By Mark Marlin, PMP

Editor’s note: This paper was originally presented at the 2nd Annual UT Dallas Project Management Symposium in Richardson, Texas, USA (http://pmsymposium.utdallas.edu/) in August 2008.  As a Media Partner for that event, PMForum agreed to republish selected papers in PM World Today.  This paper is included here with the consent of the author and permission of the Graduate Program in Project Management at The University of Texas at Dallas School of Management, who is the copyright holder of the conference proceedings. All conditions and disclaimers of the copyright holder pertain.

Introduction

Since 1997, I’ve taught project management in both the public and private sectors. I always ask my students, “How many of you believe you have an effective Lessons Learned process that covers projects across your entire organization?” Seldom, do I ever see a hand go up. And when a hand does go up, and I investigate further, it usually is a process limited to “my department” or to “my business unit” or to “large special projects.” A number of students acknowledge their companies have formal or semi-formal Lessons Learned programs, but they are generally viewed as ineffective. And yet everyone believes an effective Lessons Learned process is important if an organization is going to be able to continuously improve on its project performance. In fact, in the Project Management Institute’s own A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide, Third Edition), the term “Lessons Learned” appears 63 times, which is no small indicator of the emphasis PMI® places on the subject.

The PMBOK® Guide defines Lessons Learned as “The learning gained from performing the project. Lessons Learned may be identified at any point.” Learning can come from successes where we did something creative or imaginative and we would like to see it repeated on future projects -- and learning can come from our failures where something failed to meet our expectations and we would like to improve and not make the same mistake again. It would be nice to say most of the learning comes from our successes, but the reality is that most of the learning comes from our failures.

In a survey by Ernst & Young of 130 PMI® members and guests at a PMI® meeting in October 2006, although 91% of the respondents believed Lessons Learned reviews on projects were important, only 13% said their organizations performed them on all projects and only 8% believed the primary objective of the reviews was to understand the benefits that would accrue to the organization.

This paper discusses the barriers that prevent effective implementation of Lessons Learned and the keys to success in addressing these barriers and developing and maintaining an effective Lessons Learned process that can span the organization and be a valuable contributor to the organization’s overall goal of continuous improvement.

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