On Projects*

Learning from the past is the key to getting it right in the future but its more than just writing a lessons learned report that will gather dust in the filing cabinet. Hard won lessons learned, like the stories grandpa use to tell, need life beyond the end of project party. They need to be retold to others (and yourself) so that they too may avoid the same pitfalls. In a world where the pitfalls cost money, the value of lessons learned can mean the difference between profit or loss or in the worst case scenaro life and death.

Like many components of project management, lessons learned is a process. Fortunately it isn’t hard to make the lessons learned process work, PRINCE2 does a pretty good job of it. (You can also download a educational template here.) The hard bit is ensuring this information is distilled into key messages and communicated effectively to others – something PRINCE2 doesn’t teach you.

To start with you need an audience. There is no point gathering up all this experience if no one is going to read it. Identify key parties within your organisation or even your key suppliers who will be interested in your experiences. These can be other project managers, the audit team, PM methodology team, quality assurance staff or even senior managers who will play the role of Project Executive in the up and coming projects.

Next you importantly need to make your point heard. If you think simply writing a report will do the trick, don’t be surprised to find your organisation making the same mistake again and you writing that “I told you so” email as you forward your lesson learned email no one actually read. So be proactive and setup a meeting with your standards teams, senior managers and colleagues to present and discuss your lessons learned report and make sure the key people required to action them are present.

Finally you need to follow it up. They may have heard you but did they actually put it into practice? If not why not?

The lessons learned report is a key part of an organisation’s (and Project Manager’s) knowledge management function, if you are putting in the effort to facilitate change, put a little more in to make sure it goes through.

Filed under: PMO, PRINCE2, Templates Tagged: | Knowledge Management, MSP, PRINCE2, Programme Management, Project Management, Templates