Organisational Restructuring Lessons Learned
This is a practical guide to building a lessons learned for an organisational restructuring project — what went well and badly, captured to improve future projects, adapted to the realities of restructuring teams, roles or the operating model.
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 an organisational restructuring project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for an Organisational Restructuring project
Organisational Restructuring projects live or die on restructuring teams, roles or the operating model. 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 organisational restructuring projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- What happened
- Impact
- Root cause
- Recommendation
Organisational Restructuring-specific considerations
Tailor the lessons learned to the risks that most often derail organisational restructuring projects:
- People and morale impact
- Consultation requirements
- Business continuity
Example
On a real organisational restructuring project, the lessons learned would be shaped by restructuring teams, roles or the operating model. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — people and morale impact, consultation requirements, business continuity — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.