Project Management Through Stories
Think back to a time where you made a mistake on a project. We bet you learned an interesting lesson that day, and probably have never made that same mistake again. Whether it was big or small, learning through failure is a sure-fire way to boost your skills!
However, at an organizational level we can’t simply let everyone fail in the same way to learn the same lesson. That’s why projects have a lessons learned process to capture learning along the way and to review what was done and how it was done. The lessons learned repository should become a vital business tool for making sure organizational knowledge is captured and shared so people don’t have to make the same mistakes as their colleagues. Everyone’s ability to do a good job should rise as a result.
Lessons learned repositories still have a long way to go in many organizations. Lessons might be captured, but are they truly learned? Are they shared outside of the original project team? Improving the formal lessons learned capture, storage and review is outside the scope of this article because we want to share something else with you: the power of project management through stories.
The power of project management through stories
Think back to that mistake you made. Did you share it with anyone else? What’s the story you tell about the experience now?
We learn just as much from sharing stories as we do from calling up a database and scanning through for key takeaways that might have some relevance to our current project. Probably more, in fact, because stories are easier to remember. We recall stories that clients told us, even if we can’t remember the name of the story teller or where we were at the time. It’s the story that matters.
Training through stories
Our project management training classes are packed with valuable material and exercises. From our feedback, we know that people leave our sessions feeling more confident about leading projects, using software or dealing with executive stakeholders. But there’s something else that happens when you put experienced trainers in a room with people who are there to learn: they tell stories.
All our trainers have years of hands-on, practical experience across a range of relevant industries. And they do love to share their knowledge! Ask them anything and they’ll come up with both the ‘official’ learning material that relates to that point and a couple of stories about when they did that in real life. That’s the value: being able to see how the textbook knowledge can be applied to a real-life situation and what happens when things don’t quite go to plan.
And it’s not just the trainers. Delegates bring their own experience to the classroom. Whether they join us virtually or in person, they have stories to share about their own project successes and failures. In a safe space, they can talk about their projects and let others in the room learn from their experiences. Hindsight is a helpful thing to those that haven’t yet lived through the same experiences as you. You could save someone from the same error by sharing what you know, as our delegates frequently do.
Sharing at work
Let’s say you aren’t on a training course, mingling with people who share a similar job role to you and who have stories to share. How else can you tap into the vast experience within your organization: experiences that might not be clear simply by looking through a bunch of Project Closure reports?
The simplest thing to do is to carve out the time to talk to other people in a similar situation. At the start of a new project, grab a coffee with a colleague who has worked on something similar before, or even talk to the client about what they’ve worked on in the past and how it went. Ask:
- What has worked well for you on similar projects?
- What do you think we should be doing to influence the outcomes and get a successful result this time round?
- What did you find didn’t work out so well on other projects, and why do you think that was the case?
- Tell me about something that was a huge success on your last project? What do you think influenced that success? How can we learn from that for this work?
Build this time into your project initiation phase. Make it part of how you regularly engage stakeholders. Ask your team to share their lessons learned for the week in your team meetings.
Knowledge transfer is a key aspect of any project, and something we build in by default to client engagements. It should be part of the culture of how you work, and everyone should feel free to share their experiences without risk of blame or judgement, so others can learn from their stories.
Read next: How to improve knowledge sharing in the PMO
Learning lessons from other projects
There is still space for lessons learned meetings and repositories of organizational knowledge. These are essential parts of building capacity – and jogging people’s memories. The lessons learned process should be embedded in your project lifecycle, whatever that looks like for you. If you write the lessons as stories, even better.
Another way to learn from other projects is to read the lessons from major projects in your industry. Keep an eye on industry press. Read audit reports for projects that are in the public domain such as those from the GAO. Even if you don’t work on projects of that scale, the lessons and takeaways can often be relevant in a wide range of situations. Learning from major projects was one of the key PMO trends we identified for 2022, and we’re sure this is something that will continue to be important for years to come.
Talk to the project team about how they are going to share their experiences and set the expectations that the project will be one that values the power of project management through stories – whether they are your own experiences or those learned from other projects. Celebrate when stories are shared and create a culture where there is time to share. Your projects, and the experience of working on your projects, will be much improved as a result.