Script for Lessons Learned Workshop

Using this template

The author of this document is the workshop facilitator. The workshop details must be coordinated with the responsible
party (entrepreneur or project manager).
Adapt the script for your specific workshop.
The template contains a row for each of the various workshop blocks with instructions, tips, and in some cases examples.
In the subsequent empty rows you can enter your own items with the scheduled times. (If necessary, insert additional rows.)
You can change the order of the topics and move the corresponding rows in the script.
Also enter breaks into the script (coffee break, lunch, etc.).

Delete any rows or text you do not need to make the document shorter and more concise.

Page 1 of 9
Introduction
A Lessons Learned Session is a structured approach to derive collectively learning's, called Lessons Learned (LL), from
recent collective work and to document them in a reusable comprehensive form.
In a Lessons Learned Session, a few individuals up to a entire project team, come together to review the course of the
project or engagement, and share their individual experiences. They identify and agree on essential learning's from
the project, record them as Lessons Learned, and publish them in an appropriate way.
It is recommended that a Lessons Learned Session be held in a workshop atmosphere under a moderator using
workshop techniques.
A Lessons Learned Session must be properly prepared to produce the best results. Success factors include selection of
topics defining the session's scope, collection of questions on these topics in advance, and a friendly atmosphere.

Recommendations for Preparing a Lessons Learned Session

•Determine the scope that you want the Lessons Learned Session to cover. Use the examples listed below as a
starting point for selecting topics and soliciting questions.
•Decide who is to take part in the Lessons Learned Session, and organize the meeting. Explain the principles of a
Lessons Learned Session.
•Invite each participant to prepare for the Lessons Learned Session by running through in their minds their
experiences during the project, and by making a few notes. Distribute the questions below to all participants in order
to collect individual experiences.
•Foresee a facilitator to conduct the session if ever possible. You will have to allow between two hours and one day
depending on the value, size, complexity, and history of the project.
•For each topic selected, invent two or three soliciting questions and note these for guiding the Lessons Learned
session.
•Make the project management files available for the Lessons Learned Session.

Recommendations for Conducting the Lessons Learned Session

 Explain the various roles, and assign people to them – for example, the moderator and, if required, a secretary.

 Start the session. Ask questions.

 Evaluate topics like:

 Expectations of participants, customer, business partners, and management

 Congruence of goals among management, team, and individuals

 Individual views, experiences, and expectations of the participants

 Team structure, rules, dynamics, and the capacity for solving problems

 Internal view with focus on business excellence

 External view from the customer's perspective

 Innovations and learning perspective

Page 2 of 9
  Progress and quality of the work products

 Correctness and reliability of planning

 Appropriateness of physical facilities and supplies

 Capabilities of the technical development environment

 Time sequence: various combinations of serial or parallel activities performed

 Financial perspective, business value achieved.

 Ask the following questions – or similar ones – to obtain information:

 What were your expectations at the start of the project?

 What important experience have you gained during the project?

 Which expectations have been fulfilled, and which have not?

 What was your source of motivation during the project?

 What were your feelings once the project was finished?

 Where were we successful? Why?

 Where did we fail? Where is improvement needed? Why? What were the effects?

 Were there any unforeseen occurrences or positive/negative surprises?

 What did you miss?

 What can we improve?

 What were the critical success factors?

 Is it possible to identify what caused us to fail – a sequence of steps or events that led to failure?

 Which were the winning arguments?

 What were the determining factors?

 Did we have any control over the determining factors? If so, how much? Which ones were outside our circle of
influence?

 Who could have changed the factors that we could not influence? Why didn’t it happen?

 Encourage any "quiet" participants to take part and to contribute to the session.

 Document findings on "Post-its" and group them. Re-arrange until every member of the team agrees.

Page 3 of 9
 Find headings for the groups. Mark any links between the groups.

 Now switch to forward mode: Compile one or more findings/"Post-its" and identify key statements or patterns.

