42 Examples of Lessons Learned (2024)

John Spacey, updated on April 10, 2024

Lessons learned is the practice of capturing knowledge around what does and doesn't work as part of an intensive business effort such as a project, program or operational challenge. This may be conducted for both successful and failed projects whereby the latter may contain more valuable lessons that prevent poor approaches from being repeated. The following are illustrative examples of lessons learned.

Assign a risk owner for each risk who is accountable for risk management.	Capture decision rationales for project decisions.
Carefully list what is out of scope.	Clearly define objectives.
Communicate schedule risks early and often.	Communicate verbally with stakeholders.
Conduct regular status meetings.	Continue to identify risks throughout a project, not just at the start.
Cultivate a positive team culture and resolve things if cooperation starts to turn negative.	Define how project will be transitioned to operations early and in detail.
Define project success criteria in the project charter.	Develop a detailed project schedule.
Develop a project communication plan.	Document assumptions and constraints in project charter.
Engage key stakeholders early and often.	Escalate low sponsor engagement.
Establish a project governance board.	Establish clear roles.
Establish project performance metrics from the start.	Follow a rigorous project management methodology.
Get sign-off and create transparency for decisions to go overbudget.	Identify and manage project dependencies.
Identify budget overruns early.	Include a buffer in project estimates.
Manage low stakeholder engagement.	Monitor progress closely.
Monitor project scope creep.	Obtain formal sign-off for project decisions.
Obtain sign-off for risk acceptance.	Perform regular project reviews.
Practice greater due diligence in evaluating change requests.	Prioritize tasks to level workload.
Push back on unjustified assumptions at every stage of a project.	Quickly manage low performance.
Set clear deliverable requirements and quality expectations.	Set clear performance expectations for team members.
Set realistic goals.	Use formal communications to set stakeholder expectations.
Validate and peer review architecture and design documents.	Validate project estimates.
Work more closely and positively with vendors.	Work more closely with the business.

Summary

Lessons learned is a continuous improvement activity that is built into processes such as project management methodologies. This involves reflection on an initiative in order to identity possible best practices and areas for improvement.