LESSONS LEARNED WORKING GROUP
Session 2 Notes - 10/21/2008
MEETING ATTENDEES:
Micci Bogard, Greg Bronson, Greg Busby, RJ Davies, Jean Gustafson, Graham Hall, Stephanie Herrick (co-Facilitator), Butch Labrecque (co-Facilitator), Ned LaCelle, Benoit McNicoll, Greg Menzenski, Christine O'Brien, Ron Parks, Nathan Reimer, Andy Slusar, Casper Vanwyk
ADMINISTRIVIA:
AGENDA:
- Review Agenda
- Purpose of the Meeting & Tie back to Session 1
- "Report Back" presentations (15 min each) & Group Feedback (10 min each)
- Closing
PURPOSE OF MEETING:
Share & discuss working groups' results (potential solutions to top LL problems) and present strategies for implementing the solution(s) to the group in order to create and improve LL practices & tools
INTRODUCTIONS, NEW EXPECTATIONS AND TIE-BACK TO KICKOFF MEETING:
We had 3 new members join us: Greg Busby, Jean Gustafson & Graham Hall (Welcome, Jean, to the Sharing Outcomes team, Greg to the Best Practices team and Graham to the Facilitation team).
Two new expectations were added to the list:
- Share LL's to take back to other PM's/projects
- Move LL's from project to project in order to start each project "slightly higher"
We reviewed the Expectations expressed in Session 1 and identified themes between these and the newly expressed Expectations: Learning, Applying, Benefits, Common (repository), Best (practices), Capturing, Future (projects).
- Get the "Cornell view" on LLs
- Learn from others, apply to other projects
- "we talk about it", but how do we make sure that others benefit from it?
- Learn common/"best" way to do LLs
- Discover if LLs can be "generalized"
- Put best practices in place & perhaps develop a common repository
- We don't currently have a way to capture LLs (repeatable process)
- How can we work LLs into best practices
- Find out if there is a way for the PM to find "balance" conducting & participating in LLs as well as to apply LLs to future projects
- Learn and hear others' experiences
- Observe & learn how to conduct LL sessions
- Can we combine LLs with something else to make it more valuable/practical?
- Support problem ID & LL action items/next steps in order to benefit future PMs/projects
- How to capture LLs, collaborate w/ the info & be more proactive with (acting on) LLs
We also reviewed Session 1 evaluation feedback: some positive feedback - thank you! - and some suggestions for improvement (more time, more time for intro's, team building activity was unnecessary, needed coffee).
We discussed how many of the Expectations expressed in Session 1 would be addressed (to some degree) in Session 2 and that we tried to work in folk's evaluation feedback from Session 1 into Session 2's agenda. Evaluations will be handed out at each session. Looking ahead to Session 3, we will make every effort to incorporate participant's feedback.
REPORT BACK & GROUP FEEDBACK
Each team was asked to present their working group results with the larger group and allow time to collect feedback. The report-back format was as follows:
1. Introduce work group team members for the benefit of new LLWG participants
2. Provide clear definition of problem(s) addressed by the work group
3. Present the proposed solution(s)
4. Suggest strategies for implementing the solution(s)
5. Recommend next steps (action plan)
"Facilitation" Team* (Top LL Problem ID1) - Ron, Micci, Lisa, GregB, Irina, Graham
Solutions:
Feedback:
- <ask each team to record theirs>
"Best Practices" Team (Top Problems ID#2) - RJ, Nathan, GregM, Andy, Greg
Solutions:
Feedback: 
- Ron Parks to provide responses to PM SIG Survey to Best Practices Team
- Propose standing agenda item for PM SIG to discuss Lessons Learned
- Best Practices can also arise from non-PM lessons learned. Would this be accomplished in other SIGs like a developers SIG? or are Tech reps on the PM SIG sufficient?
- Major Challenge to include sufficient representation to overcome cultural resistance to PM generated/imposed Best Practices.
- Tap into PMI Best Practices - other organizations.
- Tap into Campus PMs.
"Sharing Outcomes" Team (Top Problems ID#4) - Sue, Ned, Benoit, Christine, Casper, Jean
Solutions:
Feedback:
CLOSING/NEXT STEPS
- We recapped progress to date and illustrated how the LLWG teams and deliverables are naturally interdependent:
- Teams were asked to meet to incorporate feedback received from the larger group into their solutions
- Steph & Butch will post meeting notes to Confluence, plan Session 3 (agenda TBA)
- Post-meeting evaluation
SESSION 2 LESSON LEARNED: formally facilitated, non-projectized working groups are very powerful!