 Concentrate on key situations or cases that were crucial for particular activities. Make sure that there is
sufficient evidence for the pattern selected.

 Use "if-then" statements and obvious relationships between effects, objects, and agents.

 Assess the importance of the patterns that have been found to lead to success or failure, and assess their
usability. Select the "most important" ones.

 Cross-check the selected patterns with similar situations or cases to evaluate their reliability and decide whether
they are reusable.

 Arrange the key details or patterns that have been identified into groups. Find headings for these groups, and obtain
the agreement of the team about them.

 If necessary, get staff members to document the results and put into the form required.

Tips

 Do your best to ensure that the atmosphere is open and constructive.

 Encourage participants not to fall out among themselves, and not to blame individuals
or companies. Watch out for participants getting in a defensive attitude and redirect
them into a positive mode.
 Do not complain about what has happened, but concentrate on drawing possible
lessons from it, and on looking to the future.
 Concentrate on what is possible and feasible, instead of on explaining why something
cannot be done.
 Identify what can be changed, so that improvements can be made. Also identify who
could be tasked with the job of making the improvements.
 Prepare for a Lessons Learned Session by studying Creative Thinking Techniques.
 Include successful and less successful experiences.
 Use the brainstorming technique for various topics. Record the results on "Post-its".
 Ultimately the success of a Lessons Learned Session depends on the ability of the
team to make a realistic and honest appraisal of all the experiences they have
amassed.

Page 4 of 9
Structured and detailed guidance for conducting the Lessons Learned Session

Location/Date: Facilitator:

To be prepared by the facilitator

Room:
 Room with sufficient space for all participants plus pin boards, flip charts, posters, etc.
 Set up tables in U-shape or a circle of chairs
 Room key available where?
Must be available for at least half an hour before the start of the workshop plus half
an hour for follow-up
Equipment:
 At least two pin boards; three is better
 Flip chart, sufficient paper
 Screen and data projector (optional for presentation by Project Manager or
introduction to the Workshop)
Facilitator’s case:
 Cards (12 to 15 for each participant), different colors if possible (red, green, yellow)
 Sufficient number of pins with large heads (see cards)
 Bold markers for all participants plus three colors for the facilitator
 Name tags
 Adhesive tape for posters
 Adhesive dots
 Scissors
Miscellaneous:
 Digital camera for photographic record
 Catering: coffee, tea, soft drinks, cookies

To do list:




1. Welcome by person responsible

(project manager, executive manager)
Proposal:

Page 5 of 9
  Thank you for your time and for your interest in this workshop.
 Introduction of the facilitator
Afterwards, the facilitator takes over

(Time) ...

2. Introduction/information/rules
Proposal/examples:
 Organizational items
 Personal introductions (not needed if all participants know each other and their roles
in the proposal/project)
 Ask about expectations
 What is a lessons learned workshop? (Can be skipped if all participants are familiar
with it)
 Approve the objectives, the schedule and the planned results of the workshop
 Rules for the workshop
Particularly, rules governing confidentiality (everybody must be assured that what
he/she says can only leave the room with that person’s prior approval).
Proposal: State clearly what should not leave the room.
 Notes about the minutes:
Keep in mind how you want to keep the minutes. If you want to take pictures of the
results, pick appropriate colors. Ask participants to write clearly and in large letters.
 Mention “Open Items” list:
All items that cannot be covered directly will be noted on this list
Tool: Prepared flip chart of pin board
 Optionally: Short review of the project/recent phase from the project manager’s
viewpoint; summary of customer feedback, partner feedback, entrepreneur’s feedback
(if they don’t participate in the workshop).
Tool: Prepared flip charts
 Activities to create the open atmosphere that’s necessary (use only positively worded
topics). Example: What comes to mind spontaneously when I think about the
project/the just completed phase?
Everybody writes down a short point (cards). The answers are less important than
putting people in the right mood.
Tool: Cards, pin board

(Time) ...

