Build Trust - Best Practices Lessons Learned
At the end of each engagement, whether it was a rip-roaring success or a disaster, it is important to run through a lessons-learned session. All you need to do is ask 4 simple questions:
What did we do well?
What would we do differently next time?
What lessons did we learn?
What will we carry forward from this to future projects?
At the initiation of the session, you must establish that this is not about blame. In the beginning, people will try and CYA; so you must facilitate successfully to take them away from that place and guide them to a place of trust, where you objectively evaluate the questions above and focus on both celebrating what worked and failing forward on what did not.
In the first Best Practice/Lessons Learned session I ever hosted, for the first ten to fifteen minutes people continually went back to blame and finger-pointing, but again and again we led them back to the positive. Over the final fifteen minutes of the session, it became crystal clear that communication was an area where we had done well in some instances and poorly in others. This resulted in us developing a communication plan for future projects to ensure we captured the positives without repeating the sins of the past. It also let people discuss their opinions in an open forum, and allowed for the free flow of ideas and information. Once people realize that it is okay to be candid, they start to open up and share their knowledge fully for the good of the group, rather than hoarding it for individual survival.
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