How to Identify Your Lessons Learned

 

This post's podcast episode is available at Sounder, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify.

When you are short of time, here is the one action that will give you 80 percent results in 20 percent of the time.

DO THIS

Keep a daily project journal.

BY DOING THIS

–        Start a journal on day one of your role in the change initiative.

–       Note everything—both positive and negative—as events occur.

–       Review highlights when the project is complete.

Experience is the best teacher, which enables us to repeat success patterns and eliminate future roadblocks to achieve our goals. Understanding how experiences impact outcomes helps build change capacity and skill and dramatically improves organizational knowledge on how projects work within our cultures.

Learning occurs in the moment—something worked or didn’t work because of specific factors, and we often lose the learnings we don’t record quickly. This is especially true in the middle of projects because we tend to remember only beginnings and endings, leaving the key middle ground foggy. Documenting the context and details of your observations while they are fresh in your mind gives you the best learning. Keeping a daily log, either paper or electronic, enables you to create an accurate and fulsome learning summary at the end of the project. The details you record daily will enhance the stories you tell about what you did, how you did it and what you learned from the results.

KNOWLEDGE BITES

LESSONS LEARNED JOURNALING TOOL: What have I learned from my role on this change project?

What worked well that I would want to repeat?

____________________________________________________________________

What didn’t work well that I wouldn’t?

____________________________________________________________________

What surprised me?

______________________________________________________________

SUCCESS TIP

Lessons are best communicated when you illustrate them with stories.

For more stories, insights and advice, listen to the  Identifying Your Lessons Learned podcast episode with HR and change management expert Kathy Repa.

Phil Buckley is the author of  Change on the Run and  Change with Confidence, host of the Change on the Run Podcast, and co-creator of the  Sharing Change with Confidence Newsletter.

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