I work in the PMO and have been tasked with improving our lessons learned process. I have read alot of good information on how to incorporate lessons learned sessions throughout the project lifecycle (instead of at the end) and how to facilitate these sessions. My bigger problem is what to do with all the lessons learned that have already been captured and fell into a black hole?? I want to show people the lessons learned already captured will be addressed before making changes to the existing process. Where do I start?? Saving Changes...
Nicole:
Good question; ask yourself why these lessons learned are not being utilized in your organization today? Certainly, pointing out historical information is fine but you should gather feedback from projects managers who are responsible for developing these reports. You'll learn lots and it'll help you firm up your approach.
Let's think about your task: Improve the lessons learned process
It sounds like the organization is interested in capturing the information so you might start by also inquiring with your PMO Manager/supervisor who gave the task the following before you begin:
What are the top three goals to achieve in improving the process?
Examples of goals:
Develop repeatable best practices
Develop a better tool (template) to gather and report this information
Gather information to add to a central repository for all Project Managers in the organization and advocate the use of it.
Develop better project and team processes for small, medium and large projects
What are the expectations of the outcomes of the task?
Examples:
Training opportunity
Coaching and mentoring of leads and junior project managers
Team development to achieve high performing teams
Is the process a reporting mechanism or used as a tool to achieve a positive approach to aide teams and project managers in ongoing professional development?
Based on your type of PMO its a legitimate question; their obviously is no objection to the creation of the reports. Obviously, someone believes something is not working but is there metrics to show improvement or application?
Great project managers apply lessons learned or retrospectives throughout the project to help project teams identify challenges and opportunites for improvement, creation of repeatable best practices and allow an open forum to discuss what went well, what didn't go well and how can we improve.
You can quickly fix team communication problems, delays in implementation and improved service delivery through the application of lessons learned session sprinked throughout your projects.
Deming had it right "Plan, Do, Check, Act".
Let us know how it's going.
Saving Changes...
Elizabeth HarrinDirector| RebelsGuideToPM.comLondon, England, United Kingdom
You could try using a wiki on an ongoing basis to capture lessons learned. This would make it easy to search, and could encourage people to use it. That is OK for new lessons, but for those that have already been addressed you do need to show that they have been incorporated into the way you do things. What I have found useful in the past is to send out regular updates to key stakeholders regarding actions you are taking to address the lessons learned. Keep a log of actions in a document and update it regularly with progress, then make sure people know that their suggestions are being acted on. Saving Changes...
Elizabeth is absolutely right. The key is to inform the stakeholders that would most benefit from the lessons learned. in the end, if they don't care, it can't be that important :) Saving Changes...
Joshua WrightPM II| Bentley Systems Inc.Spring City, Pa, United States
I recently read "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande and it offers a potential solution to the issue of how to ensure lessons learned are not forgotten in future projects. We are currenlty building checklists for key areas of project management (start-up, execution, closing etc.). After each project, we are reviewing the lessons learned and ensuring that they are built into the checklists for next time. That model has been used by pilots for decades and other professions such as doctors and PMs are begining to adopt it as well. We are just beginning this process but the hope is that it will result in much faster adoption of our lessons learned.
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1 reply by Darren McCrea
Jan 25, 2017 12:55 PM
Darren McCrea
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Hi Josh,
I realize this is an old article, but your checklist concept is similiar to something I have been trying to implement within our organization. We are currently using a checklist that was part of the PMBOK back in 2010. If you are still around and active on ProjectManagement.com, I would be interested to hear how the checklist solution is working for you. Does your checklist follow the process groups (Inititiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Closing) and is there a separate checklist for each phase of the project? Are you continually updating and adding to these checklists? Anything else you could add would be appreciated. Thanks again!
Over the years I have come across a number of lessons learned registers and they are all "buckets" and too hard to use for new projects as most are not relevant and who has the time to search out the nuggets that may help?
I like the checklist idea but lessons learned apply to all phases of the project so a categorised knowledgebase approach seems to be the best way of storing and reusing these lessons, adding the most common/useful to a checklist would also be useful. Saving Changes...
Anthony MoorePM Practice Manager| Cathay Pacific AirwaysDiscovery Bay, Hong Kong
I believe capturing the data in a structured and searchable means is the first step but also insuring that your PM's are trained as part of the initiation process to review the lesson Learn database reusable material and of course the do and don'ts Saving Changes...
Stuart DixonProject Office Manager| Xl CatlinCrowbrough, United Kingdom
You need to start by capturing the lessons learnt.
You then need to see what the lesson actually refers to.
If you can write this lesson down in the form of an improvement proposal. Sometimes this is easier to do than others. It is easier for example to suggest an improvement to a process, than to suggest improvements to the culture of your organisation.
Once you have been able to write up this as a proposal, assign an individual impacted by the answer as the owner for this. This will hopefully stop improvements being seen as imposed on people, and more generated by people in your organisation.
As for what to do with the ones already captured, then look through them and do them in reverse order i.e. the newest one first. Your organisation is likely to have moved on over the years, so the relevance of something raised 5 years ago would probably have less impact if you did something about it than one raised in the last 6 months. Obviously if you have long standing issues I would expect a theme to develop and those should be high on your list to improve. Saving Changes...
Darren McCreaDirector, Enterprise Information Services| Central Oregon Community CollegeBend, Or, United States
Jun 14, 2010 4:02 PM
Replying to Joshua Wright
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I recently read "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande and it offers a potential solution to the issue of how to ensure lessons learned are not forgotten in future projects. We are currenlty building checklists for key areas of project management (start-up, execution, closing etc.). After each project, we are reviewing the lessons learned and ensuring that they are built into the checklists for next time. That model has been used by pilots for decades and other professions such as doctors and PMs are begining to adopt it as well. We are just beginning this process but the hope is that it will result in much faster adoption of our lessons learned.
Hi Josh,
I realize this is an old article, but your checklist concept is similiar to something I have been trying to implement within our organization. We are currently using a checklist that was part of the PMBOK back in 2010. If you are still around and active on ProjectManagement.com, I would be interested to hear how the checklist solution is working for you. Does your checklist follow the process groups (Inititiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Closing) and is there a separate checklist for each phase of the project? Are you continually updating and adding to these checklists? Anything else you could add would be appreciated. Thanks again! Saving Changes...
