Future Success using Failure’s Linchpin

TweetShare on LinkedIn

Many organizations say that ‘some failure comes with the territory” but it doesn’t feel like it if you are the owner of the project that just flopped and made a difference in this year’s profitability.

Consider developing a formalized review process much like the model used by the military in mission debrief. (click to see a sample military mission debrief agenda).    The debrief is a systematic autopsy of the project beginning with a review of the original business plan along with the milestones and who was the Responsible Associate for each milestone and activity.   If possible have the team identify the critical step that made the difference between success and failure.   Then use the Continue, Start, Stop questions (CSS) to discover what worked?what did we miss that we should have added?  what didn’t work?

Once the project debrief is completed then a written report with slides should be prepared and presented to the leadership team. It is here that the leadership team can thank the RA’s for their work and for developing the Project Reviews which can be archived to be reviewed by future project managers as reference as they develop future project/business plans.  It is during this vital exchange when the project autopsy becomes a training tool for future excellence that business failures can be reconciled and the participants can better feel that the setback has become a build block for future successes.

Great companies will have the same ‘systematic autopsy’ resulting in reference journal presented to leadership for their successes as well as their failures.

The linchpin for excellence is that learning is passed on from one project team to another.