How to Find Lessons to Learn

Lessons learned sessions are now part of the standard way of doing things, even though we know them by any number of names: Lessons Learned, After Action Review, Navy Lessons Learned, Post Mortem, Post Partum, Retrospective, Team Reflection, Project Review, and more. By whatever name, the goal is to determine what would have improved performance in the effort underway or just completed, and what might help in future efforts.

A systematic method for uncovering potential nuggets is valuable, because it reduces the chance of overlooking something important. General Morphological Analysis (GMA), invented by Fritz Zwicky, can help [Ritchey 1998]. That's a fancy name for slicing the problem space into cells and examining those cells one by one.

Slicing the problem space along two dimensions is the easiest to imagine. For Lessons Learned, I like to use the dimensions Innovation by Audience.

Innovation

Along the Innovation axis, use five categories. "Keep" includes what worked well, and what we want to keep doing. "Start" includes things we want to start doing. "Stop" includes the things that didn't work, and which we want to stop doing. "Alter" includes adjustments that we believe would be helpful for future efforts. "Try" includes ideas for experiments for the future.

Audience

The Audience axis is a list of roles, commonly called stakeholders. As we investigate each role, we imagine a conversation with people in those roles. We don't necessarily conduct actual conversations — many of these people are unavailable, and a few of them might not want to talk to us. The imaginary conversations are just tools we use to generate ideas. Audience roles can include the Project Management Office, the Team, Functional Managers, Senior Managers, Customers, Purchasing, Marketing, and so on. For this discussion, let's go with these seven roles.

In this way, we create a 5x7 matrix with one cell for each Innovation by Role combination. For each cell, we consider what we might ask or tell someone in that role about some particular Innovation.

For example, A systematic method for uncovering
potential nuggets is valuable,
because it reduces the chance of
overlooking something importantwe might consider telling a Functional Manager to stop substituting one team member for another, and then explain why. We wouldn't necessarily say this to a Functional Manager, but imagining saying it gives us a way to uncover an issue that we might then examine to determine what we can do to improve performance. This example leads to a suggestion that we plan more thoroughly for handling the risk of team member substitution.

By repeating this investigation for all 5x7=35 cells of the problem space, we might discover lessons to be learned that we might otherwise overlook.

Overlooking a lesson is one thing; being reluctant to talk about it is another. People can be reluctant to say aloud what they can easily imagine saying to senior management. To provide some safety, consider collecting suggestions for all cells anonymously.

GMA and safety, together, can provide a useful framework for your next Lessons Learned session.  Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

Footnotes

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:

Should I Keep Bailing or Start Plugging the Leaks?

When we're flooded with problems, and the rowboat is taking on water, we tend to bail with buckets, rather than take time out to plug the leaks. Here are some tips for dealing with floods of problems.

Figuring Out What to Do First

Whether we belong to a small project team or to an executive team, we have limited resources and seemingly unlimited problems to deal with. How do we decide which problems are important? How do we decide where to focus our attention first?

Give Me the Bad News First

I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that if you wait long enough, there will be some bad news. The good news is that the good news helps us deal with the bad news. And it helps a lot more if we get the bad news first.

You Can't Control What Other People Think

Ever think that the world would be a much better place if you could control what other people think? Maybe it would be. And maybe not...

Paradoxical Policies: I

Although most organizational policies are constructive, many are outdated or nonsensical, and some are actually counterproductive. Here's a collection of policies that would be funny if they weren't real.

See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Organizational Change for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 1: Incompetence: Traps and Snares

Sometimes people judge as incompetent colleagues who are unprepared to carry out their responsibilities. Some of these "incompetents" are trapped or ensnared in incompetence, unable to acquire the ability to do their jobs. Available here and by RSS on April 1.

And on April 8: Intentionally Misreporting Status: I

When we report the status of the work we do, we sometimes confront the temptation to embellish the good news or soften the bad news. How can we best deal with these obstacles to reporting status with integrity? Available here and by RSS on April 8.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmhXARWRMUvVyOdHlner@ChacxgDmtwOKrxnripPCoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.