Communicating Lessons Learned

1. Communicating Lessons Learned

Once the lessons learned have been gathered, they must be communicated to the organization. Lessons learned offer valuable insights that can be applied to improve project management in subsequent endeavors. They help teams avoid pitfalls and enhance overall quality. Lessons learned contribute to continuous improvement, and effective communication ensures their impact reaches beyond the project team.

key concept

If possible, conducting a team meeting is the optimal approach for sharing lessons learned. This ensures that everyone receives information uniformly. During these meetings, team members can ask questions, and the project manager can address them collectively.

The process of communicating lessons learned ensures that these valuable nuggets of wisdom are shared, documented, and integrated into the organization’s collective knowledge. Here are the key steps involved in effectively communicating lessons learned:

step by step

1. Plan the meeting and prepare the lessons learned document for distribution. Create an initial draft version of the document, capturing critical insights, challenges, and best practices observed during the project.
2. Get additional feedback, make changes, and finalize the document. Share the draft with key team members, gather their comments, and incorporate the comments to create a final version.
3. Send final Lessons Learned to project stakeholders with sign off approval via meeting or electronically. As with a team meeting, a live presentation is best. However, if that is not possible, comments from the stakeholders should be incorporated into the lessons learned document.
4. After final review, Lessons Learned can be shared with the organization. The document can be shared with the team and also with the entire organization at this time using whatever method is commonly used.
5. Archive project documentation. The material should also be warehoused, along with the other project records.

term to know

Lessons Learned

Information gained from a current project that can be used in future projects to improve overall quality of project management.