(Time) ...

Page 6 of 9
 Collecting and discussing the selected topics/questions
3.
Work through the prepared questions. Include the feedback from customers, partners,
Company’s name management, etc. who are not present.
 Facilitator asks a question and explains how it should be answered (cards, etc.)
 Participants answer/present their answer
 Facilitator or participants sort and group the answers, define headings, coordinate the
results.
Tools: Depending on the selected methods: cards, markers, pin board, flip chart, etc.

(Time) ...

(Time) ...

Developing the lessons learned and the improvement proposals

4.
a. Personal (optional)
Allow each participant to present his personal experiences and draw his own conclusions
and to present the results on a voluntary basis so that the other participants can also
learn from them.
For example, answers to the questions:
What will I personally do differently the next time?
What are my concrete plans for the immediate future?
Examples for the “contract with yourself” method. Colleagues ask each other after a
specified period of time whether or not they kept to the “contract” and what the results
were.
Note: These results remain within the team and are not recorded in the minutes.

(Time) ...

b. Team/project
Possible approaches should have already been developed in the previous section.
 Prioritize the approaches (for example, by assigning points). The most important
criterion should be the benefits for the future.
 For the most important topics, develop proposals for improvement activities (possibly
in groups).
 Check whether these activities can be implemented within the team or should be
addressed to others.
 The proposals are coordinated by whole forum and possibly re-prioritized.
 Responsibilities and deadlines are specified (either for carrying out the activities or
for passing them on to other persons responsible outside the workshop members).
This can also be done later in a separate agenda for all activities.
Tools: Depending on the selected methods: cards, markers, pin board, flip chart, color dots for prioritizing, etc.

(Time) ...

Page 7 of 9
 (Time) ...

c. Organizational unit/company (Company’s name)

Come up with proposals for general process improvements within your organizational
units or the company as a whole — for example, workflow improvements or supporting
templates and tools. For such items, the proper contact is usually the division’s quality
management.
Specify escalation measures for activities that cannot be implemented by the project or
follow-up project (who transfers the topic to whom).
Identify information that may be useful for other employees or departments outside of
the team (such as information about customers, partners, competitors, etc.). Possible
recipients of such information could be the sales organization, the purchasing
department, marketing, etc.
Check which project results could be reused successfully in other projects and would make
for good reusable candidates.
Criteria are:
 high likelihood of reusability
 high-quality results
Reusable candidates are 'documented knowledge' or 'practical experience' that has been
extracted from project results or the results from the lessons learned workshop. Possible
candidates are:
 Work product: proposals, prototypes, software, debriefing results, lessons learned
 Solution components: concepts, architectures, models, generic processes, etc.
 Methods: processes, techniques, templates, etc.
 Tools: checklists, calculation sheets, instructions, etc.
 Description of a completed projects or work package
 Presentations
 Workshop documents
 Meeting documents, articles, etc.
 External best practices: white papers, benchmarking results, assessments, etc.
If necessary, assign people who are responsible for processing the reusable candidates.
Use the collected results to derive a catalogue of activities.

(Time) ...

Page 8 of 9
5. Specifying responsible parties for the activities
(Can be skipped if this was already done during the definition of the activities.)
 Activities that can be implemented by the team or the participants:
Who is responsible?
By when will the activities be implemented?
 Even for activities that will not be implemented in the team a responsible team
member should be selected who addresses the activity to other entities and tracks its
progress (and escalates it, if necessary).

(Time) ...

6. Discussion of minutes/open items

 Ask once again: What should be left out of the minutes?

 Are there any open items left?

(Time) ...

7. Concluding the workshop

Note: If this is also the last meeting of the project team, you may want to stay a little
longer after the workshop in order to say good bye (maybe a brief get-together).
Examples
 Feedback round
 Inquire about the general mood
 “What I still wanted to say in conclusion…”

(Time) ...

Page 9 of 9