The term Lessons Learned refers to the experiences, knowledge and ideas gained during a project by the main stakeholders.

These lessons are collected during the project Closure phase and cover aspects (technical, human, methodological, etc.) that are both positive serving as guides for future projects, as well as negative which will help avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

It is also interesting to document and share them outside the project team in order to create best practices and reduce the risk of failure within the entire organization.

The lessons learned process includes:

1. Identification

👉 Identify what you can learn from: what went well; what didn't go so well; what needs improvement; what can be improved.

2. Documentation

👉 Document the results via a detailed report, then share it with internal and external project stakeholders.

3. Analysis

👉 Analyze the results to determine how to apply the necessary actions (action plan, trainings, responsible people/departments...).

4. Archiving

👉 Store the report and other related documents in a place accessible to all interested parties.

5. Retrieval

👉 When starting your new project, look at lessons learned from past projects for inspiration (for example for risk assessment).