Practical Project Management

We all know the value of using lessons learned from other projects,but how often do we get to use them?

What gets in the way?

I know it’s often difficult to find the lessons learned on any project, let alone a project that is comparable to the one you are about to start.Time,or lack of it, often gets in the way of thinking about any lessons you might want to implement in your new projects. And, organizational assumptions can seem like a barrier to making changes: “we’ve always done it this way and there’s really no way to make it better in this company”.

What I suggest is to take a small step. If you don’t have time to read up on previous projects before you start, build it into the kick off meeting. Ask the team what they think is the one consistent challenge on projects. Use that to try some new tools, tactics, or techniques.

If the team decides that requirement gathering is a consistent challenge, why not try a new approach – maybe moving from one on one meetings, to a series of large group sessions that get refined in one on one sessions. Or, maybe checking where you start requirements, if you attempt to get requirements all at one time, try iteration techniques.

If the team decides it’s communication with stakeholders, how about looking at how the communication normally flows, and bringing something new to the process.

You’ll have different issues depending on your organization. By trying one new thing, and including the team in developing the new method you can take small steps that improve the project performance in your organization.

Any other ideas on common lessons and new approaches?

Happy PMing

Perry