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Does your organization emphasize the importance of lessons learned? Aside from occasional references to past project failures, few organizations give much thought to learning about the past. In my experience, this is a best practice area that is most often minimized or entirely overlooked.  Lessons learned process is one that crosses functional boundaries and allows an organization to learn from both its mistakes and its successes. An effective process should prevent us from repeating mistakes and ensure that we continue to use methods that were successful. It should be an instrumental part of any organization’s overall continuous improvement process.

Documenting lessons learned helps a project team discover both strengths and weaknesses. It provides an opportunity for team members and/or partners to discuss successes during the project, unintended outcomes, and recommendations for others involved in similar future projects. It also allows the team to discuss things that might have been done differently, the root causes of problems that occurred, and ways to avoid those problems in future projects. Lessons learned can be discovered from multiple types of data and information, including project review surveys, evaluation of actual project results, meetings with project stakeholders, peer reviews, and performance self-assessments. 

Since lessons learned mostly come from the things that didn’t go well and need improvement, we tend to focus on the negative. Many times, however, individuals come up with imaginative and creative ways to do things that save time, money and improve performance. When the successes of a project are discussed, it can provide individuals with encouragement, which in return can increase one’s motivation. 

When developing a lessons learned process/template, one should focus on obtaining the information listed below:

1. What worked well—or didn’t work well—either for this project or for the project team?
2. What project circumstances were not anticipated?  How were these handled?
3. Were the project goals attained (scope)? If not, what changes need to be made to meet goals in the future?
4. What would have been done differently and why?
5. Was the project on schedule and within budget?  If not, what issues arose that steered the project off course?  How were these handled and can they be avoided in other projects?

The time invested in some sort of continuous improvement process can positively affect projects that are underway because throughout a project’s life cycle, we discover opportunities for improvement.  Lessons learned are at its greatest importance when they are documented, shared and archived. I think it is important to follow the tips listed below when creating a lessons learned process.

• Timing – On small projects, one can often wait until the end to capture and document the lessons learned. On larger, long-term projects, the lessons learned should be captured during or at the end of each project stage/milestone (e.g., Planning, Design, Development, Testing, etc.). As time passes, memories fade, people leave the project and, if not captured in a timely manner, significant lessons are likely to be lost. A project manager can add a task after each milestone as a reminder to gather this information from the project team members.
   
• Documentation – A long-term benefit that can greatly help future project teams and customers is documenting the lessons learned and making the formal documentation available on a company Sharepoint or Wiki-type knowledge database library.
   
• Meeting Attendance – It’s important to have the right representation at these meetings.  Besides the consultant(s) and project manager, an executive or technical lead should also attend.  Executives and management need to realize what the organization should continue doing vs. what needs a change for improvement.  Their support is key to making changes happen within an organization. 

At the end of a project, project teams are hurriedly preparing to move onto their next assignment, and miss a prime opportunity to leave a lasting impact on the organization. The same issues that cause a project to fail also prevent the people involved from learning from the failure. Once lessons learned have been identified, they must translate into positive action items for individuals to follow and use for future projects. Remember, the need to manage and deliver successful projects is ongoing and it is my belief that having an effective process will pay itself many times over.