Lessons Learned Template

By Gururaj Kumar Shetty

Topics: Lessons Learned, Risk Management

Format: Log

This log helps you collate both the positive and negative experiences throughout the life cycle of any software development project. The main purpose of this template is to collect, share, learn and improve from the real-time experiences you encounter during the project. This information can be cascaded within the team as well as to any similar projects.

The Lessons Learned spreadsheet can be used to capture experiences at any phase or time. However, it's always effective for the project manager to conduct a session with all team members to brainstorm and collate the information at the end of a significant phase/milestone of a project. The session should focus on key questions like:

What went well?
What went wrong?
What was the impact (positive or negative)?
What is the recommendation? (For example: What could be done differently to get a better outcome or effect? Can these be followed in future projects as well in case of positive cases? Can this still be improved for enhanced results?

The template provides a simplified format to capture these experiences in an effective manner in Excel. You can add as many additional values in the "LOV" sheet based on your projects.