Every experienced Project Manager knows the importance of gathering lessons learned at the end of projects, but are they turning them into future actions? While it’s great for stakeholders, management and team members to participate in these activities, too frequently these important pearls of wisdom are documented and filed away, maybe even archived.
Do you or your organization have a strategy to turn your lessons into future successes? Here are a few ideas to try:
Create, or if you have an existing one, update your baseline project template to include any new activities identified from the lessons learned; this ensures these important tasks aren’t missed in the future.
Ask each team member to identify a lesson learned from a past project and have them take preventative action on their current project to benefit from it. This can be a fun team exercise and get everyone involved in the project success.
Share your lessons learned with other Project Managers or through your PMO; compare notes and possibly define new best practices for all PMs to continue evolving your processes
Whatever action you choose, give yourself and your team some kudos for being bold enough to look at the good, the bad and the ugly and suggest opportunities for improvement – that’s really the first step! Reach out to our LearnCentral project management consultants for more ideas or templates.
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