In this PM Crosstalk forum, share with your peers two ‘lessons learned’ that you will take away from this course.
Make something up related to Project Management on the topic of lessons learned. See below for additional content.
Why Retrospectives? Lessons learned represent an analysis carried out during and shortly after the project life cycle; they attempt to capture positive and negative
project learning. That is, “what worked and what didn’t?” Lessons learned (postmortems, post-project review, or whatever name you choose to use) have long been part of
project management. Peter Senge’sThe Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990) drew attention to institutionalizing organizational
learning. Although the past processes have been useful for closure and lessons learned, sadly their real value has not been exploited. Large, multinational companies
with projects spread across the globe have been disappointed in their failure to effectively mine lessons learned. Smaller organizations observed, they too were not
reaping the golden rewards of lessons learned. The same mistakes continue year after year. In the words of one executive: “Lessons learned are worth their weight in
gold. I do not understand why we don’t do a better job nurturing, dispersing, and implementing lessons learned.” The processes for capturing lessons learned continue
to evolve, but there are still many barriers to effectively mining the lessons learned that have been identified by practitioners. A few of the most ubiquitous
barriers are noted here. • The most common reason given for not creating lessons learned is lack of time. • Most lessons learned are captured when the project is
complete; teams get little direction or support after the lessons are reported.
• Lessons learned often degenerate into blame sessions that became emotionally damaging. • Lessons learned are not being used across different locations. • Lessons
learned while implementing the project are seldom used to improve the remaining work in the project. • Too often the lessons learned are not used in future projects
because the organizational culture fails to recognize the value of learning. What is needed to overcome these barriers is a methodology and management philosophy to
ensure lessons learned are identified, utilized, and become a significant part of the project management organizational culture. The keys are to turn lessons learned
into actions taken and to have someone own the lesson. One effort that appears to address the barriers and offer a solution is retrospectives. The military has long
used retrospectives to improve their operations (e.g., after each maneuver). Retrospectives have emerged as a strong process and management philosophy used by
project-driven organizations around the world to mine the gold that lessons learned can provide. Retrospectives are championed by Norman Kerth in his text Project
Retrospectives (2001). A retrospective is a methodology that analyzes a past project event to determine what worked and what didn’t, develops lessons learned, and
creates an action plan that ensures lessons learned are used to improve management of future projects. The major goals of retrospectives are to reuse solutions and
stop repetitive mistakes across the organization. Retrospectives methodology has several embedded, distinguishing characteristics to ensure its effectiveness and
value: • Uses an independent facilitator. • Includes a minimum of three in-process learning gates during the project life cycle. • Has an owner. • Develops a
repository that is easy to use. • Mandates a discipline that ensures retrospectives are used. Initiating the Retrospective Review The review process depends primarily
on organization size and project size. Every effort should be made to make the project review a normal process rather than a surprise notice. In small organizations
and projects where face-to-face contact at all levels is prevalent, the closure may be informal and only represent another staff meeting. But even in these
environments the content of a formal project review should be examined and covered with notes made of the lessons learned. In some organizations, review initiation
comes from a formal project review group or can be automatic. For example, in the latter case, all projects are reviewed at specific stages in the project life cycle—
perhaps when a project is 10 to 20 percent complete in time or money, 50 percent complete, and after completion. In most other multiproject organizations, reviews
(called stage gates) are planned for the completion of major milestones. The review is not linked to percent complete. Milestones are binary; either you have reached
requirements completion or you have not. Regardless of how reviews are set up, they should be set up in the project planning stage—before the project begins.
Larson. Project Management: The Managerial Process (McGraw-Hill Series Operations and Decision Sciences) (Page 523). McGraw-Hill Education. Kindle Edition.
