For the past ten years, I have written this blog focusing on the Program Management Office, project manager behavior and performance, and lessons learned from projects.
The framework for lessons learned for projects has been very simple: What is the expected result, What was the actual result, What was the Gap between the two, and What was the Lesson Learned based on this gap? In its simplest form, this is merely a fact-based investigative examination of a scenario for a project.
But it need not apply only to project scenarios. It can be applied to any scenario that is fact-based and needs a close examination of the perspectives and the deliverables from the scenario.
Project teams can use this fact-based investigative framework to examine their everyday workflows and processes where deliverables and performance expectations are the norms for activity. Believe it or not, most team activity that follows an “action” leads to “outcome,” actually results in unintended consequences due to some factor that the team did not take into consideration prior to their action. The only way to sort out the actual result is to use a fact-based investigative framework to see what influences the team did not take into consideration.
Take for example a procurement scenario where the project team is seeking an outsourced application for its work. Even a closely drafted contract for the procurement of this app can result in some functional requirements of the app being overlooked in the development. The delivered product might not match the business or functional requirements outlined in the project charter. These unintended consequences need unraveling to ensure the project team gets what it intended to procure.
The fact-based investigative framework presented in my book Project Management Lessons Learned: A Continuous Process Improvement Framework can help you sort out these scenarios with unintended consequences. Try it out.
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