Learning the Lessons
Question 20: Have you looked at the lessons learned from your project?
Good Practice: Every project has the potential to help you run future projects more effectively. An assessment should be made of the project whether it was a great success, total failure or anywhere in between.
In his article, Lessons Learned: Why Don't we Learn From Them? 
Derry Simmel, board member of PMI's PMO SIG, identifies two common problems preventing us learning valuable lessons from past projects:
- We think the lessons don't apply to us.
- We want to get things done.
"The sad truth is that these lessons learned are useful. That time spent in doing the work better is time well spent. That getting it right the first time is cheaper and easier than doing it now and fixing it later," Derry says.
History has a strange way of repeating itself. If we don't take time to learn the lessons of the past, and moreover act upon them, we will continue to commit the same mistakes again and again. And don't think it won't happen to you, it will!
Common Mistakes
- Being too busy to evaluate projects when they have been completed.
- Moving on to your next project before reviewing the last.
- Failing to learn lessons from past projects.
- Not making lessons learned available to other people in the organisation.
Warning Sign! The same mistakes being made time and time again.
