{"id":6788,"date":"2015-02-17T08:26:03","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T14:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/?p=6788"},"modified":"2015-02-17T08:26:54","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T14:26:54","slug":"whats-wrong-lessons-learned-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/whats-wrong-lessons-learned-sessions\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Wrong with Lessons Learned Sessions?"},"content":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s wrong with lessons learned sessions done at the end of a project? If the sentiments of my project management training students are any indication, plenty.<\/p>\n

The complaints are many and varied:<\/p>\n

\u201cThey take too long and we don\u2019t have time.\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cAt that point, the project is over so people don\u2019t really care anymore.\u201d<\/em>
\n \u201cBy the time we get to it, the people who worked on the project are no
\nlonger around.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And, by far the most common compliant:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have a good way to go back and look at previous project
\nlessons learned to apply to future projects, so why bother?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

On the whole, my students don\u2019t find lessons learned to be time well spent.<\/p>\n

\"Friendly<\/a>In many ways, I agree. Consider that you may stand more to gain by looking at what you should be doing more or less of within the project you\u2019re currently working on than you do trying to capture ideas for the next project \u2013 whenever and whatever that is. In fact, I\u2019d suggest that a little bit of time spent on a lessons learning <\/em>exercise may be better than a lot of time spent on a lessons learned <\/em>exercise.<\/p>\n

One reason is that a project is, by definition, unique. That’s not just a text book definition; practically speaking there is always some element that is not going to be entirely the same next time. The processes used may be very much the same from project to project, but there is some variability around the people and\/or the product that will be different.\u00a0The exact combination of process, people, and product isn\u2019t going to occur again.<\/p>\n

I imagine that my students who don’t feel inspired to conduct a post-project lessons learned probably feel defeated at the outset. To answer the question, \u201cWhat can we learn for next time?”, it seems necessary to qualify any answer with \u201cWell, if everything is exactly like it was this time\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

So is it really a good use of organizational time, especially considering the effort? The work it takes to engage stakeholders in a lessons learned session feels a lot like the work it takes to engage stakeholders in a discussion about risks. Getting people to stop what they\u2019re doing to talk about what has already<\/em> happened (lessons learned), or what might<\/em> happen (risks), is a hard sell when most people are doing all they can to keep their heads above water dealing with what is<\/em> happening!<\/p>\n

How about taking just a little bit of time to talk about what we are doing right now <\/em>that\u2019s working for us? That may not only be an easier sell, but the return may be greater. Without worrying about how we\u2019re going to capture our thoughts so we can find and use them on the next project, we can simply share what\u2019s working and not working for us currently. And then make sure we implement those ideas starting…now. That\u2019s a much shorter walk to applied learning than archiving project experience somewhere to be dredged up at some unspecified point in\u00a0the future on another project.<\/p>\n

Lessons learned post-project still have their purpose, but we need to be fair to ourselves in terms of how we expect them to be used. Closure is important for many reasons and lessons learned sessions contribute significantly to that. It\u2019s been my experience and that of most of my students, however, that the notion of a library of historical data built with volumes of past projects is a great idea but not one many people effectively operationalize.<\/p>\n

This is the premise behind Agile retrospectives at the end of each sprint. It\u2019s not uniquely Agile, however. Best practice in traditional project management includes closing phases, as well as projects, including lessons learned to be applied to the project in which one is already working. Even if a project doesn’t have phases, per se, milestones or deliverables can serve as triggers for taking stock of what is and isn’t serving the interests of the project. I just don\u2019t see that it gets done that much, which is a missed opportunity.<\/p>\n

We might do our projects and stakeholders a favor by modifying our words around the lessons learned exercise. Talking about it differently can enhance the appeal and therefore participation and ultimately value to the organization.<\/p>\n

See if an invitation to a shorter, less formal, lessons learning<\/em> exercise done in the middle of your current project doesn\u2019t get a more enthusiastic response than you might expect from a lessons learned<\/em> session at the end of your project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s wrong with lessons learned sessions done at the end of a project? If the sentiments of my project management training students are any indication, plenty. The complaints are many and varied: \u201cThey take too long and we don\u2019t have time.\u201d \u201cAt that point, the project is over so people don\u2019t really care anymore.\u201d \u201cBy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":10585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,211],"tags":[219,173,22,60],"coauthors":[140],"class_list":["post-6788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-agile","category-project-management","tag-agile","tag-lessons-learned","tag-project-management","tag-project-management-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6788"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6813,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions\/6813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.watermarklearning.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}