Best Practice vs. Lesson Learned

Best Practice is something you should do, but Lesson learned helps you learn what not to do.

BEST PRACTICES are a set of guidelines, ethics or ideas that represent the best way of doing something. Whether you have done it before or not, someone else has and they came up with some thoughts on how to handle it. LESSON LEARNED is what you learn from the methods they used to succeed. It is what you learned by completing the project, and these thoughts, ideas, and actions can be added to your list of best practices for the situation next time

BEST PRACTICE is a recommended way of doing things, and LESSON LEARNED is the tool to adjust that BEST PRACTICE to your project based on past experience with similar projects. BEST PRACTICE could be a result of the LESSON LEARNED, but the BEST PRACTICE could be taken from the investigation in the market, documentation, etc.

BEST PRACTICE is something you should do, but LESSON LEARNED helps you learn what not to do and make your project stand out. BEST PRACTICE is something one does or meets expectation in a positive way, and LESSON LEARNED is something perhaps one does not meet expectation (negative) and if one can redo, one will learn the lesson and do another way

BEST PRACTICE is the best way known at the moment, it is positive for your project, as it helps you meet your project objectives on time, within budget, and with high quality. But do not forget to use the LESSON LEARNED to change something you got as BEST PRACTICE because maybe due to the circumstances it is no longer the BEST PRACTICE for you, for any reason, or exception, do not take the BEST PRACTICE as absolute truth.

LESSON LEARNED is what you learned from what you did on a given project, and that could be what you did right or what you did wrong. Either way, to capture the lessons learned as you go along, together with the decision process that led you to make the choice you did since that provides context for the learning. LESSON LEARNED should happen continuously throughout a project, continue to examine the lessons learned from the project, and consider whether what you learned should be developed into a BEST PRACTICE. Remember, a BEST PRACTICE should be institutionalized across the organization, whereas a LESSON LEARNED from a particular project

LESSON LEARNED in a context and found to be applicable in similar situations is what becomes BEST PRACTICE. BEST PRACTICE with LESSON LEARNED ensures the success of your projects.

Posted in: Change Management,Connecting Dots,Principle/Practice