Effective Project Management: Learning From Past Projects

Importance of Learning in Project Management

Learning takes place in each project. Lessons learned are acquired from the process involved when undertaking the project. Therefore, learning happens from our project experiences and the skills from others. Project leaders, project team members and management all take part in the lessons learning periods by reviewing learnt lesson report and then make decision on how to utilise the acquired knowledge and skills. Accordingly, sharing lessons learned amongst project team members help to avoid the project from repeating similar mistakes and enable members to take advantage of the useful practices. Therefore, novel methods and excellent practices are shared among members (Hornstein, 2015). Certainly, the lessons learned during the course of the project shall be used to improve forthcoming projects as well as future phases of the present projects. Learning does not have to wait till when the project is accomplished to start learning. Learning should be identified at any stage of the project. Accordingly, learning lessons time is carried out at different periods according to the criticality and project complexity. The most crucial times are towards the end of the project and at the end of every phase when learning in real-time. Waiting until the end of the project becomes challenging to learn each lesson since one can end up missing major lessons. On the same note, towards the end of the project time is always elapsing therefore, project members are likely to rush and in the process forget key things learned. Similarly, some of the project members allotted to the project in the earlier stages may no longer be part of the project towards later stages (Kernaghan, & Da Silva, 2014). As a result, the most suitable period to start discussing modules learned should be at the beginning of the project.

The core objective of initiating and planning phases in projects is to outline the work that has to be performed to deliver the project product by establishing a strong basis of the project 

prior to allocating resources to the project. The most significant that all stakeholders clearly understand the intention of the project, the reasons for undertaking the project as well as how the results shall be realised. On the same note, initiation and planning help to outline different stakeholder responsibilities to ensure that they genuinely commit themselves to delivering of the project. It is during this stage that all significant project components are reviewed so as to enable all project participants to have a good introductory knowledge.          

Initiating and Planning Phases in Projects

How I planned to gather and document lessons learnt

Getting started: Lessons learned are at first introduced into the project at the time of initiation process as the reference point, then past information which was earlier collected is used as input to planning (Hornstein, 2015). Such information is implemented during planning phase. Therefore, to be able to determine information that is significant I followed the following steps for the new project being scheduled.  

Identifying similar projects: The lessons learned from the earlier projects can only be important if the projects are similar.

Collecting significant information: When similar projects have been identified the planning team should gather useful information from these projects. Some of the things that are considered include identifying data for appropriate tasks, data for projecting the work effort.

When I planned to identify and collect lessons learnt	Who I planned to involve in the process of gathering lessons	How I planned to document lessons
Identifying similar projects	Internal project managers Stakeholders Team members Executive sponsors Project management peers. Project managers, stakeholders and project team members	I will find this information from different sources such as project management information systems, knowledge management systems, project documentations such as scope statements, project charters and notebooks.

2b. LESSONS LEARNT: FRAMEWORK (con’t) 2.2 What actually happened? When I identified and collected lessons learnt Who I involved in the process of gathering lessons How I documented lessons Explaining the project plan to main project shareholders and discussing its primary components. Stakeholders and project administration Project plan: It is unfortunate that the project plan is the most misunderstood term in project management. The project plan is not a fixed object but it keep on changing over the project lifecycle. Therefore, a project plan acts like a compass direction which offers direction for the project. As a result, the project manager require to create a process for the project which is referred to as a project plan in project management.

1. Situation	2. The situation made me feel…	3. What I learnt from reflecting on the situation
Design phase	Design look forward to develop comprehensive specifications that stresses the physical solution to the user’s needs.	Project are designed to ensure that they realise user requirements.

The most integral parts to make sure there improvement initiative process becomes successful include project risk analysis, identification and response planning. The risk plan has to be in line with the project management plan. The development of a risk register is developed to watch over and track risks throughout the project lifecycle (John, Keeler, Wiek, & Lang, 2015). Therefore, the project team especially stakeholders and control account managers are supposed to be engaged in the risk planning process. The project is required to conduct an initial qualitative risk analysis by focusing on intensifying the risk likelihood and results of optimistic activities and reducing the chances of adverse events to the project goals. The risk planning process involves the following:    

1. Improvement strategy	2. How to measure if the strategy works	3. Why the strategy is achievable	4. Relevance of strategy to address the lesson	5. When the strategy will be implemented
Risk identification	Performing a risk brainstorming session with stakeholders	This strategy is achievable because it is the surest way to determine if the project is in line with their needs.	Identification of risks help to project aspects that are likely to hamper the success of the project t early enough and be able to avoid them.	When the project is approximate 80% complete.
Perfuming qualitative risk analysis	Make an analysis of the risk by ranking them according to their probability and consequences by utilising tailored ranking scales	The strategy is achievable because the quantitative risk analysis  can be measured against a tailored scale	Group risk effects by recoding the outcome in the risk register.	When the project is approximate 80% complete.

The creation of significant metrics is carried out to quantity action application process and then provide the project team, stakeholders and the administration management with useful feedback to determine the appropriateness the project progress.  

1. Situation	2. The situation made me feel…	3. What I learnt from reflecting on the situation
Implementation phase	The implementation made me to appreciate how implementation techniques play a major role in determining the effectiveness of the project.	I learned that it is important to establish success metrics to measure how successful a product meets stakeholders’ needs.

Developing a method to maintain traceability of the implemented activities by relating the project to the recommendations, findings, and observations determined during joint cause study.   

1. Improvement strategy	2. How to measure if the strategy works	3. Why the strategy is achievable	4. Relevance of strategy to address the lesson	5. When the strategy will be implemented
Providing a method for customers/ stakeholders to verify the process.	The customers should satisfy that the delivered project meets their needs as wanted.	The strategy is achievable because it does not involve costly apparatus to monitor the project.	The strategy is relevant since it strives to ensure the project meets the initially planned objectives.	When the project is approximate 90% complete.

The validation and verification process has to be agreed by the stakeholders and recorded during the implementation stage.  

1. Situation	2. The situation made me feel…	3. What I learnt from reflecting on the situation
Verification	The verification process calls for preliminary evaluation of implementation before complete effectiveness is performed.	The verification process is used to demonstrate effectiveness of the delivered project.

1. Improvement strategy	2. How to measure if the strategy works	3. Why the strategy is achievable	4. Relevance of strategy to address the lesson	5. When the strategy will be implemented
Reporting verification and validation progress	Inclusion of verification and validation metrics	The metric is capable of tracking the extent of closure evidence confirmed and validated through control explanation parallel with some actions allocated to the control justification	It briefs stakeholders by providing feedback on the general effectiveness of the project.	During closure of the project

Conclusion

All through the lifecycle of the project, I learned lessons and find out chances for enhancement.  Documentation is a major aspect of project management used to document lessons which aids members of a project team to determine their strongholds and weaknesses. Therefore, I was able to understand the importance of different project planning stages and their significance towards the project’s success.

References

Andrews, T. D. (2012). Managing improvement initiatives as projects. Paper presented at pmi® global congress 2012-North America, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Newtown square, pa: project management institute.

Hornstein, H. A. (2015). The integration of project management and organizational change management is now a necessity. International Journal of Project Management, 33(2), 291-298.

John, B., Keeler, L. W., Wiek, A., & Lang, D. J. (2015). How much sustainability substance is in urban visions?–An analysis of visioning projects in urban planning. Cities, 48, 86-98.

Kernaghan, S., & da Silva, J. (2014). Initiating and sustaining action: Experiences building resilience to climate change in Asian cities. Urban Climate, 7, 47-63.