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About this lesson
Lessons Learned are a retrospective look at a project, or phase of a project, to identify best practices to be repeated and performance gaps to be improved.
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Quick reference
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned are a retrospective look at a project, or phase of a project, to identify best practices to be repeated and performance gaps to be improved.
When to use
Lessons Learned should be conducted soon after the project has completed. For long complex projects, consider doing a Lessons Learned session after each phase. This is because team members often change during long projects and it is difficult to remember what was good or bad in the project for events that happened years ago.
Instructions
- Lessons Learned: “The knowledge gained during a project which shows how project events were addressed or should be addressed in the future with the purpose of improving future performance.” PMBOK® Guide
- A Lessons Learned session should include all of the relevant team members.
- It is often helpful to have a facilitator run the meaning. This minimizes personality confrontations.
- The purpose is to identify best practices and improvement gaps – not assign blame.
- Results should be maintained in a project database or knowledge management system for reference by future project teams
- Questions should be directed in these four areas.
Project initiation
- Did we choose a good project?
- Were goals and objectives clear?
- Were boundaries clear?
Project planning
- Was our plan complete?
- Were estimates accurate?
- Were risks identified and managed?
Project execution
- Did we follow the plan?
- Did we recognize issues & implement changes when needed?
- Team strengths and weaknesses?
Project management methodology
- Did the methodology help or hurt?
- Were stakeholder interactions timely & at the right depth?
This definition is taken from the Glossary of the Project Management Institute, A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, (PMBOK® Guide) – Sixth Edition, Project Management Institute, Inc., 2017.
Login to download- 00:05 Hello again, I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:07 I'd like to talk with you about an element of closing out your project that's called
- 00:10 the lessons learned.
- 00:12 The Project Management Body of Knowledge, the PMBOK Guide,
- 00:16 defines lessons learned as, the knowledge gained during a project
- 00:20 which shows how project events were addressed or
- 00:23 should be addressed in the future with the purpose of improving project performance.
- 00:28 As you can see, the purpose of lessons learned is to learn, not to assign blame.
- 00:34 We want to learn what worked well and what did not so that we can improve it.
- 00:39 These are a retrospective look at project activities.
- 00:42 It should cover what, actually happened, both good and bad.
- 00:44 And it's not just the plan, it should include project initiation,
- 00:48 execution, and the project management methodology.
- 00:52 We normally do this at the end of the project.
- 00:55 However, on long multi-year projects,
- 00:57 I do a lessons learned at the end of each phase.
- 01:00 I have found that if I wait until the end of the project,
- 01:03 no one can remember accurately what actually happened four years ago.
- 01:07 In fact, many of the current project team members weren't even with the project
- 01:10 four years ago.
- 01:12 One more thing for organizational learning to really occur,
- 01:15 there needs to be some place where the lessons learned are recorded and shared.
- 01:19 Some type of project knowledge management system.
- 01:22 If you don't have one of those, you should still do the lessons learned session.
- 01:26 At least all of the project team members and
- 01:28 stakeholders who attend will personally learn and benefit from the session.
- 01:32 But for organization and learning, there needs to be an organizational database.
- 01:37 When I conduct lessons learned sessions, I focus on four different areas.
- 01:41 By the way, it's often helpful to have a facilitator for these sessions.
- 01:45 If there are sensitive personality issues or
- 01:47 hard feelings about some aspects of the project, an independent facilitator can
- 01:51 bring out the issue when team members might be reluctant to talk.
- 01:56 The first areas I look at is the project initiation.
- 01:59 This area focuses on whether we selected the right project
- 02:02 in getting the charter set.
- 02:04 The questions we ask are, did we choose a good project?
- 02:07 Were the goals and objectives clear?
- 02:09 And were the boundaries clear?
- 02:11 We wanna determine whether the organization did their job
- 02:14 to enable the team for success.
- 02:16 The best practices and
- 02:17 improvement gaps in this area are focused primarily on senior management practices.
- 02:22 I next discuss project planning.
- 02:24 This is focused on the core team and
- 02:26 in subject matter experts who helped with the planning.
- 02:29 The questions asked are, was our plan complete?
- 02:32 How good were the estimates?
- 02:34 And, were risks identified and did we do something about them?
- 02:38 We can't expect a successful project if we've had an incomplete or
- 02:41 unrealistic plan.
- 02:43 We need to identify the best practices and
- 02:45 any improvement gaps that should be addressed on future projects.
- 02:50 I also discuss the execution of the project plan.
- 02:53 It may have been a good plan but did we actually follow it?
- 02:56 Or it may have been a poor plan, but we worked through it and around it.
- 03:00 This is an attribute of execution.
- 03:03 The questions asked are, did we follow the plan?
- 03:05 Did we recognize issues and risks and react appropriately to them?
- 03:09 And, what are our team's strengths and weaknesses?
- 03:12 How well did this team work together?
- 03:14 Were the team behaviors supportive or destructive?
- 03:18 Obviously, this is very much focused at the team level.
- 03:21 Again, we're looking for best practices and improvement gaps.
- 03:25 The fourth area is the project management methodology.
- 03:28 That is, the system used for managing projects.
- 03:31 It includes the procedures, templates, and checklists along with reviews and
- 03:34 project management documents.
- 03:36 The questions asked are, did the methodology actually help the project or
- 03:41 hurt the project team?
- 03:42 And, were stakeholder interactions timely and at the right depth?
- 03:46 A well designed and implemented project management methodology
- 03:49 can accelerate a project and dramatically reduce risk.
- 03:52 A poorly designed or implemented one will delay the project and
- 03:56 introduce unnecessary risk.
- 03:58 When I facilitate a lessons learned session,
- 04:00 I ask my teams to identify at least one best practice for sharing, or
- 04:05 one specific need that the organization can provide assistance to teams for
- 04:08 improvement in each of the four focus areas.
- 04:12 We put the results in the knowledge management system for
- 04:14 use by other projects.
- 04:18 I encourage you to let lessons learned be part of your continuous improvement
- 04:22 approach.
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