What are the best ways to apply lessons learned from previous IT projects?

Project learnings documentation if done correctly is a great way to reflect and identify areas to perform even better! For projects which are more dynamic in nature, you may also consider practising agile retrospective, typically done at intervals or at the end of each sprint (e.g 2 to 4 weeks) which is an opportunity for development teams to reflect on past work together and make mid way project improvements to shape things for a better outcome. Agile retrospective is usually done with these steps: - Set the stage. - Gather data. - Generate insights. - Decide what to do. - Close the retrospective. Having retrospective at intervals will also help in documenting the learnings and contribute to the final project key learnings.

In travel tech's ever-changing landscape, learning from the past is crucial: - Review: Analyse past projects with your team and stakeholders - Success Factors: Identify what led to success and replicate it - Best Practices: Document lessons for future reference - Learning & Training: Keep your team updated with training and certs - Tech Tools: Use Jira and Slack for efficient collaboration - Stakeholder Engagement: Involve stakeholders throughout - Agile Approach: Embrace agile project Mgt. - Risk Management: Develop a solid risk plan - KPIs: Define clear KPIs+monitor progress - Feedback Loop: Gather input from users and guests - Mentoring & Sharing: Encourage knowledge sharing - Celebrate & Learn: Recognise successes+learn from failures

Below are some of the few lessons can be learnt from previous IT projects: - For problem with scope creep on a previous project, you can implement stricter change management procedures on your next project. - For communication problems on a previous project, you can schedule more regular status meetings and make sure to keep all stakeholders informed of any changes. - For a budget overrun on a previous project, more detailed budgets with track of spending more closely. - To address quality issues, rigorous quality issues should be implemented. It is also very important to create a culture of learning within your organization which includes encouraging everyone to share their experiences and learnings, and to be open to feedback.

It's not just Project Management; integrating Lessons Learned & Best Practices from previous projects is not just advisable but essential. This approach of learning from experience & Critical Knowledge Retention, grounded in the principles of Knowledge Management, enables a strategic framework that enhances project successful outcomes. By systematically capturing, analysing, and applying (i.e. codifying ) learnings, Organisations can avoid costly repetition of past mistakes & capitalise on proven methodologies. It is not a duplication but rather a tailored adaptation to meet the unique demands of each new project. Lessons learned are highly valued in the O&G/Nuclear sector. Implementing a knowledge-driven approach is a risk-mitigation tool.

1. Do your "lessons learned" and collect information 2. Review, choose the next steps for each point and relate it to project parameter/s. 3. KPI it - make it visible in the simplest possible way, e.g. "Project improvement index" like number of actions taken divided by total number of actions listed. 4. Review and seek accountability on regular basis for implementation of improvements 5. Review future project parameters for effects

For some IT projects to be considered successful, they should not only be celebrated by the project lead and Sr. Management but also by your peers outside of your organization. When leveraging your lessons learned and sharing with your peers within your network that is outside of your organization, you are sharing insightful information to that will help to promote and foster better habits and processes. Just imagine you are struggling with your team to get an IT service implemented, you may go through multiple iterations before you finally feel like giving up. Then you reach out to your external network for suggestions and ways of working smarter, you will free yourself from that struggle and become more successful!

Using agile methodology approach has increase the project success probability by more than 3/4. Delivery in small working project motivate to keep going till final project delivered.

Utilize collaborative platforms, internal forums, and concise documentation. Craft insightful reports highlighting key takeaways, challenges, and successful strategies. Conduct interactive knowledge-sharing sessions, fostering open dialogue among team members. Implement a mentorship program to facilitate one-on-one transfer of expertise. Utilize visual aids, such as infographics or presentations, to convey complex concepts. Integrate lessons into onboarding materials for new team members. Ensure continuous feedback loops, encouraging teams to apply learnings in real-time.

Embed IT project management learnings into best practices by instituting a robust framework. One key area is to encourage continuous improvement by conducting post-project reviews, extracting insights, and refining processes. Institutionalize a feedback loop to perpetuate learning across projects, ensuring a dynamic and evolving approach to IT project management.

I am a big proponent of 'frameworks' over rigid processes. The incorporation of these best practices has to be tied to the context - for example, certain types of projects may require different approaches to successfully counter problems which may arise. Having the learnings tied to the context from which they came will help the team decide if it makes sense to dedicate time and effort in that area for their next specific project. Allowing the flexibility to make those decisions with the team is critical to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy while still holding them accountable for the results of the project - they should be able to explain (during the next 'lessons learned') why they chose to not include something brought prior.

Key ingredients for any successful project: - Regular Stakeholder management (the executive consumer of the end product or outcome of the project, the executive of delivery and the sponsor) - Scope & deliverables well defined - Success criteria of deliverables well defined and accepted by stakeholders upfront - Start small, iterate, deliver incrementally (Agile approach) - Solid talents onboarded to the project - Raise red flags quickly (budget / timeline / quality / dependency issues)

Identify recurring issues and integrate preventive measures into standard operating procedures. Develop a knowledge base that serves as a go-to resource for teams, featuring case studies and practical applications of lessons learned. Foster a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging teams to actively contribute insights and refinements to established best practices. Regularly review and update guidelines based on evolving technologies and industry trends. Leverage project management tools to streamline the application of lessons, ensuring teams consistently apply proven strategies for successful IT project outcomes.

