The Money Files

It’s very easy to talk about continuous improvement, but if you’re anything like me, it’s a lot harder to build the actions into the workflows and processes you use to ensure that the improvement actually happens.

OK, perhaps that is an exaggeration. There are some simple activities that, once you realise, are easy to change and within your sphere of influence. Those are the improvements we can make simply and with minimal effort, and that everyone appreciates.

But the world of work is increasingly more complex, more VUCA, more intertwined, and changing one thing has an impact on other things. We’re not talking about updating a document template to add a new section, but rewriting workflows within project management tools, or changing how benefits are owned, tracked and reported on across the company. Those types of continuous improvements warrant projects of their own. Projects that often we don’t have the time put aside to deliver on.

Continuous improvement in project teams

What do we actually mean by continuous improvement? In my experience, when people talk about it in a project management environment, they mean the ongoing effort to enhance processes, increase efficiency, and drive better results. Whatever that takes. Like I said, it could be small tweaks or organisation-wide transformation of how projects are run in the business. And frankly, that makes it kind of hard for the average project team to effect any major change.

Still, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. So, if you want to create an environment where people have the opportunity to raise their voices when they see things that can be improved, here are some suggestions.

Set the right example

If we want to foster the right culture, people have to believe they are already in a culture where their suggestions will be listened to. So we want to demonstrate:

Leadership commitment: That’s leading by example, speaking up and suggesting improvements, pointing out where things could be better and encouraging others to do the same whenever we hear them mention a good idea.

Communication: Unsurprisingly, communication needs to be taken seriously and you need to create the time for it. If everything is rushed, they won’t feel that they can share feedback and lessons learned (outside of structured conversations or retros). Create feedback loops or ask about improvement ideas in regular check ins.

Recognise the wins: Celebrate improvements and suggestions, even if they don’t turn out to be implementable – you’re recognising the fact that an idea was brought to the group. Hopefully this will encourage others to do the same and to feel that their ideas are valued.

Make it easy to suggest improvements

People need to feel empowered to suggest improvements and to act on them. Granted, most organisations don’t have dedicated ‘innovation’ time or slack in the calendar where people can work on their own projects. But you can remove the barriers to making suggestions.

Let people work their own way: Encourage ownership on the project and let people run their area of the project the way they feel best. If they find ways to improve or change the process, let them.

Suggestion schemes: In the olden days we used to have a box at work for suggestions. These days there are forms online where we can submit ideas. If you think people would be more open to suggesting ideas anonymously, make sure these systems are in place.

Incentivise innovation: In my very first corporate job we had a scheme where we sent in suggestions and got cards back. If you matched the cards to make a picture, you got a prize. Or something like that. It was a long time ago, but there was an incentive scheme for pointing things out. What could you do that’s similar?

Build in creativity training

Building problem-solving and creativity skills is a… skill. And we can train people on skills. Find some time for training on problem solving techniques, process improvement methods, creative thinking and so on. The Six Sigma training I did in my early career was so influential in how I approach problems today. But let’s just say I’m not naturally someone who would whip out a control chart.

Something else that’s easy to do and within your control is cross-skilling team members. Cross-functional learning and an appreciation of what other people do in their job helps people see the project from different perspectives and find improvement opportunities that way.

This is an interesting topic for me and I think there’s more we can cover, so next time I’ll look at tools and techniques for continuous improvement. Watch this space!

I’ve been looking at my professional development goals for the year and while I’m not quite ready to put them out there for everyone to see, one of things I am reflecting on is continuous improvement in project management and what that means for me and my teams.

If you’ve been around project management for any length of time you will have come across continuous improvement as a concept.

For me, it means an ongoing process where teams evaluate their performance, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes that lead to better project outcomes. Sounds simple, right? The challenge I have is that even if we have the headspace to come up with the improvement ideas, we rarely have the time or the authority to make the changes.

So, what can we do? First, focus on what we can change. It’s about creating a mindset of constant reflection, learning, and evolving. And second, encourage the team to focus in on the ‘why’ of continuous improvement so the ideas we are coming up with are small enough to implement in the time and boundaries we have.

So why does it matter?

Beyond the obvious (we’re all trying to do more with less, because somehow the appetite to deliver change is just as big if not bigger than it always was, but with less staff), here are some formal reasons we are reflecting on:

Efficiency gains: How can we deliver projects more efficiently, reduce waste, and optimise resources? While working within the processes we have.

Mitigate risk: What have we learned from past projects that helps us identify and act on risks on future projects?

Collaborate: Generally, the conversations about improvements help teams build relationships and work together effectively. Any time spent together helps us understand more about how colleagues work and what ways of working are the most effective.

And what are we looking for?

Project professionals should be looking for ways to:

Deliver change incrementally: What are the small, iterative changes we can put in place that won’t overwhelm the team and that feel we are taking steps towards more effective ways of working? If it’s a big (potential) improvement, how can you break it down and make it into smaller steps so it can be phased in over time.

OK, if you have the time and capacity to do the change all in one go, and are confident that it’s the right thing, by all means go for it. But if you feel like doing things at a slower pace would be beneficial – and I think that’s the right approach – then go at that pace.

Empower people to take ownership: How do we encourage individuals to take responsibility for identifying and implementing changes? And the big challenge here for me is making sure that I have the time available to do the implementing!

