If you have completed a project (or even if you failed to complete it!) you can learn from the process and do better next time. There are several ways to take advantage of “lessons learned.” You can discuss it with others on your team, and you can think about what went right and what went wrong and try to do better next time.
That sounds easy, but there are many factors that can prevent you from actually doing it. Your team may have dispersed to other places; you may be so busy with your current project that it’s hard to spend time on your last one, or you might even have emotional reactions that make you want to avoid the review process entirely.
The Review Process
The first step is being open to suggestions for improvement, even if the project was a success. Few projects are flawless from beginning to end, and if you are new to project management your successes may be as capricious as your slip-ups. One thing for sure—you will learn a lot from your mistakes! They are hard to forget, especially if they are embarrassing or expensive.
One model for reviewing your work goes back decades, and is often associated with post-WWII manufacturing development. The first step is to PLAN, including spelling out what will be done, who will do it, where, and when. So far it sounds like our basic planning spreadsheet, but it also includes planning for data collection—knowing you will be evaluating the process later.
The second step is to DO–carry out the plan, observing and documenting processes and results as you go. Make notes as things occur so you won’t forget them when it’s time to do your review.
The third step is to STUDY, looking at data and results and ways to improve. You can interview participants to see what worked and what didn’t work for them. These people might have experienced something along the way that you knew nothing about. You can look at the number of times your schedule slipped to see if those problems could have been avoided.
You can also look at the places where you exceeded your budget. If the price for something went up you can update your estimating tool. If the task took longer than the one day you expected there may be extra costs for travel and set-up for the second day, in addition to the increased time it took to do the task.
The fourth step is to ACT—implement the changes made, and repeat. These steps are often pictured as an ongoing circle, with each step leading to the next step in the sequence. This model emphasizes the process for improving tasks that are repetitious, which is common in manufacturing. Other industries may not seem as well suited to this formulaic approach, but a systematic way to evaluate and improve your work usually does lead to long-term improvement.
A quality product is the goal of a project. Whether you are building a house, going on a trip, producing a video, or whatever—you intend to produce the best possible result. There are lots of ways this process can fail to measure up to the goal. The first place to look when you are doing an evaluation is to examine the original goal. Did you know what was expected? Can you compare the PLAN to the RESULT and tell if you met the goal?
Running Out of Time
One reason that this answer can be a qualified “no” is if the project ran out of time. Did you rush to complete it? Many creative projects fall into this trap. An author may have a good idea and take the time to develop it, but don’t know how to end the story. They might put in a fraction of the time to finish as they did to create the earlier material. It’s also a common failure on a construction project, with the final finish rushed and concessions made to meet a deadline. Project Managers learn to be realistic in planning the schedule.
Going Over Budget
Another common failing is running out of money. This can be related to the scheduling problem, but time won’t help if you can’t provide the quality result that was promised. In a construction project this often means that the things that are most visible (finishes, appliances, fixtures) are the things that don’t meet the original standards because they were no longer affordable.
There is an entire industry focused on quality assurance. In large companies there may be a whole department of people whose job it is to verify that standards are being met, whether it’s for construction, software design, or manufacturing. There are also many online products that help Project Managers maintain standards and improve their process. The goal is to maintain a quality product by following quality processes. It’s better to avoid making mistakes than having to correct them.
Why do the processes need constant vigilance? Why is it important to be aware of “lessons learned” when embarking on the next project? There can be many points of failure, and they are not always the same.
Change Can Cause Problems
People change—if the people you have relied on to provide a particular component of your project (e.g. the plumber, the caterer, or the tech administrator) leave, you can replace them but you have to be aware of the differences in their experience with you and the project. Be alert to confusion or misunderstandings about things that a newcomer can’t be expected to know.
Materials change—you might need to make substitutions if something is no longer available or the specification has been altered since the beginning of the project. A good change-order system is essential for tracking these deviations from the original plan, including the way these changes are communicated to all parties. Verify that the substitute will do the job for which the original product was intended, and that the preparation meets the requirements of the new product.
Conditions change—the whole world was affected by the outbreak of Covid-19 and the quarantine requirements. A Project Manager has to weather these changes and keep the project moving, if physically possible.
The Project Manager’s Attitude
These are all examples of external changes that require awareness and flexibility to accommodate, but there are other barriers to improvement. One is denial. It’s hard to recognize the need for improvement if you can’t acknowledge the flaws in your process. A Project Manager who is unpleasant or unreasonable may contribute to unsafe workplace conditions, and accidents happen in this environment that would not happen in a more cooperative setting.
Personal Rivalries
Another risk is personal rivalries between co-workers or employees and management. When these conflicts are played out it will take extra resources to correct for the damage they cause. A Project Manager should listen to the people involved and try to work out differences before they become toxic.
Overlapping areas of responsibility are a frequent cause of discord, especially if individual budgets are affected. “Whose fault is it?” is closely related to “who pays to fix this problem?” and in extreme cases can lead to lawsuits. Evaluating how conflicts begin should be a part of your process for improvement. This is the STUDY and ACT part of the diagram discussed above. If you can see that two people are not going to get along you may want to replace one of them with a different participant for the next project.
Do Better Next Time
You may be able to use your planning spreadsheet (with revisions) as a template for the next project. If you update your planning spreadsheet as you go along you will be able to flag the places where there was a problem. Was your construction project delayed because of a subcontractor didn’t finish when they promised they would? Was your software project rejected because of a misunderstanding about the specification? Was your client dissatisfied because they expected a different result? Are you now “enemies” with someone you used to consider a friend?
Don’t let these things slide when you are planning for your next project. Be honest as you review the notes, data, and results of the project you just completed, modify your plan, and start the next project from a position of strength. You will improve your own skills and will learn to manage increasingly complex projects. It’s worth the time to review those “lessons learned.”