Formalizing Postmortems and Project Reflections
I have a great appreciation for moments of reflection, especially when things are hard or new. As a consultant, I frequently experience challenges, friction, and tension on projects but typically gain some insight through the process. If I’m in the office or on the road with a colleague, I’m able to talk about my insight with others but I desire a more thoughtful way to engage in the conversation and share back with my whole team. So, over the last year, I’ve worked on creating a postmortem reflection process for our team to do after the completion of a project. Here are the questions we ask and discuss together.
What are three highlights from this project?
The intention of this question is to celebrate successes; lift up parts of the project we enjoyed. It's easy to get bogged down by negativity on more challenging projects, so starting with positives is important. I think three is a minimum but more can definitely be added.
What did not go well during this project?
The intention of this question is to identify where we experienced pain or discomfort in the process or project. I think this is something teams discuss informally, but thinking about what was hard as a group with a critical reflection lens can be productive. We use the word pain points to describe activities/tasks that are challenging, hard, and/or very time-consuming.
What did you learn about clients or consulting?
The intention of this question is to reflect on the patterns of the project that relate to experiences with other projects. For our team, clients and consulting are the primary elements of what we do, so we want to lift up patterns that help us understand those elements.
What is one thing you want to do differently on your next project?
The intention of this question is to think about how we can use what we have learned moving forward. I don’t literally wait until my next project but I do start to apply what I can. I think picking one thing also ensures we don’t overwhelm ourselves with too many changes to process and implement.
What insights can we share with the team?
The intention of this question aligns with TSM's value of “strategic guidance.” Building upon the prompt about learning, we share what we have learned that is most relevant to our team, so we can use this information to create quality products and experiences for our clients.
Who will follow up with this client and when?
The intention of this question aligns with TSM’s value of “relationships matter” -- we desire to maintain relationships with our clients. To create accountability around this, we set an agreement about who on the project will do this. For other teams, this might be a follow-up or evaluation check-in.
I have made several tweaks or changes to the way I do my work and how I work with clients and my team since using this reflection process on projects. This can also be a great tool when implementing a strategy to evaluate your outcomes. I highly recommend a postmortem for major elements of your work. It reminds me of completing the stress cycle—the project is the stressor and we experience stress to complete the project; this reflection process (or debrief) lets us know that the stress cycle is done so we can relax and move on.