I used to like "Lessons Learned" records [1]. Perhaps a better way to learn from practising your profession are plus-delta reviews [2]. An even better way to think of plus-delta reviews: I like and I wish chats. Which of these two ways we have for getting better will work for your team?

Lessons-learned records form historical searchable databases of what you would prefer to do in future when you hit some kind of snag. Imagine how much effort you would spend to pause and record that situation when it happens. One of my colleagues has assembled a spreadsheet engineers could use to keep track of such ideas. That version is based on one that a project manager taught him at Vancouver Community College.

For lessons learned, you need to record

  • priority
  • identification number (increments so that's easy)
  • type or category of issue
  • discipline of practice
  • description of the lesson
  • background to the issue
  • benefit or impact of the issue
  • severity rating of the issue's impact
  • how you implement the learned lesson
  • who will make sure the lesson changes the work processes
  • current status of implementation

Detailed records you can use when operating large organizations. Does a lessons-learned record work for your team? Good question. Let's compare a plus-delta list you use as the closing action in any activity. Folks from Chandos introduced this to me at an integrated project delivery workshop as a way to add continuous learning to any activity.

For plus-delta, you start thinking in terms of "I like" and "I wish". These are Bernard Roth's [3] wording for this activity and it feels much more friendly. In this version, we just split the list into two columns and collect two lists:

  • things we enjoyed (I like)

  • things we would like to improve (I wish)

With plus-delta lists, your team will have the chance to give reinforcing feedback immediately after doing the activity and to share ideas for improving the very next version of the activity or event.

Perhaps we need both. Perhaps plus-delta reviews give teams a way to learn together and get better directly. Perhaps lessons-learned give teams a way to share learning with a broader bureaucracy and improve a larger system.


[1]:PMI on Lessons Learned

[2]:Lean Construction Institute on Plus-Delta

[3]:Achievement Habit

[4]:Gamestorming on Plus-Delta

[5]:Deeper use of Plus-Delta