It would be better not to mention best practice. Practices and tools have bounded applicability in a complex adaptive system that includes IT projects. Best practice is past practice as mentioned by Dave Snowden. It is better to look at the principles used to achieve the outcome rather than solidifying practices that are not bounded by the context.

Define and re-use "Standard Operating Procedures" as well as "Requirements sheets": - efforts per task/topic - skills needed - cross team support, including outside teams like marketing/communication/legal/etc

Leveraging insights from prior IT projects is vital for enhancing processes, methodologies, and standards in IT project management. These learnings offer valuable guidance, enabling teams to streamline workflows, mitigate risks, and optimize resource allocation. By analyzing past successes and failures, organizations can refine project planning, establish robust communication protocols, and ensure adherence to industry best practices. Continuous improvement based on historical experiences fosters greater efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and overall project success, ultimately bolstering the effectiveness of IT project management endeavors.

For systems integrators, applying lessons learned has to begin from Presales stage as the proposal should be improved adding assumptions/dependencies/ constraints/ out of scope and PM methodologies based on the lessons learned shared by the PM who has done similar projects. This is vital as the execution will be based on the approved proposal / contract.

All learnings are worthless until they end up on someone's to-do list and a calendar. And verified. The simplest form: - Choose an important learning from your retrospective/postmortem, - Go through pre-planned future projects and add the implementation of this learning as a task there, - Schedule a time on your calendar for when you will go through these projects and verify the implementation of this learning, - Repeat until they get implemented consistently a few times in a row.

Key to being able to measure the impact and performance is to have the scope, KPIs and other components design in the way that they are measurable and trackable.

Remember - instead of creating a document called Lesson learned, log things regularly and then at the end rename it to Lesson learned.

Begin by establishing a systematic process for evaluating project outcomes, identifying successes, and learning from challenges. Encourage a culture of continuous improvement by soliciting feedback from team members and stakeholders. Stay attuned to industry trends and evolving technologies, incorporating new insights into methodologies. Embrace a dynamic approach that allows for flexibility and adaptation to changing project landscapes. Regular reviews not only validate the effectiveness of current practices but also foster a proactive and learning-oriented mindset within the IT project management framework.

Regularly reviewing & updating project learnings is essential in the IT landscape. It ensures that insights remain relevant & applicable. By incorporating fresh learnings & removing outdated ones, you maintain a dynamic & valuable resource. For instance, as cybersecurity threats evolve, regularly updating best practices for threat mitigation is crucial to stay ahead. While regular updates are vital, it's equally important to strike a balance between adaptation & stability. Like IBM prioritize stability in core IT practices while adopting an agile approach to update specific project-related learnings, demonstrating how a hybrid approach can effectively cater to diverse project needs & environments.

To maintain the relevance of project learnings, review and update them regularly: Periodic Review: Schedule regular reviews of the lessons learned repository. Team Involvement: Involve team members in the review process to gather fresh insights. Technology and Industry Trends: Align learnings with evolving technology and industry best practices. Feedback Loop: Encourage feedback and suggestions for updates from project teams. Documentation: Update the repository with the latest insights and outcomes. Prune Irrelevant Information: Remove outdated or irrelevant content to maintain clarity. Version Control: Implement version control to track changes and ensure access to historical insights.

Como lo mencionaba antes, la adaptación es fundamental. Las empresas son organizaciones vivas que mutan, evolucionan, cambian tanto o más que el propio entorno. Se hace necesario ajustar los procedimientos y procesos, así como las competencias, para enfrentar cada nuevo reto.

I'm missing a discussion on psychological safety. For me, one of the most overlooked yet crucial aspects of successful IT project management is the creation of a psychologically safe environment. In simpler terms, it's about ensuring that the team feels safe to take risks, voice opinions, and admit mistakes without fear of punishment or humiliation. Google's "Aristotle Project" was a significant research initiative to understand the dynamics of successful teams. One of the most striking findings was that the highest-performing teams had one thing in common: a high degree of psychological safety: team members felt comfortable taking risks, such as suggesting new ideas or pointing out potential issues, knowing they wouldn't face retribution.

In addition I think it’s important to look at team dynamics and chemistry. On great successes keep the team together and introduce new people that will learn why it works. Great teams that build trust, leverage each other’s strengths and have fun will typically produce faster and higher quality products

Creating a sustainably high-performing project delivery requires a cultural shift and commitment to continuous improvement. This requires developing two distinct behaviours: how to continuously improve what we do, and how to coach each other to become better at what we do. Leveraging Kata thinking can be helpful. The improvement kata takes a current condition, heightens awareness of the current condition, sets a target condition, and incrementally moves towards it. The coaching kata uses five simple questions and reflection on outcomes to internalize the desired changes in thinking, deciding, and acting. Done well, the improvement and coaching kata become habitual through shared rituals that tie to clearly measurable outcomes.

Before you start, define clear success criteria and how you will measure them. It then becomes an exercise in seeing how you achieved the goals or how you missed them. This makes the findings easy to apply to the next project. Develop a blameless culture to ensure errors and mistakes are recognised as opportunities.

Avoid Implementation Trap. This occurs when business include solution in their requests rather then specifying problem statement or requirement. For example if user us unable to send email he will ask to reset his password as a solution rather then telling team that he is unable to send email the issue... and let the team investigate This eliminate the investigation and analysis phase in which requirments are converted into specifications. Specifications helps developers understand the problem So it is suggested that business teams should share their problems and issues rather then Solutions ... let's the team do what it is supposed to do.. Due to this business analysts works as postmen between Implementation team and business users ..