Lessons Learned

Quick reference

• 00:04 Hello again, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:06 I'd like to talk to you about an element of closing out your project that's
• 00:10 called the lessons learned.
• 00:12 >> The Project Management Body of Knowledge, the PIMBOK Guide,
• 00:15 defines lessons learned as the knowledge gained during a project which shows how
• 00:20 project events were addressed or
• 00:22 should be addressed in the future with the purpose of improving future performance.
• 00:27 As you can see, the purpose of lessons learned is to learn, not to assign blame.
• 00:32 We want to learn what worked well and what did not so we can improve it.
• 00:37 It's a retrospective look at project activities,
• 00:40 it should cover what actually happened, both good and bad.
• 00:43 And it's not just whether the plan was good, it should include project
• 00:47 initiation, project execution, the entire project management methodology.
• 00:52 We normally do this at the end of a project.
• 00:54 However, I've started doing this at the end of every phase of a project.
• 00:58 I found that if I wait until the end of the project,
• 01:00 no one can accurately remember what happened at the beginning.
• 01:04 In fact, many of the current project team members may not even have
• 01:07 been with the project back when it started.
• 01:10 One more thing, for organizational learning to really occur,
• 01:13 there needs to be someplace where the lessons learned are recorded and shared,
• 01:16 some type of project knowledge management system.
• 01:19 If you don't have one of these, you should still do the lessons learn session,
• 01:23 it'll help your team.
• 01:25 But if you really want to have an organizational impact,
• 01:28 we need to get that knowledge management system.
• 01:31 When I conduct lessons learned sessions I focus on four different areas.
• 01:35 By the way, it's often helpful to have a facilitator for these sessions.
• 01:39 If there are sensitive personality issues or
• 01:42 hard feelings about some aspects of the project, an independent facilitator can
• 01:47 bring out the issue when team members may be reluctant to talk.
• 01:51 The first area is the project or phase initiation.
• 01:55 This area focuses on selecting the right project and getting the charter set.
• 01:59 For a phase review session, this asks were the boundary conditions correct.
• 02:03 The specific questions we ask are, did we choose a good project?
• 02:07 Were the goals and objectives clear?
• 02:09 Were the boundaries clear?
• 02:11 We want to determine whether the organization did their job to enable
• 02:15 the team for success.
• 02:17 The best practices and
• 02:18 improvement gaps in this area are focused primarily on senior management practices.
• 02:24 I next discuss project planning, this is focused on the core team and
• 02:27 any subject matter experts who helped with the planning.
• 02:30 The question asked are, was our plan complete?
• 02:33 How good were the estimates?
• 02:35 And were risks identified and did we do something about them?
• 02:39 We can't expect a successful project if we have an incomplete or unrealistic plan.
• 02:44 We need to identify the best practices and improvement gaps that should be addressed
• 02:49 on future phases of this project or future projects.
• 02:53 I also discuss the execution of the project plan.
• 02:56 It may have been a great plan, but did we actually do it?
• 03:00 Or it may have been a poor plan, but we worked through it and
• 03:03 around it to get the job done.
• 03:04 This is attributed to execution.
• 03:06 The questions asked are, did we follow the plan?
• 03:09 Did we recognize issues and risks and react appropriately to them?
• 03:13 What are our team's strengths and weaknesses?
• 03:16 How well did the team work together?
• 03:18 Were the team behaviors supportive or destructive?
• 03:21 Obviously, this is very much focused on the team level.
• 03:25 Again, we're looking for best practices and improvement gaps.
• 03:29 The fourth area is the project management methodology, this is the system for
• 03:33 managing projects.
• 03:34 It includes the procedures, templates, checklists, along with any reviews or
• 03:39 project management documents.
• 03:40 The questions asked are,
• 03:42 did the methodology actually help the project team or did it hurt the team?
• 03:47 Were stakeholders interactions timely and at the right depth?
• 03:50 A well designed and implemented project management methodology can accelerate
• 03:54 a project and dramatically reduce risk.
• 03:57 A poorly designed or implemented one will delay the project,
• 04:00 introduce unnecessary risk, and cause bureaucracy.
• 04:04 When I facilitate a lessons learned session I asked my team to identify at
• 04:08 least one best practice for sharing with other teams or one specific need that
• 04:12 the organization can provide assistance to teams for improvement in the future.
• 04:16 In fact, I try to do this and each of the four focus areas.
• 04:20 We then put the results in the knowledge management system for
• 04:23 use by other project teams.
• 04:25 >> I encourage you to let lessons learned be part of your continuous improvement
• 04:29 approach.

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