A lesson learned is something the team now knows that it wishes it had known earlier. Open the log from the project menu: Governance, then Lessons learned.
What it's for
Most teams collect lessons once, at the end, when half of them are forgotten. The log lets anyone add a lesson the day it happens, tag it with the phase and the area it affected, and link it to the risk or issue it came from. By the end you have a record the next project can actually use.
The four kinds of lesson
Looking back
- What went well: something to repeat
- What went wrong: something to avoid
Looking forward
- Improvement: a change to how this project works
- Recommendation: advice for the next project
Before you start
Before you add a lesson
- Your role can add lessons
- You have a short title and a description of what happened
- You know which phase it belongs to
- Optional: the risk or issue it relates to
How to add a lesson
- Start a new lesson
On the Lessons learned tab select Add lesson.
- Describe it
Enter the Title and Description. Both are required.
- Tag it
Choose the Category, the Phase (Discover, Prepare, Explore, Realize, Deploy or Run) and the Impact area (Process, Technical, People, Tools, Governance, Vendor, Timeline or Budget). Add a Workstream if it helps.
- Credit and link it
Fill in Contributed by. Pick a Linked risk or Linked issue if the lesson grew out of one.
- Save
Select Create lesson. The app gives it an ID such as ABC-LL-009.
Finding lessons
The buttons across the top show All lessons or one category. Search by title or ID, and filter by phase or workstream. Each lesson card shows its ID, category, title, description, workstream, who contributed it and any linked risk or issue.
To change a lesson, select Edit on its card, make your changes and select Update lesson. Delete removes it.
Good to know
- The last quality gate (Run → Closed) includes the criterion Lessons learned captured and documented. See Quality gates.
- Linking a lesson to a risk or issue keeps the story together. See Risks and Issues.
- Lessons learned are part of every plan, including Team.
Who can do this
Admins, project managers, functional leads, technical leads, consultants and stakeholders can add lessons. Admins, project managers, functional leads and technical leads can edit them. Only admins and project managers can delete a lesson. See Roles and permissions.