Effective Software Project Management

Lessons Learned

Lessons learned are part of the post-implementation audit. I mention it here because there are some issues around the strategy that you chose that you should consider. What did you do to verify that the requirements were clearly defined and completely documented? Was it a process? Were there forms with questions that the customer was required to answer? Was it an open discussion between you and the customer? Did you miss any physical signs that were really a valid signal that things weren’t exactly as they were represented? Maybe you made some wrong choices for this project, but if you paid attention, the signs were there and you shouldn’t repeat the error the next time.

What you did that ended up being the wrong choice is just as valuable a lesson learned as your having chosen an action that turned out to be right. Given the same situation on another project, would you do the same thing or would you take a lesson from the past and choose some other course of action? Most people will have a hard time documenting an action that didn’t work as expected. That’s too bad because often that is the most valuable information, especially if you can articulate why the action might not have worked. Why take chances on repeating an action and expecting a different outcome? Someone once said that was the definition of insanity.