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Evaluate the project budget vs. actual performance.

Review the schedule performance, critical path, and schedule control.

Review the effectiveness of the change management process.

Involving Project Team Members in Lessons Learned

Although you can evaluate the various components of the project on your own
using the project management plan and the project results, to get a more
comprehensive lessons learned review, you should involve the stakeholders and
the team members.

One way to organize a project review session is to make the session interactive. Let
the participants know in advance which aspects of the project the review will focus
on, and ask them to be prepared to contribute input on both what went well and

what did not. You could also distribute some questions ahead of the meeting for
them to consider. One question you’ll always want to ask is, “If you could change
one thing about this project, what would it be?”

You should always set ground rules before you start. You want to stress that the
purpose of this session is not to assign blame but to assess the project so that both
this team and other project teams can learn from your experience.

Prepare the meeting room in advance with easel paper listing all the areas of the
project you want to cover, and provide each team member with a pad of sticky

notes. For each topic, ask the team members to post one positive occurrence and
one negative. Each negative comment needs a plan for improvement. If they
encounter this situation on a future project, what would they do differently?

Requiring a plan for improvement serves two purposes: it engages the team
members in the review by making them part of the problem-solving process, and it
helps keep those few team members who may only want to whine under control.
This is not the time or place to complain.

When you have concluded the session, collect all the notes and use them as input
for your written report.

Preparing the Project Close Report

A final project closeout report needs to be prepared and distributed to all the project
stakeholders. This is the final status report for the project and should include at least
the following:

Recap of the original goals and objectives of the project

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