Leadership lessons learnt

Author Joe Griffin Published 28 August 2009

The Global Financial Crisis has driven many businesses to reflect on their situation – providing many with a good opportunity to engage a range of stakeholders in a 'lessons learnt' evaluation. From a project perspective, 'lessons learnt' exercises focus on the following questions:

• Did the project achieve the nominated outcomes?
• Did the planned process or methodology prove to be effective or was it totally or partially flawed?
• Was the project resourced appropriately?
• Had the context of the projected changed during the life of the project?

These questions form the basis of the key learnings that the project leadership team hope to gain by reviewing their projects. They seek to identify those aspects that could be replicated, those that have helped the project moved to levels of self-sustainability and those that require refining or replacing. For team leaders, it is particularly useful to encourage all team members to think critically and constructively in their project evaluations, and to address their learning collectively.

All organisations, departments, projects, teams and individuals should get in to the habit of evaluating projects, and make continuous learning an ongoing priority. The frameworks for doing so will differ across organisations and according to project specifics but all should seek to cultivate a culture of learning; recognising individual and team learning opportunities; addressing mistakes; seeking solutions, not blame; and enhancing the business reputation and position in the marketplace.

Team leaders must monitor 'group think' and encourage critical thinking and ‘critical voice’ at all stages of a project. To promote a greater level of team learning in the workplace, team leaders might also ask team members to nominate what they'd like to learn individually and as a team. The lessons learnt, and angles by which they can be understood, then become a routine part of every project.