Recommendations for future projects like this one. Post meeting checklist, 3. No, I think we have to go all out. At the end right? Pre-meeting survey This is an extremely difficult, but vital part of the analysis. Here is a Toolkit for Conducting Lessons Learned: The purpose of conducting lessons learned is to capture the knowledge learned during the course of business, or while implementing projects. List top significant project successes? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Have you participated in this type of technology project before?   ™    Need? The goal is to encourage the recurrence of positive outcomes while deterring undesirable ones. Besides, it's much better if you can immediately apply it so that it will stuck up in your mind.   √    Done! Questions: How was the communication of project details? You have hopefully reached some of the goals that you set out to achieve a few months ago. Bluto’s right. Where’s the guts, huh? You have given us very informative lesson. If that’s the case, you’re well on your way to success! You have to decide how to record the results. Notable quotable from the movie Animal House (from the blog: uncoachable.com): Bluto: Over? How well were the stakeholders involved in the execution of the project? To help guide the discussion, try to focus on major categories including people, process, and technology and then further define the lesson learned by type – wheter the lesson is beneficial, detrimental, or simply a good practice. Lessons learned is also is a final chance to leave behind knowledge about the project that may be useful for future purposes such as audits or service support before the project team breaks up. ™    Need? There are some classic ones that I will cover below, but there are always some questions that are project or organization specific. Mid-Project (at Milestone)/Daily Scrum (these probably are different enough to need different checklists/surveys) And do you have any thoughts on continuous improvement of those? Facilitation Team Summary Recommendations, {"serverDuration": 190, "requestCorrelationId": "d18b70c121eba6e3"}, Lessons Learned sessions tend to bring out the negatives, be sure to ask "What Went Right". Download or preview 10 pages of PDF version of Lessons learned survey template (DOC: 93.5 KB | PDF: 91.5 KB ) for free. Both sessions were about production failure incidents. Use survey questions (recommended below) to solicit feedback, Meetings and questions should address both PM and non-PM Lessons Learned, Use online anonymous survey to collect feedback, distill down to areas of discussion and focus actual meeting(s) around identifying specific actions to follow, Prepare the team in advance of the meeting for what will be discussed, Take steps to ensure that the meeting will be comfortable and non-confrontational, Involve a "scribe" or two to ensure that all notes get captured - the PM could be considered for this role, Project Manager of the project should not be facilitator of the lessons learned - get another PM or strong facilitator, Who is invited? Each person involved in the incident had a different view of what actually happened, and what the immediate cause was. If your project is set up with phases, it may be a good idea to have a lessons learned meeting at the end of each phase (why wait until the end of a 3 year project, when there are some valuable lessons at the end of phase 1). Did you know where to go to get information about the project? If not, what should be done differently next time? If you are adding links to your products, your comment will not be posted. It is really very informative! To start the meeting, take a few minutes to explain the meeting’s ground rules. Were people appropriately assigned to the project? How well did the teams/sub-teams work together? (if you keep an issues table for the life of your project this will be easy to review at the meeting). How was the communication of project details? Set the Ground Rules. At the end right? During meeting checklist (agenda?) Did the project unduly stray from identified goals and objectives? Question. The best part about learning a lesson from a project is the potential to improve on the next project—and this is where a lessons learned template can help! What issues occurred and how did we fix them? Was adequate testing performed (if applicable)?   ™    Need? Who should "own"/steward this content moving forward? Does your method include reporting a discussion of "what might have helped but would be too expensive to implement"? You are at the end of the project and the plan is to bring both teams together to go over lessons learned in detail and for the benefit of all - but it does not happen that often. Level 2 (Good) Organizations have a defined process for holding lessons learned reviews. This is valuable content! Before meeting checklist Did the teams/sub-teams work effectively together? During meeting checklist... question: what does the agenda look like to conduct a meeting to "focus actual meeting around identifying specific actions to follow"? Lessons learned identify and document positive and negative experiences and the project teams take corrective action regarding those issues. The project survey should also include specific questions for each category. √    Done! i.e., if someone has additional suggestions, how might they get incorporated? Question. Project Closeout/Retrospective Was risk management performed appropriately? Thanks for the post! Among the questions we asked interviewees was one around what they might advise newcomers, given the experience they had. PPMO Post Project Lessons Learned Survey example. What ideas do you have that could prevent the problem from recurring? Were communications adequate in all activities? Project Initiation As we have explored in our previous articles, every project has a life cycle which includes four major phases. 10 Jul Lessons Learned: 10 Questions to Ask Yourself. Was there an appropriate level of commitment and urgency? Based on what you know now, what should have been done differently in this project? Where’s the spirit? If not, what should be included for future efforts? 11 Questions and Prompts for Insightful Debriefing Sessions Posted by Constance Ward on March 22, 2013 | 5 Comments In order to create a powerful “learning organisation,” your management team needs to be able to share lessons learned among themselves in a systematic way. The web's source of information for Ancient History: definitions, articles, timelines, maps, books, and illustrations. Post meeting checklist (PMI suggestion: have resource managers review LLs). This has value in that the cost of such things may drop in the future. What is going well that we want to continue? Let’s go! Was change management performed appropriately? When you plan to write a lessons learned report for your project, an important thing to consider is that which will be the healthiest and best steps to write it. Step 18 * Store organized lessons learned in a database, website, or other lessons repository. Was documentation appropriate, timely, and clear? workgroups)? (remember 90% of being a PM is communication! Bluto: We’re just the guys to do it. Write and distribute a simple one-page agenda for the lessons learned meeting one or two days in advance. Your comment will be reviewed to determine if it is appropriate. Was issue management performed appropriately. This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re gonna let it be the worst. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Wormer, he’s a dead man! And then these are stored in a common location for future review.   ™    Need? Otter: Germans? Ask what was done, and what resulted, over and over, until you get a scenario everyone can accept as valid. Lessons learned are the last outcome of a project. Lessons Learned sessions tend to bring out the negatives, be sure to ask "What Went Right" The idea is to repeat the positives aspects and not repeat the mistakes. Try asking questions like these (tailor them to your own company as needed) to get the ball rolling: Did our team meet all project goals? Pre-meeting survey... question: should there be separate surveys, i.e. The following are common types of information that are included in lessons learned. Capture lessons learned that address the following: Before meeting checklist... suggested items:  review LL's & BP's with prior PM, prior team members Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. In my organization, we send the lessons learned document around for review to the Executives and the PMs. This blog will cover general Project Management topics. Great post. Without lessons learned your PMO or PM process will never have a chance to improve. 1. Will you be including directions to access and use the Sharing Outcomes team's solutions? Three key questions should be included as part of the survey: 1) what went right, 2) what went wrong and 3) what needs to be improved. Hell no! Did the planning effort include key stakeholders? Executed well? Before meeting checklist Everybody is asked to give their feedback on the following questions: Lessons learned key questions: What was done well? On 02/03/09, Mike Scullin provided the following feedback in response to the LLWG Facilitation Team "Adoption Proceedings" meeting notes: In the two LL sessions I've been in as a tech resource, the main difficulty I saw was in getting the facts straight. Lessons Learned: Make roles and responsibilities for measuring benefits is defined upfront. All stakeholders were appropriately engaged, involved, and available? There are some classic ones that I will cover below, but there are always some questions that are project or organization specific. 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