The purpose of lessons learned is to bring together any insights gained during a project that can be usefully applied on future projects. When should a project manager ideally commence this activity?
Samir AlamProject Management Consultant| SECDammam, Dammam, Saudi Arabia
A. At the start of project planning B. At the start of project execution C. During the project closure D. From project kickoff meeting
which can be best answers among given options Saving Changes...
Sergio Luis ConteHelping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based OrganizationsBuenos Aires, Argentina
May 14, 2020 5:31 PM
Replying to Samir Alam
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Can you please elaborate more why option D is right answer.
Option A (At the start of project planning) is the earliest activity among all four options, so considering the fact that lesion learn should capture through the project, why cannot we choose option A as right answer over option D - (From project kickoff meeting).
Because kick off meeting happens after the planning and before executing phase.
The question is about Lessons Learned on the current project. Lessons Learned for the current project are collected while the current project is in execution phase. The first activity at project execution is project kickoff. If projects are small in size then the PMBOK said that kickoff could be performed at initiation as the first activity in the planning process group then in this case D prevails on A. At the start of project execution the first activity is project kickoff then D prevails on B. As you know as the PMI stated getting lesssons learned as project close is considering a "bad" practice so C must not be consider as a valid answer. Saving Changes...
Joy IyerBusiness Leader in the Hydrocarbons Sector, Engineering Manager, Project Manager| Paton Engineers and ConstructorsMississauga, Ontario, Canada
Has anyone in the community worked at a place where credible lessons learned are built into company standards?
My personal experience has been that some organizations are good at having standards requiring lessons learned to be documented by the PM, and lessons are implemented in the immediate future. However, many good lessons are lost over time due to process loss (i.e. the inability to covert lessons learned into a formal process improvement).
I would like to learn if anyone has had a better experience than what I have had in this area.
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2 replies by Keith Novak and Thomas Walenta
May 15, 2020 1:22 PM
Keith Novak
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Joy,
At my employer (Boeing), we have found mixed results with lessons learned, despite having robust standards for nearly everything.
For general lessons learned, it's difficult to document them in a way that anyone can ever find relevant information later, within the vast ocean of data. There is not one general repository ("It's on The Server...somewhere"), and they tend to be entered as free-form text which makes it difficult to find what you want without AI to help sort through massive volumes of data. I remember a 5S audit where I was asked whether my team used lessons learned, and my response was that one lesson learned was that our database was unusable so it was "Swept". (Disclaimer: Some groups may have developed better databases.)
The exception is safety lessons learned. There is a lot more care put into how those are documented so the information is actually usable. That really is the key. If you just dump a bunch of data into a system, it may never be effectively retrievable and you can't find much that is useful. The data must be thoughtfully entered and well organized for it to have real value.
May 16, 2020 6:56 AM
Thomas Walenta
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Joy,
working at IBM until 2014, we used a knowledge management system for 40k project managers globally. Knowledge assets were put in, reviewed and their reuse was measured. It was a great source of knowledge for me and others.
That’s for codified knowledge. As also elaborated in PMBoK Guide, tacit knowledge is of upmost importance and the techniques to maintain and spread it are different. Mentoring, shadowing, webinars etc are examples, it is also a cultural thing.
Product Operations Program ManagerBarcelona, Cataluña, Spain
If I put myself in the exam mode - thus, pick the option that fits best, which does not mean is entirely correct - I'd go with D.
I must make the assumption that kick-off is understood in this case as the project charter sign off. From that moment on (project planning), inputs to the lesson learned log may start pouring in. One could argue that inputs to the log could also be captured during the pre-project phase (there is a lot of discussions in the forum of where the border between pre-project and a project is). Again, in this case is option D still the best fit. Saving Changes...
From a purely PMP exam point of view, I agree that D makes the most sense. Hopefully, as a project manager you "commenced" capturing lessons learned at the beginning of your career. Saving Changes...
Has anyone in the community worked at a place where credible lessons learned are built into company standards?
My personal experience has been that some organizations are good at having standards requiring lessons learned to be documented by the PM, and lessons are implemented in the immediate future. However, many good lessons are lost over time due to process loss (i.e. the inability to covert lessons learned into a formal process improvement).
I would like to learn if anyone has had a better experience than what I have had in this area.
Joy,
At my employer (Boeing), we have found mixed results with lessons learned, despite having robust standards for nearly everything.
For general lessons learned, it's difficult to document them in a way that anyone can ever find relevant information later, within the vast ocean of data. There is not one general repository ("It's on The Server...somewhere"), and they tend to be entered as free-form text which makes it difficult to find what you want without AI to help sort through massive volumes of data. I remember a 5S audit where I was asked whether my team used lessons learned, and my response was that one lesson learned was that our database was unusable so it was "Swept". (Disclaimer: Some groups may have developed better databases.)
The exception is safety lessons learned. There is a lot more care put into how those are documented so the information is actually usable. That really is the key. If you just dump a bunch of data into a system, it may never be effectively retrievable and you can't find much that is useful. The data must be thoughtfully entered and well organized for it to have real value. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
May 14, 2020 10:17 PM
Replying to Joy Iyer
...
Has anyone in the community worked at a place where credible lessons learned are built into company standards?
My personal experience has been that some organizations are good at having standards requiring lessons learned to be documented by the PM, and lessons are implemented in the immediate future. However, many good lessons are lost over time due to process loss (i.e. the inability to covert lessons learned into a formal process improvement).
I would like to learn if anyone has had a better experience than what I have had in this area.
Joy,
working at IBM until 2014, we used a knowledge management system for 40k project managers globally. Knowledge assets were put in, reviewed and their reuse was measured. It was a great source of knowledge for me and others.
That’s for codified knowledge. As also elaborated in PMBoK Guide, tacit knowledge is of upmost importance and the techniques to maintain and spread it are different. Mentoring, shadowing, webinars etc are examples, it is also a cultural thing. Saving Changes...
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