Introduction
If you’ve been a part of any project, you know that things do not always go as planned. Even if you finished on-time and under budget, there’s a good chance you can always find better ways to run projects.
The best way to assess your work is to conduct a post-mortem meeting, also called a retrospective meeting for those of you who get a certain feeling when you hear the word “post-mortem”. A post-mortem meeting is a team gathering that takes place at the end of a project where the group examines the challenges and successes of the endeavor.
Have the post mortem as close as possible to the conclusion of each project In the age of social media and ever-increasing workloads, we are constantly bombarded with information. The ability for your team to recall specific details about a project will quickly fade as time goes by. To get relevant and actionable feedback have the meeting as soon after the project’s completion that makes sense for everyone.
The Benefits of Post-Mortem Meetings
Many teams are aware of post-mortem meetings and understand the value, but often do not spend the time needed to conduct them. Excuses for skipping post-mortem meetings range from being too busy, not having the budget, and even not understanding how to run meeting properly.
At the heart of all of this is the organization. You must be supported to conduct these meetings. And companies need to make an investment in improving processes and efficiency. So talk to your leadership about these benefits of post-mortem meetings.
- Gain efficiency: You’ll uncover better ways to approach tasks and projects.
- Increase morale: Talking out problems and celebrating wins will bring your team closer together and get them excited about their next project.
- Work better together: By listening to many perspectives, your team will become more empathetic to the way they all work.
- Learn from mistakes: It’s a time to inspect what went wrong and find better ways to approach projects moving forward.
- Provide closure: This meeting can be a single step in officially closing the books on projects.
- Share information internally: If you share the meeting outcomes with the rest of your organization, you will help inform better practices and create a valuable dialogue about how you work within your organization (not just with your team).
- Celebrate the successes: It’s not just a meeting set up to talk about the negative things.
Prepare a Post-Mortem
There are several ways to conduct a post-mortem meeting. But, as you may have realized already, it’s important to have a method for how you approach the meeting before jumping in. Sure, informal gatherings are great to suss out issues. But a post-mortem should be more organized in order to gain the most out of your already precious time.
FIRST, SET GROUND RULES
Before you jump in, it’s very important to remember that these meetings are meant to discuss issues openly without creating a negative working environment. There’s a fine line between discussing issues and complaining about them.
In order to make any progress, you need to talk freely and openly (not negatively) about how you can improve your process and as a result, your work. To ensure this happens, set and discuss some basic ground rules for the meeting:
- Be constructive, not destructive. State the issue and focus on the solution.
- Don’t get personal. This isn’t about placing blame or finger-pointing. It’s about discussing challenges and finding solutions for the future.
- Give every team member a chance to provide his or her point of view.
- Be respectful of one another’s points of view.
- Cover all of your bases. Figure out what made the project simple, difficult, pleasurable, or miserable.
- Identify where the process works and where it breaks down.
- Celebrate your successes and fix your flaws.
- Make sure that your post-mortem meeting is a safe place where the team can share their honest feelings without calling others out.
Again be sure that everyone understands the point of the meeting is to walk away with solid learnings to apply to future projects. You must keep the intent at the forefront of this process to get what you need out of it.
ORGANIZE YOUR POST-MORTEM AGENDA
Before you get into a post-mortem meeting, be sure that you’ve sorted out the most important talking points. If you want to maximize your time, you’ll get the team’s thoughts first and then organize your meeting agenda.
In your post-mortem meeting agenda, you should discuss “what worked” and “what did not work” with your team. Keeping the discussion high level will invite comments and points of view on a variety of topics.
The best way to stay on track with your agenda is to quickly resolve points of discussion by assigning a next step. Next steps can be in the form of further discussion, a new template, or a new policy for your company. Keeping notes will help you to run through and follow-up on all agenda items.
Whether you use it in a post-mortem or simply to explore a problem space, 5 whys analysis helps you get at the root cause of a problem, and think about what part of the problem you’re really there to solve.
POST-MORTEM PREP OPTION ONE: PRE-MEETING GATHERING
Sit down for a very short 15-minute session in front of a whiteboard and simply ask your team to list “what worked” and “what didn’t work.” Go around the room to let everyone respond and record all answers on a whiteboard.
This meeting needs to be short and sweet, so only list items. Don’t get into discussions, you’ll save that for later on.
Basic 5 whys analysis (15 min): Ask the questions: “Why is / are / does [your problem statement]?” Write your answer(s) below the problem statement. These becomes your second problem statement. Ask again: “Why is / are / does [your second problem statement]?” Write those responses > > below the second row. You get the idea… keep going until you’ve asked “why” five or more times, even if it feels awkward and facetious. Most of the time we don’t think hard enough about the factors behind problems, so keep pushing until you feel like you’re at the root of the problem.
How to Moderate the Post-Mortem Meeting
If you follow this process, all of your hard work is done before you even step into the post-mortem meeting. You know the challenges and you’ve narrowed it down to about an hour or ninety minutes worth of talking points. Remember to keep this meeting focused, so follow these simple rules:
- Bring in a facilitator to guide the meeting. As the project manager, this doesn’t need to be you. If you were a part of the project team, you should participate in the meeting. If you can’t get someone to fill this role in the meeting, make facilitation a team effort.
- Keep it light. This is a learning session, and should be fun. Kick it off by discussing the positives.
- Take notes. It’s not important to capture every detail, as much as the issue, the solution, and action items.
- No finger-pointing, no negativity. You’re there to resolve issues, so keep it high level. If a problem was about a person, that should have been discussed with that person’s supervisor.
- Everyone has equal footing in this meeting. That means no one should dominate the conversation, and everyone should have the opportunity to provide his or her point of view.
- Abide by the meeting goal: To leave with a set of action items and owners.
Follow-up on the Post-Mortem
So what do you do with all of those great discussion items? The point of capturing action items and owners is to spread the information and work around. It’s a group effort to roll out changes as you take on new projects.
If you work in a larger organization, find a way to share the meeting discussions, findings, and action items with others. One person can take the lead on moderating all post-mortem meetings and set up regular forums to share relevant information. The more you can socialize the changes, the better your whole organization will evolve its process and practices.
Remember, it’s best to implement change immediately where possible.