Lessons learned and final reporting

Even though lessons learned are documented throughout the project, it’s important to have a lessons-learned meeting at the end of the project. This is the opposite of a kick-off meeting, in which everyone on the team gets together with whichever stakeholders are appropriate to attend and discuss what went well and what didn’t go so well. A lot of my lessons learned over the years were based on surprise risk events, or issues, as well as changes that were or were not approved. All that information can be discussed and then submitted as historical information for future reviews. Remember analogous estimating from cost and schedule estimates? This is where that information comes from. Past projects that are now being used to estimate future projects. I also think it’s important to celebrate success, even if the project was...