Use data to make decisions: Let’s not dive in and make changes without having a real understanding of what that would affect. For example, in one project a good few years ago, a process was changed but it impacted teams downstream. Without an understanding of what that team did, I think we inadvertently made their lives harder until we did a proper process mapping exercise to understand how work flowed through the organisation.

You could also use data points from your project management software, feedback or databases and statistics, dashboards or reporting. Just don’t guess at what would be an improvement.

That’s the what and the why. Next time, I’ll look at how you can start building a culture of continuous improvement in project teams because it’s important to have some practical strategies as well. See you then!

Last time I looked at some tips for making lessons learned sessions run a bit more smoothly, and it made me think about some of the pitfalls we see when facilitating those sessions. My own experience is with using the model associated with predictive projects, but I imagine you could get stuck with these pitfalls if you were doing retrospectives with an agile team as well.

Image credit: ChatGPT

Here are some things to look out for once your lessons learned conversation is in the diary.

Focusing on only the negative things. Don’t let the session focus only on the negative. Yes, people like to have the opportunity to share the things that didn’t go well. If it helps the atmosphere to have a moan about the elephant in the room, then do so. But make sure there’s some time on the agenda left to discuss the working practices that were successful, otherwise you’ll all leave the meeting feeling like nothing went well, and I’m sure that wasn’t the case.

Making the sessions too long or too short. Who wants to give up an afternoon for a workshop? No one. And yet if your session is too short, you won’t have time to properly address any issues, come up with action plans or go through the agenda. The exact length of time is going to depend on what you’re wanting to cover and how much prep the team have done beforehand. Question why you need longer than an hour.

The same topics coming up regularly because they haven’t been handled. Regular lessons learned are part of the process, but too frequent and you won’t have had a chance to fix anything – and the same problems will come up again.

Listening to people say they suffered the same challenges because nothing has changed is annoying and frustrating and leaves people wondering what the point is of raising anything if nothing will be done.

People not feeling safe to speak up. Psychological safety is important if you want to get to the truth, but if no one is prepared to share what they thought didn’t go well, you won’t be able to improve. This is a hard one to address if the organisational culture is conspiring against you, but have a think about how you may be able to overcome it if it’s a risk for you. Having smaller sessions with targeted conversations, or anonymous surveys might be options.

Not doing anything with the output. Yep, this is all about leaving your lessons documented in a folder gathering electronic dust somewhere. Not good. Make sure they are turned into actions and have people responsible for doing something with them. At the very least, share them with the other project managers in your group.

Not being able to determine actions properly as you don’t have the detail to hand. So you’ve recognised you need to do something to change a process? If you don’t have the As Is process to hand, it might be hard to work out the action required to make the improvement. And that basically means the improvement won’t get done as what are the chances of someone doing the mapping and analysis afterwards? Unless the leadership team puts a lot of emphasis on follow up, you might miss that out.

These are some of the pitfalls of holding reflection sessions, but by all means I’m sure this list is not definitive. What are the other challenges you’ve found in your own meetings? Let me know in the comments!

I taught a webinar on lessons learned recently and while I was researching it I found loads of good tips. I drew from my own experience, that of other people and published research, and I thought it might be worth sharing a few of the tips here.

Be considerate of hierarchical power in the room and split the sessions by delegates if necessary. In my experience, more junior colleagues don’t share the things that didn’t work so well, or point out successes that they were a part of if there are senior managers in the room.

This is going to depend on your organisational culture – maybe everyone is happy sharing. But I remember a workshop (not a lessons learned) where someone who did the job we were talking about shared a point about the detail and the project sponsor (who hadn’t done the job for many years, if he ever had done it at all) said, “No, it doesn’t work like that.” And consequently shut the conversation down. It’s hard to challenge leadership so split the sessions if you need to, if you think it will help you get more honest feedback.

Write up the output and share it promptly. Lessons are already ‘old’ by the time you are talking about them because they’ve happened and you’re reflecting on them. Write up what you need to write up and circulate the actions as soon as you can.

If there are too many actions, prioritize them and focus on the ones that will add most value. Lessons learned meetings can come up with loads of actions, and if you are doing the exercise mid-project, it’s likely you’ll have actual project work to focus on instead of setting up a whole new project just to fix the things you’ve identified.

Delegate actions to other people, or if you can’t do that, just pick a couple of the major points to work on during the next few months. Come back to the rest of the list later.

Avoid scheduling near holiday times. If you need key people to be in the room, make sure they are around. That might mean scheduling the lessons learned conversations now, even if you are mid-way through the project, or a few months in advance so they hold the time in their calendars.

Ask each individual/team to come with their top 3 lessons. Save time in the session itself by getting people to put in some up-front work. Invite them to come along with their top 3 lessons already prepared, either by sending out a survey or question prompts or letting them have free rein.

Be assured that some people won’t have done this pre-work by the time they arrive in your meeting, so you might want to allocate the first 5 minutes of the meeting to silent individual brainstorming. Then everyone can use the meeting time to come up with the things they feel are the most important.

Collate outcomes in groups/categories to better manage them. The suggestions and lessons are going to fall into various categories, especially if you have given the attendees prompts to think about.

If you’re meeting in person, have separate flip charts or when you are picking up sticky notes from attendees, group them together in common themes as you stick them up. It’s so much easier with an electronic whiteboard, where you can ask participants to drag and drop the stickies, or you can do it as they appear on the screen.

Hope these tips help! When’s your next lessons learned session? Let me know that you’ve got one booked in the comments!