Retrospectives (also called postmortems and post-project reviews) provide an opportunity for the team to reflect on how the last project or the previous phase went and to capture lessons learned that will help enhance your future performance (Kerth 2001). During such a review, identify the things that went well, so you can create an environment that enables you to repeat those success contributors. Also look for things that didn’t go so well, so you can change your approaches and prevent those problems in the future. In addition, think of events that surprised you. These might be risk factors to look for on the next project.

Conduct retrospectives in a constructive and honest atmosphere. Don’t make them an opportunity to assign blame for previous problems. Capture the lessons learned from each review and share them with the entire team and organization, so all can benefit from your experience. See Chapter 14, for suggestions on how to record lessons learned and Chapter 15, for more about conducting project retrospectives.

These 21 project management practices won’t guarantee a great outcome, but they will help you get a solid handle on your project and ensure that you’re doing all you can to make it succeed in an unpredictable world.