Ace A Post Mortem: Day #1

Now that you have wrapped up your project, we turn to what you should do when a project has been completed: The Post Mortem. The Post Mortem is where you will take all you have learned during your project and turn it into replicable efficiencies.

The Post Mortem is an opportunity for the team to meet without a looming deadline, share ideas about what went right, brainstorm causes of what went wrong, and agree on what can be implemented so that the next project goes more smoothly.

A Post Mortem is a meeting that is held at the end of a project. At a Post Mortem meeting, the team discusses all of the things that went wrong, everything that went right, and where and how they or the process can improve. Ideally, the entire project team should participate in this meeting. It is a great opportunity to freely discuss the whole project.

Before I get into detailing the joy of a Post Mortem meeting, I should point out that not all companies hold these meetings. I have worked with companies that are always in such a rush to get the next widget out the door that they don’t take the time to hold a meeting whose agenda is focused on how to make the company better.

If you find yourself at a company that does not support holding a Post Mortem for the whole project team, then you have a choice:

• Either get a job with a company that takes improvement seriously
– OR –
• Be proactive. Speak to your QA Lead or Manager and tell them you want to hold a Post Mortem for the QA team

With companies that do, indeed, hold Post Mortem meetings, there are many different formats that are used. There are many ways to hold an effective Post Mortem. Most of the differences can be traced to differences in management style. But no matter how the meetings are run, your job remains the same.

Ace a Post Mortem with 3 Actions

1. Prepare
2. Participate
3. Produce

Action #1: Prepare

What Went Right:
Make note of all of the hurdles that you overcame, list all of the milestones that were reached on time, detail all of the improvements that you implemented during the project that made it run more smoothly, explain any efficiencies found during your work on the project.

What Went Wrong:
List all of the issues that impeded testing, all of the incidents that affected the schedule, any gaps in testing that required scrambling to make up for. Write down any issue that had an adverse affect on the project.

This can be difficulty in communication, lack of clarity around expectations, lack of response to reports; anything that made the project more difficult is fair game.

Note that this part of the report is often given a name with a more positive spin than What Went Wrong. It may be called What Can Be Improved or What Didn’t Go Right or What We Can Do Differently – whatever it is called; the goal of this section of your report should be focused on the areas of the project that could use improvement.

What You Learned:
In this section you will want to outline all that you learned on this most recent project. What did you learn about communicating with other departments? What did you learn about bug metrics? What did you learn about how to do your job better?

How You Will Improve:
In this section you will detail all of the improvements you believe should be implemented. For each one, you will include specific actions that can be taken to make the improvement a reality.

You will explain the benefit(s) each improvement will contribute to future projects. Since you have been subjected to all of the ups and downs of the project, you should have some very clear opinions about what could be done differently so that the processes that make up the your projects would be better.

This report you will use in two ways:

1. As detailed notes that you can reference during the Post Mortem meeting (so that you don’t have to remember everything)
2. As the final end-of-project report that you will submit to your QA Lead or Manager to highlight your involvement in the project

Take the time that you need to write your report so that it has value. When you are done, you should have a report that clearly states your insight about the project.

This report is not for the faint of heart, it is not for those that go with the flow. Your Post Mortem report should be a straightforward telling of the great things the project accomplished, all of the weaknesses that the project exposed, the high points of what you learned during the project (this is very different for each person), and actionable suggestions for what improvements should be made.

You will want your report to be as clear and direct as possible. This report should be focused on how to move forward and improve. You identify what did happen and then propose actions that you can take to improve projects in the future. This is why your report must be clear and direct.

Once your report is ready, you will…tune in tomorrow

The test is to recognize the mistake, admit it and correct it. To have tried to do something and failed is vastly better than to have tried to do nothing and succeeded.
~Dale E. Turner