At the end of a project, there's a time which is generally used to shoot the wounded, apportion the blame and celebrate with cake and ice cream. This phase of the project, usually right at the end, is the time we use to decide what went right and what went wrong. In the military, they call this the "after action report". An after action report seeks to dissect the actions during the project, recognize how well the plans held up to what actually happened and what can be learned as a result.
In many businesses, we conduct a perfunctory review of the project. In many cases it seems to me that the relief that the project is over is so large that no one wants to carefully review the corpse of the project and determine what lessons could be learned. Rather, we quickly disperse to our former jobs, declare victory and move on to the next challenge. This is a typical reaction - few people really like to pick over the bones of something they've finished. Most would rather turn their attention to something "new". The response is understandable, but the reaction would be unfortunate.
A realistic, direct and unvarnished review of a project immediately upon completion can be very valuable, and a time for learning and process improvement. It should not be for shooting the wounded or claiming the glory, but used as a careful assessment of the original plans, scope, resources and time lines to determine how well the project aligned to those, and what can be learned in the aftermath. A few possible learnings:
1. To inculcate a new viewpoint or behavior. The best time to teach someone and expect them to learn is as soon after the action as possible. What can we teach our folks about their work? What can we as managers learn about our expectations and management style?
2. To determine how well we planned and scoped the work. How well do we anticipate the demands of the project? Are we consistently overly optimistic about resources and time frames?
3. To examine the processes and tools we used to finish the project. What tools or processes worked well? What systems, data or processes were missing or could have been used to improve the working conditions?
What's most important about an "after action" report, though is what it can tell the people who work on similar projects the next time. What I'd like to see in most businesses is an archive of former projects and after-action reports from previous projects, so that a project manager gets real insight and learning from teams that have gone before. Wouldn't it be powerful if the first action a project manager took when starting a new project would be to review the "lessons learned" from previous projects and incorporated that knowledge?
The last thing many individuals want to do once a project is complete is to complete a careful, self-critical assessment of the project and its results, but that's the best time for identifying the weaknesses in the existing system or team, and building a "lessons learned" knowledge base for the next project manager. Next time, over the cake and ice cream, plan a few hours to spend asking yourself the question the great philosopher David Byrne posed "Well, how did we get here?"
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