Common Project Phases – Closing In

When all the work has been completed, the closeout phase requires
that a review of the project be conducted. The purpose is
to learn lessons from this job that can be applied to future ones.
Two questions are asked: “What did we do well?” and “What do
we want to improve next time?”
Notice that we don’t ask what was done wrong. This question
tends to make people defensive, and they try to hide things
that may result in their being punished. In fact, a lessons-learned
review should never be conducted in a blame-and-punishment
mode. If you are trying to conduct an inquisition, that’s different.
The purpose of an inquisition is usually to find who is responsible
for major disasters and punish them. Lessons-learned sessions
should be exactly what the words imply.
I have learned during the past few years that very few organizations
do regular lessons-learned reviews of their projects. There is
a reluctance to “open a can of worms.” And there is a desire to get
on with the next job. The problem is that you are almost sure to repeat
the mistakes made on the previous project if no one knows
about them or has an understanding of how they happened so that
they can determine how to prevent them. But, perhaps most important,
you can’t even take advantage of the good things you did
if you don’t know about them.
It has been said that the organizations that survive and thrive
in the future will be those that learn faster than their competitors.
This seems especially true for projects.