Written by Lindsey Carbaugh and Mike Wood

‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.’ – George Santayana

‘We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.’ – John Dewey

What is a Project Retrospective?

When a project has reached its completion, the team should review and discuss all the steps taken to complete the project and learn from the successes and failures throughout. This is called a Project Retrospective. Project Retrospective meetings may go by many names: postmortems, retrospectives, after-action reviews, wrap-ups, project “success” meetings, and more. The retrospective provides the team organization with a means to increase efficiency in the future, as well as to improve team morale (communication, employee energy levels, and overall team spirit).

What happens during a Project Retrospective, and what is the importance?

There are many approaches one may take when conducting a Project Retrospective Meeting. Still, it is important to start off by reviewing the project facts. This may include goals, timeline, budget, major events, etc. It is imperative to go over these things so that everyone on the team understands the facts and gains insight into the parts of the project where they may not have been involved. This will allow the team to successfully come up with useful ideas that everyone can agree on. Originally formalized as the after-action review by the US Army, these meetings ensure a team quickly learns from each engagement and uncovers measures that didn’t produce the intended results. This provides the project manager with information on preventative actions that should be taken and risks that should be managed . In addition, a retrospective highlights the positive achievements that came out of the project and how they can be incorporated into future projects.

A Retrospective allows the project team to express their thoughts, ideas, and concerns about the project.  They do this without any fear of speaking their minds, as everyone should feel that their ideas are heard and that some real change will come out of the meeting. Everyone is equal, and every opinion is valued in this meeting. The facilitator should prepare some questions to help the team members unfold their thoughts. Some examples of these questions can include:

• What did we plan to accomplish?/What was our initial goal?
• What did we accomplish?/What was the outcome?
• Why did we meet/not meet our goals?
• What can we do next time to improve?/How will we approach a similar project next time?
• Describe something another team member helped you with for which you’d like to thank them.
• Describe an achievement for which you are proud.
• Describe any questions or concerns you have about the remaining work left to be done.
• Describe what we did well as a team.

It is very important to remember, that an essential factor to a successful Project Retrospective is for the team members to feel comfortable enough to voice their opinions or concerns. This usually creates an image of trust as the team works together to access every aspect of the project. The meeting should focus more on celebrating successes while allowing the team to discuss any improvements that can be made in their ability to work together in the future.

What’s next?

Whatever you call it, the retrospective is critical for closing out a project. Once the retrospective is complete and ideas are collected, the group should discuss and develop an action plan for essential items. This action plan will involve incorporating ideas and concerns discussed in the meeting that can be used in future projects. The action plan will allow all team members to set new goals and measure them after the next project or iteration.

At Momentum, we complete Past Performance documents as a key component in our long-term success as employees and the long-term success of Momentum as a whole.  Our past performance reviews include sections to discuss Next Steps and Potential Opportunities, Challenges and Resolutions, Key Milestones, and Lessons learned. In these sections, we review our project to point out our successes, as well as to voice our concerns and how we will prevent those concerns from coming into play in the future. All of this is part of a Project Retrospective, looking back on things that happened in the past, analyzing them for what they are worth, and creating an effective and efficient plan for moving forward.

Because we conduct a Project Retrospective on every engagement, our consultants are well versed in the process and in creating an action plan to show real improvements in the future. Sometimes, the key to success is having an objective facilitator who can guide the conversation. Let us help you with your next Project Retrospective!

Written by Lindsey Carbaugh and Mike Wood

Lindsey Carbaugh has a strong client-focused background with a proven track record for thorough and concise documentation. Strong communication skills enable her to provide direction to her team, as well as comprehensive status reporting for complex issues. She is known for specializing in continuous improvement and increasing efficiency through tools like the project retrospective, which has provided her team with the organization and strategies necessary to increase their success in the future. Ms. Carbaugh’s current focus is working within the state government sector to ensure the availability of public services.

Mike Wood is a detail-oriented Business Analyst with over twelve years of relevant industry experience.  He has gathered and documented requirements on many projects of varying size and complexity, working with both Agile and Waterfall client environments. Mike brings exceptional facilitation skills enabling him to consistently gain stakeholder trust. Mike prides himself in keeping projects on time, in scope, and within budget.  Mike is currently working with a client creating an automated testing environment.