Learning Lessons about Lessons Learned

Recently I attended a DFCI Project University project management class. I worried a little about what people might think about a staff member in the PMO attending a class on project management, especially since I teach several of the Project University classes. Wasn’t I supposed to already know all this stuff? But it seemed that the Lessons Learned exercises I had completed for the last couple of projects I managed were not as helpful as they could have been. What better way to get a few pointers than to take the Lessons Learned class taught by my manager?

For example, how do you talk about a project’s  lessons learned without people blaming each other? The best way is to keep the focus on the lessons themselves, not on the mistakes that led to them.

During one of the exercises, we were asked to list three lessons that would be helpful for other project teams to keep in mind when doing a project. My team asked me to be the scribe. I felt compelled to write everything that happened leading up to the lesson. For example: “Because the team did not gather certain information in the requirements phase of the project, the stakeholders were disappointed that some things they thought were important were not included in the final deliverables.”

But when the class went around the room voting on the most helpful lessons, the ones they selected were those expressed in a short sentence, such as “Be sure all stakeholders are involved in requirements gathering” or “Take detailed minutes during team meetings so you don’t forget decisions made during the project”.

I discovered I had been complicating the exercise. What was the actual lesson we were trying to gain? Simply “validate the requirements with stakeholders to be sure you capture everything.” No wonder we were scrambling to keep up with the rest of the class when listing our lessons!

I learned a lot more than I expected from this class, not only about how to gather and conduct lessons learned, but  how it feels being on the other side of the classroom. I was hesitant to answer questions raised by the instructor because I thought I would sound silly or be viewed as a know it all. I felt the stress of not wanting to let down my team mates during the exercises. And I wanted to be sure I captured everything the instructor said so I wouldn’t forget.

Once I got past these fears, I was able to enjoy participating in this class with my fellow students and to learn a lot. I hope these lessons learned will make me a better teacher!