Capturing Lessons Learned with Khamelia

One way someone can identify the maturity level of an organization when it comes to project management, is how the organization treats the Lessons Learned activities. Are the project teams taking the Lessons Learned activities seriously? Do they put importance on learning from the past? Are they keen to ensure that the lessons, the wisdom of yesterday, will not be forgotten?

When I started my career in Project Management, there was resistance not only from my project team, but also from management when it came to conducting the Lessons Learned meetings. I was told that I should not spend company resources on that effort. The funny thing is that other Project Managers (PM) ridiculed me as well.

I stayed the course and started to build out the Lessons Learned knowledge base. After a few projects, I was able to call out various lessons that have been learned on previous projects before launching a new similar project. The new project team was very grateful that those lessons were not lost. They were so happy to understand where the stress and frustration could come from, where the obstacles and challenges reside. They learned and took mental notes, and the new project went much more smoothly and had great success. They thanked me for my effort.

While Lessons Learned is beneficial for the company, beneficial for the Project Manager, the ones that tend to benefit the most are the project team members. I encourage all PM’s to conduct the Lessons Learned process at the end of every phase, or even every milestone.

How can Khamelia Help with Capturing Lessons Learned?

Khamelia allows you to capture Lessons Learned right into your project. The user can assign the Lesson to a task, or the Lesson can stay at the project level. It can be captured at that granular level. The Lesson can be captured at any time, and by any team member, not just the PM. Imagine as the PM knowing that your team can capture their own Lessons Learned items, so that wisdom now is not lost. That flexibility and freedom is what Khamelia offers around Lessons Learned.

The Project Manager can be notified when a Lesson has been submitted. And Khamelia has a Lessons Learned report that can be ran at any time by the PM. I know many senior PM’s that would appreciate that very much.