A GUIDE TO CAPTURING:

Group 5 - Amanda Bartosz, Julie Nielsen, Kiley Hayon, Maureen Pistone, Nick Kastein
EMBA UW Oshkosh
Project Management
August 2, 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Purpose of Gathering Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned Process
Basic Process for Lessons Learned
Collect the Lessons
Store the Lessons
Disseminate the Lessons
References

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PURPOSE OF GATHERING LESSONS LEARNED

Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different
results. Albert Einstein
In life and in business, we have all made mistakes, and its important to draw off
those experiences for the future gains. We have learned that products, projects, and
people come and go, and we cant change that. However, to mitigate redundancy or
making the same mistake twice, there should be an effective means for retaining this
wisdom, knowledge, or trade secret, for the future benefit of the company.
We will be evaluating the process for capturing, storing, and disseminating
lessons learned from company projects. Gathering lessons learned is an important piece
of any project. It is a way to gather both positive results and opportunities. We will
build a playbook here to showcase how to collect lessons learned, how often to collect,
when to disseminate and engage others in process improvements.
LESSONS LEARNED PROCESS
BASIC PROCESS FOR LESSONS LEARNED
First, let us establish our process for lessons learned. Lessons learned should be
defined early on in the project so that they are highlighted as an important piece of not
only the strategy but also the success of the current project and future projects.
Defining the lessons learned also allows you to collect both items that worked well, and
those that created future opportunities. Collecting both should be an important aspect
of the project because it will allow you to celebrate the small wins while building upon
areas that could have been completed better.
This leads us to the collection of our lessons learned. Each project can be
handled at the discretion of the project manager, however collectively we agree as a
group that collecting lessons learned frequently allows for them to be collected real
time. This is important because documenting the lesson closer to when it occurred
allows for greater details, more specific impacts and better plans to be created around
those lessons learned.

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Having a place to store the lessons learned will be an important aspect to this
collection. We discussed the many places that a projects lessons learned could be
maintained and the pros/cons to each. As a group we felt that the lessons learned
should be an embedded part of weekly meetings and should be housed as part of the
project and all of its documentation. As a result, we felt that SharePoint was the best
opportunity because many people could be contributors to the document.
Finally, there needs to be a process set towards the end of the project where the
team is brought back to the table to review the lessons captured. This will allow the
opportunity to add any additional information that may have been missed or identify
overarching themes to the lessons collected. This is another opportunity to re-celebrate
all of the small wins that were captured along the way. It is also an opportunity to reevaluate the lessons that offered opportunities to determine if they were specific to the
project only or if there are more global opportunities to the individual team members,
the project manager, how actions were completed and if they can be improved in the
future.

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COLLECT THE LESSONS

As our group shared before, documenting the lessons learned throughout the
duration of the project is very valuable because it creates both real time and retroreview opportunities. More importantly though, establishing a process to collect these
lessons weekly not only makes this more of a standard and embedded part of the
project but it allows for lessons to be captured while the detail and impacts are fresh in
the minds of your project team. It also makes it less cumbersome to compile the list
weekly.
We suggest that collection should be done in a lessons learned log. This can be a
very simple log that collects information such as: Category, Issues Name,
Problem/Success, Impact and Recommendations. This list of items is not inclusive and
can be changed to fit to the needs of the specific project or group.
Collecting lessons learned in a log creates opportunities to recognize great work
while we are working through the project. We can refer to these as celebrating small
wins throughout the duration of the project, which can fuel positive team work. By
logging the opportunities, it allows those involved in the project to acknowledge and
work collectively to solve for the opportunity.

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For the lessons learned log, these items should be collected at the end of each
project meeting. Timeliness of collecting lessons learned can really optimize the overall
success of the project.
STORE THE LESSONS
The log will be stored in SharePoint with the rest of the project plans, details and
more. The project manager can not only embed the log within the notes of the project,
but should maintain it as an important agenda item for weekly meetings by embedding
it into the agenda as well. This way, the lessons are always available and are a point of
reference that is made important.
The example below shows the tracking and storage of the project. We suggest
that the lessons learned log would be part of the stored project documents and
accessible by all team members.

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DISSEMINATE THE LESSONS

Getting the team back together when closing the project can be challenging, but
it is necessary for the team to come back together to review the lessons learned log. At
this point, you are actively closing the project. People are likely being reassigned and
may not want to engage in a lessons learned meeting. To entice them to re-engage,
you may want to provide lunch or share that after the analysis of the lessons, you will be
celebrating the success of the project by doing fun activities, providing recognition or
rewards and a mixture of all.
Prior to the meeting, share the whole lessons learned log through the email
invite. Create an agenda that builds uses positive and engaging language. Provide
grounds rules to proactively build an environment of collaboration rather than finger
pointing. The more transparent the environment, the safer individuals will feel when
attending. Make certain to note that the meeting is not meant to rehash the situation or
point blame. This meeting is meant to review the log to prevent a repeat lesson as well
as improving the overall process.
After the meeting, make certain to update the lessons learned log with all the
future actions. When completed, share the finalized log with your project team
members not only through the notes of the Lessons Learned Meeting, but also through
the SharePoint project site. Any lessons that results in process improvements should
be shared with the Project Management Organization to ensure that all processes
proposed are changed. Finally, send a thank you for those that attended and
participating in the lessoned learned. Make certain that you share your appreciation not
only for their hard working in making the project a success but making certain that future
projects run well too.

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REFERENCES
Cook, Curtis R. Just Enough Project Management: The Indispensable Four-step Process
for Managing Any Project, Better, Faster, Cheaper. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005.
"Lessons Learned." Project Management Doc. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 July 2016.
A Guide to Capturing Lessons Learned - Conservation Gateway. Conservation
Gateway.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 July 2016.

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