Strategic Lessons Learned From a Battle-Hardened Project Manager

  Information Technology   Leadership   Lessons Learned   Risk Management  

As project managers, we strive to learn from our past experiences, and we guide and teach others to do the same. We leverage approaches such as lessons learned to fine-tune the methodology, all to make each project better than the last, and sometimes we succeed. However, when navigating the domain of the unpredictable, these traditional lessons learned often “come up short” for advice, hence the need for a different type of lesson that I call “strategic lessons learned.” Each lesson has a short quote that is purposed to help one retain the value of the lesson, and to keep it more entertaining the quotes are written using rhetorical humor, satire and a touch of inspiration – but you can be the judge of that.  I will provide context and background for each lesson with the hope of providing project managers of all types and experience levels a variant way of looking at issues and concerns that impact our projects.

As project managers, we strive to learn from our past experiences, and we guide and teach others to do the same. We leverage approaches such as lessons learned to fine-tune the methodology, all to make each project better than the last, and sometimes we succeed. However, when navigating the domain of the unpredictable, these traditional lessons learned often “come up short” for advice, hence the need for a different type of lesson that I call “strategic lessons learned.” Each lesson has a short quote that is purposed to help one retain the value of the lesson, and to keep it more entertaining the quotes are written using rhetorical humor, satire and a touch of inspiration – but you can be the judge of that. I will provide context and background for each lesson with the hope of providing project managers of all types and experience levels a variant way of looking at issues and concerns that impact our projects.