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The Morning After – a.k.a. Lessons Learned
Among the things you learned from last year’s holiday parties is that you need a much larger entryway rug at home to accommodate all the slush and snow from arriving guests’ footwear; it’s impossible to get out of a conversation with the VP’s secretary once she has your ear; and always ask what’s in the eggnog punch before you have that fourth cup.

Some lessons learned make you smarter, some make you quicker and some, well, they make you value Alka Seltzer. Regardless of how they make you feel, you definitely need to take stock of lessons learned to improve your future projects. But you don’t have to wait for a new year to begin before looking back on this one. Take some time before this year’s holiday parties begin and review what you’ve learned and how you can do things differently going forward.

Here are some tips on how to get the most from your lessons learned:

• Be honest. Reviewing lessons learned isn’t about hurting or not hurting people’s feelings. It’s about objectively looking at what went right AND wrong, figuring out how you can build on what went right, and fix what went wrong. Then making sure you implement those  changes.
   

• Document it. If you don’t write it down you won’t remember it. While those lessons are perfectly clear right now, three projects from now, you probably won’t remember all of them. Document what you discover as you review lessons learned – not just the lesson, but what you’re doing to make sure the same problem doesn’t happen again.
   

• Develop it. Use what you learn from these lessons to develop success criteria that will help you identify future goals.

Regardless of how they make you feel, you definitely need to take stock of lessons learned to improve your future projects.