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

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

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

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

Bring in sample questions