Facilitiation team final recommendations

Lessons Learned Working Group - Facilitations Team

Before the meeting

• Use online anonymous survey to collect feedback, distill down to areas of discussion and focus actual meeting(s) around identifying specific actions to follow
• Prepare the team in advance of the meeting for what will be discussed
• Take steps to ensure that the meeting will be comfortable and non-confrontational
• Involve a "scribe" or two to ensure that all notes get captured - the PM could be considered for this role
• Project Manager of the project should not be facilitator of the lessons learned - get another PM or strong facilitator
• Who is invited?  Should include team members, customers, other stakeholders
• Try to plan to feed people (when possible), breaks may be needed as well
• Encourage creative thinking - make it a relaxed environment for having the discussion - go to a less familiar, interesting place

During the meeting

Introduction

• Be clear about the agenda, what the goals are for the meeting
• Develop a list of ground rules - have the team develop these (suggested set - be nice, don't blame, be constructive)
• Hand out set of topics and ask team which items they would like to talk about - go around the table to discuss - make sure each person gets a turn
• Start session with an overview of the project - goals, what we accomplished, any particular challenges encountered

During discussion

• Focusing the discussion around actions/solutions rather than rehashing the past
• Identify top items to be worked on

Closing

• Identify clear actions and owners where appropriate
• If you use a meeting to collect the feedback, save a period of time at the end to focus on identifying solutions for the most important issues

After the meeting

• Followup on actions agreed upon

Other considerations

• Start out focusing on the positive lessons learned - what went well
• Be prepared to discuss specific problems (problem, perceived cause, what should have been done differently)
• For large projects, don't do it only at the end of the project - do LL at various key milestones
• Develop standard LL templates for online surveys

Next Meeting

Bring in sample questions

Sample Lessons Learned Questions

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