If we come up against a problem during a project, process or event we all know that we should learn from it and avoid it the next time around. When I am working with a new client, this is a topic that gets discussed early on.
The reality for many businesses that I speak to is that despite knowing that they should do this, it often doesn’t happen.
Despite our best intentions…
Our busy working lives get in the way. We find ourselves having to move on to the next activity in our list.
Or, if we are semi-organised we might make a note on what we need to do next time. If we get time, we carry out the task we left on our note. The risk with this approach is that we may forget to look at our notes, or run out of time to make the changes happen.
I’m sure that you have seen this in your own working life.
Avoiding long, time consuming, review processes
Some businesses have well developed review processes. At the end of a project, the team will come together and progress through a well structured agenda.
Actions are agreed. Responsibilities are assigned. Change happens.
Unfortunately, for most businesses, this is the dream and they struggle to make it happen.
So, what can we do?
What is the learning point?
When I work with a new client, we look for the quick bolt on to an existing meeting to ask the question ‘what did we learn?’.
This quick brainstorm can then be filtered for the actions that we will take right now. Deadlines and responsibilities are agreed and the actions slotted into the business’ existing action logs.
No separate tools, management or effort. Pure, immediate, action is order of the day.
Front loaded
The strategy I recommend here is to front load the work and get the changes made as soon as possible.
Waiting until later, when the time or motivation is right, often doesn’t work. We risk running into the same problems as another challenge gets in the way of any preparations you would like to undertake.
Use the ramp down from the end of what you are doing to get the changes made. If it helps, redefine where the end of your project / event / process is, to include this fast lessons learned.
Avoid Groundhog day
Many businesses that I start working with clearly demonstrate cycles, where the same problem crops up time and time again.
If you want to get some better results, you will need to do different tasks.
Avoiding the lessons learned discussion robs you of future productivity gains. Embracing it helps to move you, your team and your business forward with your business plans.
What to do with the feedback
Once you have some ideas to improve whatever it is you are focusing on, what are the types of change you can consider?
Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Update your policies
- Modify your staff induction process
- Change your checklists
- Re-write your business procedures / Standard Operating Procedures
- Deliver a toolbox talk to your teams
- Add the information to your staff handbook
Whatever is your preference, the principle is to capture the knowledge and make it easy for your teams to use and apply it.
What do you need to capture today?
If you don’t currently have an effective way to capture your learning points it is worth looking back at the last few projects / processes / events you have been involved with.
Look back over their results with your team and see if you can identify a handful of improvements for each item. Assign actions and make some change happen now.
A new future
Stopping and checking is a great way to avoid future disasters. Adding this quick check to the end of your existing activities should allow the team to do something positive rather than miss it out.
Even a couple of tweaks to what you do will help shift you in a better direction. Life isn’t perfect but a nudge in the right direction can make a huge difference.
