the project based on what I learned thisweek.
The project team can set its progress reviews to three standard milestones:the project kickoff, completion of the final deliverable, and the lessons-learned session. However, long-term, large-scale, big-budget projects requirecloser monitoring and more room for midcourse corrections. Schedulinglessons-learned sessions pegged to milestones (the interim deliverables) are akey tool. Every project should have no more than ten milestones, which cancover elements such as “establishing system requirements” or “developing atraining manual.” The advantage of interim lessons-learned sessions is thatthey can catch problems while they are still small. However, short-term/low-budget projects may not warrant periodic time-outs for lessons learnedunless there is a dramatic need for a new direction.
Beyond individual and team reviews, remember to include your cus-tomers. Your customers, whether internal or external, are your ultimatefeedback providers and must be handled with care. Instead of setting up for-mal meetings with customers, ask for feedback during phone calls or meet-ings that occur during the normal course of doing business.
94 Michelle LaBrosseEmployment Relations Today DOI 10.1002/ert
Spring 2010
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PLANNING THE SESSION TOPICS
Typical topics that can be covered in a lessons-learned session include ven-dor management, equipment delivery, project approval, budget approval,communication (lateral and vertical), testing, technical support, and training.These topics can span project phases, deliverables, training, team composi-tion, or any definable activity associated with the project. Team memberscan be tapped for their suggestions on other topics as well.
Issues in the session might cover:
❏ Did the delivered product meet the specified requirements and goals?❏ Were they met in order of importance?❏ What information, if any, changed the priorities?❏ Were the users/clients satisfied with the end product?❏ Were cost budgets met?❏ Was the schedule met?❏ Were risks identified and mitigated?❏ Did the processes work?❏ What could be done to improve the processes?❏ What made the project move faster?❏ What slowed the project down?❏ What did the team members experience working on the project?❏ What did the individual team members learn?❏ Based on what was learned, what can be done differently on the next
project?
PREPARING FOR THE LESSONS-LEARNED SESSION
Team members should be encouraged to review their ongoing notes aheadof the meeting. Gaps in their logs can be supplemented by reviewing e-mails, voicemails, or memos. Ask team members to focus on the positivesas well as the negatives. In advance of the meeting, compile a checklist ofthe areas to be covered in the meeting.
CONDUCTING AN EFFECTIVE LESSONS-LEARNED SESSION
To conduct an effective session, the team manager should consider the following:
❏ Designate a neutral party to conduct the session and gather the informa-tion. Someone who is not involved in the project will encourage a morefrank exchange and be free of any bias for or against the project.
Project ManagementEmployment Relations Today DOI 10.1002/ert
Employment Relations Today
❏ Choose a location outside of the work location to help foster objectivityfor the session, and conduct the session as a workshop situation. Themeeting should not be presented as part of any other team meeting.
❏ To prepare for the session, provide the session leader with thechecklist/topic list to be used to gather comments from participants. It isimportant, when leading the session, to prompt for information on suc-cesses as well as opportunities for improvement.
❏ Include representatives from as many steps as possible in the project toparticipate in the session, bearing in mind that a session with more thanten participants is more complex and difficult to manage.
❏ Ensure that the submission of information is anonymous and candid. Ifnecessary, senior management may be invited to take part in a separatesession to eliminate fear of reprisal by team members. To encourage can-dor, participants might be provided with pens (all one color) and “stickynotes” to record their observations. These notes can then be collectedand grouped according to topic, with one topic per note.
❏ Prioritize problems that were encountered during the project, and focuson the top five to ten problems.
In order to make the lessons-learned session more solutions-based, a facil-itator might conclude the session with a brainstorming exercise. Suggestedquestions to use to get things started are:
❏ What topics or issues other than those already covered should beaddressed?
❏ Among the additional topics, which offers the most opportunity forchange with the most positive impact?
❏ What concrete actions do you recommend to implement these changes?
The responses to brainstorming questions should also be captured—anymethod will do, from “sticky notes” to a whiteboard—and included in thefinal document.
Once all of the notes are collected, the facilitator should compile theinformation into a single document that should be distributed to all partici-pants for their review. The team review is a check for completeness andaccuracy only.
SUMMARIZING AND SHARING THE INFORMATION
Once the document is reviewed by all team members, the facilitator shouldsummarize the document for future use by other managers and make itavailable to them. Methods to share the information can vary:
96 Michelle LaBrosseEmployment Relations Today DOI 10.1002/ert
Spring 2010
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❏ Collect all lessons-learned-session documents in a loose-leaf binder, makingit available (along with the most recent document) in the company library.
❏ Develop a Microsoft Access database that can be searched by keyword.❏ Enter the information into a “wiki” for online access.❏ Store the information in a central online folder or computer drive that is
shared by the entire company.
Finally, it is important that the lessons-learned session is more than anexercise in documentation. Facilitators should make every effort to ensurethat the information is used, first by alerting colleagues to the new additionto the collection and then listing some of the similar projects for which thisinformation would be helpful. It should be standard operating procedure forevery manager to check the lessons-learned collection as part of starting anynew project and for any project sponsor or senior manager to ask how thelessons learned from previous projects will be applied to the current project.
The outcome for a lessons-learned session is a summary of the informa-tion and experience gathered that can be applied to similar projects—asource for organizational best practices that can help future projects achievesuccess.
Project ManagementEmployment Relations Today DOI 10.1002/ert
Michelle LaBrosse, PMP, is the founder of Cheetah Learning, a virtualcompany that has 100 employees, contractors, and licensees worldwide.She is the author of the online programs Cheetah Negotiations and Chee-tah Project Management and is an international expert on acceleratedlearning and project management. Recently honored by the Project Man-agement Institute (PMI®), Cheetah Learning was named ProfessionalDevelopment Provider of the Year at the 2008 PMI® Global Congress.A dynamic keynote speaker and industry thought leader, LaBrosse waspreviously recognized by the PMI as one of the 25 Most InfluentialWomen in Project Management in the world. Her articles have appearedin over 100 publications and Web sites around the world. Her monthlycolumn,“The Know How Network,” is carried by over 400 publications.Her radio program,“Your World Your Way,” is a weekly broadcast that isan inspiring and practical look at how project management fuels success.To learn more about Cheetah Learning, visit www.cheetahlearning.com.
