Lessons Learned: Why Don't we Learn From Them?2016

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What is a lesson learned?

A lesson learned is useful project management information gained through experience that your organization should retain for future use and that can be relevant to other organizations.

Depending on the lesson, it could be a valuable technique or an outcome that you wish to repeat or it could be an undesirable result you wish to avoid

Capturing the LL. Why it doesn’t work

• “Its pain to weed through all irrelevant lessons to get the few I need. There should be an easier way”

• “Many of the lessons just repeat the common practices or instructions. We seem to learn some lessons over and over again?”

• “Despite the procedure, I see no evidence that lessons are being applied”

Challenges • Lessons learned are often not captured

well.  There are several different ways in which this could be done more effectively, for instance by capturing lessons learned through the life of the project.• Lessons learned need effective methods of communication. 

• Reports often focus on the negative and rarely identify what went well.

Keep in mind • Large corporate clients often rigidly mandate a

way of working which there is no option but to comply with.

• R&D projects are often very unique on their own, so the information gathered aren’t easy applicable

• As of now we mostly capture PM experience, without paying much attention on internal stakeholders and team members

Adoption of ideas/outcomes from others may be hindered by cultural and behavior factors.

This problem is linked to overall organizational culture, and to whether people are encouraged to learn from ‘mistakes’ or ‘failures’ and ‘successes’

Impediment in LL adoption

Ways to

Start with your project

• Get the Timing Right• Encourage an Open Culture• Take the Time to Do So• Know What Matters• Keep a Record• Don’t Make It Personal• Look at the Planning

Communication. K.I.S.S. • Stay on Familiar Ground. Rather than

publishing management admonitions or general industry tips, the LL articles should focus on familiar situations. When we put lessons learned in the context of our own daily routine operations, people can apply them to their own situations

Communication. Be bright!

• Get Attention. Try to tell the story the way you'd do it around the water cooler, while keeping it technically accurate. Sure, official cases/LL data base should operate with refined information, but the best way to get attention via other communication channels – keep things simple

Communication channels • Use different channels. Getting people

together face-to-face is the ideal way to review lessons captured. The trick from a business point of view is to enable that conversation. Social media such as twitter, blogs etc. have a great potential for enabling conversation and therefore the ability to share knowledge or lessons.

Email digest, special part of biweekly meetings, internal twitter or blog with interesting and short notes etc.

What does a good LL look like?• identify the project management element in

which the problem arose• describe how the problem arose and define

the problem or positive development encountered, and

• provide concrete, practical solutions or recommendations based on this experience.

Lessons Learnt template

Project Name  Point of Contact (POC) Author or participant / team memberWhich project management areas are involved?

(Integration, scope, time, cost, execution, quality, human resources, communications, risk, procurement.) Chose one or multiple labels

Briefly describe the problem or situation including any relevant context such as stage of project.

 

History (if applicable)  How was the problem resolved or the process improved?

 

Lesson learned: How can this problem be avoided in the future or how can the process be improved / best practices applied?

 

Keywords, Tags  Resources (add your resources) We may attach all useful documents or templates, email etc here

Template example

Useful tips to be applied

• Add categories or labels (based on project areas) Integration, scope, time, cost, execution, quality, human resources, communications, risk, procurement

• Briefly describe the problem or situation including any relevant context such as stage of project. A lack of technical training prevented the customer from performing effective monitoring of vendor

… And few more

• Provide user with the full text search option, as well as a possibility to use agile filtering by category, label etc.

• Gamification: ask user to define the most useful LL. Best contributors are to be recognized with their teams or projects

• Include more positive lessons as best practices

80% of all Retrospective found issues could be traced back to the Chartering stage of the project

Ainsley Nies

Learning before, during and after

• Incorporate LL capturing as a common practice. Let’s make retrospective meetings and other techniques widely used tools.

• LL have to be used during risk management and chartering processes.

• LL can be captured throughout the life of a project (or other kind of team), not at the end only. 

Before you start

• Get realistic time check. Understand, how long it will really take to implement knowledge sharing and retention initiatives

• Secure management support• Top-leadership is required• People understand knowledge management with

time• Both technology and corporate culture must be

addressed

Learning before, during and after

• Incorporate LL capturing as a common practice. Let’s make retrospective meetings and other techniques widely used tools.

• LL have to be used during risk management and chartering processes.

• LL can be captured throughout the life of a project (or other kind of team), not at the end only. 

Жизненный опыт - это когда наступаешь на грабли...

Опа! А ты уже в каске!

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