Process Improvement Lessons Learned
This is a practical guide to building a lessons learned for a process improvement project — what went well and badly, captured to improve future projects, adapted to the realities of improving an existing business process.
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 process improvement project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Process Improvement project
Process Improvement projects live or die on improving an existing business process. 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 process improvement projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- What happened
- Impact
- Root cause
- Recommendation
Process Improvement-specific considerations
Tailor the lessons learned to the risks that most often derail process improvement projects:
- Change resistance
- Measuring the baseline
- Scope discipline
Example
On a real process improvement project, the lessons learned would be shaped by improving an existing business process. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — change resistance, measuring the baseline, scope discipline — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.