The lessons learned template & guide

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At the end of a project, it’s tempting to give yourself a pat on the back and jump straight into the next big thing. But it’s important to pause and take stock of what went well and what didn’t quite go to plan. This is where a Lessons Learned template can come in handy. It provides a clear, systematic way to document lessons learned, and can become a great project management resource down the track. 

Even if the project was a roaring success, you will always find opportunities to learn and improve. Plus, you will always find things to celebrate and replicate!

Our collaborative lessons learned template is divided into four quadrants on a sliding scale of planned vs unplanned and success vs failure. It places equal value on capturing the failures but also the wins so they can be replicated for future projects. We’ve also rounded up 11 additional retrospective ideas alongside their corresponding templates to mix things up for your next sprint retrospective!

So let’s take a look at the template, and what you need to complete it.

Key questions to unlock the lessons learned

While the Project Manager should always document and analyze the lessons learned, the process becomes far more effective and valuable when carried out as a team. Keeping notes in a project notebook throughout can be helpful, though we recognize that doesn’t always happen. To ensure a thorough understanding of all insights, consider using a lessons learned template and asking your team these key questions:

• What was challenging?
• What was beyond your control?
• What could have been handled better?
• What things surprised you that were unplanned?
• What things did you expect to happen, but they didn’t?
• What errors did you successfully avoid?
• What could we automate or simplify that is time-consuming or annoying?
• What skills did you need on this project?
• What bottlenecks did you experience?
• What actions can we take to ensure future teams or projects can learn from us?
• Were there any unintended consequences?
• Were there any unexpected successes?
• Was there any external positive feedback?

Get started with a free Lessons Learned template 

We’ve created a free and simple Lessons Learned Template to help you get started. 

Use template

1. Share the link to the board with your team
2. Assign colors to each category in the table: eg technology – red, staff – blue, management – green.
3. Invite participants to share their thoughts on the board using colored sticky notes placed in the relevant quadrant depending on if they were planned or unplanned and successes or failures.
4. Feel free to use the questions above to identify even more lessons.
5. Discuss each idea to identify the root cause, consequences and improvements.
6. At the end, you should be able to identify success and improvements.
7. The final step is to assign any relevant action items to relevant people along with a due date.

Once you’ve filled out the lessons learned template, it becomes a valuable resource for other projects or teams, so don’t hesitate to share it. With Conceptboard, you can effortlessly export your board as a PDF or a high-resolution image. Completing a lessons learned session also serves as a meaningful way to close a project, marking the transition to the next one.

Once you’ve used this tool once, it becomes so much easier to build it into future projects. That way, the knowledge base will become extremely rich with useful learnings and successes. Remember, treat your failures as learning opportunities and you’ll always continue improving! If you want to explore more of our tools to help you reach your business objectives, check out our collection of retrospective templates. Or catch up on the latest news on our blog.