Today is the day a client and I will meet to debrief a workplace
learning project (online compliance training game) we’ve delivered yearly for
the past five years. It occurred to me in year 2 or 3 to create a lesson’s
learned document, given some bumps in the road in the first years of the
project. I’ve come to refer to the prior year’s lessons learned as the first step for a new one.
My document covers these items:
- Software choice and content strategies
- Completion numbers
- Evaluation numbers, rating average, and specific reviewer remarks
- Support feedback (two IT groups are involved), and
- Questions for the HR members in the meeting.
Additionally, here are a few sites that provide some solid tips to focus your own
project debrief:
“Four Questions to Ask When You Debrief on a Project”: https://hbr.org/tip/2015/10/the-4-questions-to-ask-when-you-debrief-on-a-project
(Source Credit: Adapted from "Debriefing: A Simple Tool to Help
Your Team Tackle Tough Problems," by Doug Sundheim):
This site provides four basic, helpful questions, beginning with
whether the goal was reached, then moving on to successful or unsuccessful
spots, and ending with evaluating which practices should be kept and which
should go.
Jason Womack’s “Three Tips for Boosting Productivity with
Project Debriefing”: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222546
In addition to providing questions to consider, this author provides tips on communicating the debriefing content for different
communication styles.
Sometimes there will be remarks to add from the HR participants in the meeting. I've come to appreciate how the de-brief document facilitates the meeting's discussion and closure on the given project.
