Writing the PRINCE2 7 Lessons Report
Lessons Report in PRINCE2 7
The end project report is created as part of the closing a project process and within it is contained the lessons report.
However, the lessons report may be created at the end of stage, particularly if such lessons can be usefully applied to the current project all that it makes sense to avail of these lessons via the lessons report, to other projects within the organization. Such lessons reports will be included within the end stage report.
You may recall that the lessons learned log is set up as part of the starting up a project process as it is used to capture any known or sought-out lessons to be applied to the project from the very start.
If you have a project office in your organization, then they should look after your lessons report so that it will help advise other project managers of any lessons that may affect their project.
Whenever PRINCE2 is applied to any project, it is important to tailor the method to suit the size, complexity and risk of the project. This will apply equally to the lessons report, and any opportunity taken to reduce, combine and simplify the following content sections of the lessons report:
A good way of structure in this section is to split it into what went well and what went badly sections. Each item should include how to optimize and implement those parts that went well, and possible actions that may have been taken to minimize or remove those areas that went badly.
This section within the lessons report could review the tailoring of PRINCE2 and how this could be improved on future projects, any changes for improvements made to the various project approaches contained within the project initiation documentation, changes to the method or implementation of the various project controls, and changes or improvements to any specialist methods used (this could cover methods to create the specialist products, or modification to a management method such as change-control.
Also, any suggestions for how the project controlled abnormal events that caused deviations from plan.
Evaluate the stage
The results of a stage should be reported back to the project board so that progress is clearly visible
to the project management team.
The project manager gives a view on the continuing ability of the project to meet the project plan
and business case and assesses the overall risk situation.
This activity should happen as close as possible to the actual end of a stage.
Recommended actions for the project manager:
Based on the performance of the stage using the updated business case, updated project plan,
project logs, and any updated management approaches, prepare an end stage report for the
current stage.
Review the lessons logged to date and include them in the end stage report. This is particularly
important for longer projects where interim reviews of lessons (or the project itself ) may benefit the business.
Review the communication management approach to see whether there is a requirement to
send copies of the end stage report (and, if appropriate, a lessons report) to the interested
external parties.
Evaluate the project
Successful organizations learn from experience with projects. When evaluating the project, the
objective is to assess how successful the project has been or in the case of premature close,
evaluating the project and the reasons for early closure.
It may also be possible to improve the estimation for future projects by analysing the estimates and the actual progress metrics for this project.
Recommended actions for the project manager:
Review the project’s original intent as agreed in the initiation stage and defined by the project
initiation documentation and baselined at that time.
Review the approved changes as defined by the current version of the components of the
project initiation documentation.
Prepare an end project report in consultation with the project management team.
Review the project log to identify lessons that could be applied to future projects and include
them in the lessons report in consultation with the project management team.
The Lessons report
The purpose of a lessons report is to share lessons and trigger actions to ensure that lessons
become embedded in the appropriate organization’s way of working.
A lessons report can be created at any time in a project and should not necessarily be delayed until the end. Typically, they can be included as part of the end stage report or end project report.
It may be appropriate (and necessary) for there to be several lessons reports specific to a particular organization (for example user, supplier, business).
Executive summary: a summary of the lesson
Description for work package, stage, or project lessons: a review of what went well, what went badly, and recommendations for this project or future projects
Description for a specific lesson: the effect (for example, positive/negative financial impact), cause/
trigger if known/proven, whether there were any early warning indicators, whether it was previously
identified as a risk (threat or opportunity), recommendations for this project or future projects.
A review of useful measurements.
This could include just about anything that was measured during the project with the focus on improving such measurements in the future.
Aspects to consider are; estimating work effort to create the products, how effective the quality management approach was particularly in the reporting of quality statistics, and the statistics on issues and risks.
The latter point may focus on the amount and severity of such issues and risks and whether or not they were as anticipated.
It is recommended that you use the PRINCE2 approach to issue and risk management when laying out the lessons report by including the following attributes of each lesson.
- The situation or event that gave rise to the lesson involved
- Whether the event had a positive or negative effect
- The root cause or trigger that it had to the lesson
- Were there any early warning indicators
- What recommended actions should be taken.
Finally, whether or not the triggered event had been previously identified as a risk (either as a threat or an opportunity).
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