Building Renovation Lessons Learned
This is a practical guide to building a lessons learned for a building renovation project — what went well and badly, captured to improve future projects, adapted to the realities of renovating or refurbishing an existing building.
What a Lessons Learned is
A lessons learned is what went well and badly, captured to improve future projects. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Lessons Learned. On a building renovation project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Building Renovation project
Building Renovation projects live or die on renovating or refurbishing an existing building. A well-built lessons learned gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how building renovation projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- What happened
- Impact
- Root cause
- Recommendation
Building Renovation-specific considerations
Tailor the lessons learned to the risks that most often derail building renovation projects:
- Unknown existing conditions
- Occupied-site working
- Scope changes on discovery
Example
On a real building renovation project, the lessons learned would be shaped by renovating or refurbishing an existing building. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — unknown existing conditions, occupied-site working, scope changes on discovery — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.