Notice: applying this to your agency.
The IT Project Resources are not meant to replace your agency’s internal project management practices or prescribe how you must operate. Instead, they offer concepts and tools that can strengthen delivery by providing a scalable framework for project level coordination. All project documentation should be maintained throughout each stage in alignment with agency policies and, where applicable, WaTech requirements and oversight expectations.
For Program and Projects
Lessons learned are captured at the completion of every stage, and throughout Agile sprints, to identify what worked well, what challenges emerged, and what improvements should be carried forward. This continuous learning approach strengthens implementation quality, informs future planning, and ensures that both program‑level and project‑level teams evolve their practices as the initiative progresses.
Key Activities
-
Conduct retrospectives to capture insights on processes, tools, decisions, and team dynamics
-
Document lessons using the Lessons Learned Template
-
Identify improvements for upcoming stages or sprints
-
Share findings across teams, agencies, and leadership
-
Integrate actions into plans, backlogs, and governance processes
In this task, we capture lessons learned from the stage we just completed, as well as from any Agile sprints that occurred during the same period. This is a continuous improvement activity that helps us refine our processes, strengthen collaboration, and improve outcomes as we move through the framework.
We use Agile retrospective techniques, such as ‘What went well,’ ‘What didn’t go well,’ and ‘What we should change next time’, to gather insights from team members, agency partners, vendors, and impacted parties. These insights are documented using the your agencies templates or the WaTech template.
For programs, we capture enterprise‑wide lessons and share them across agencies to ensure consistent improvement. For programs with agency‑led sub‑projects, each agency documents its own lessons learned, and the enterprise team synthesizes them into a consolidated view. Standalone projects capture project‑specific lessons and integrate them into future planning and sprint backlogs.
The goal is to ensure that every stage, and every sprint, makes the next one better. By capturing lessons learned consistently, we build organizational knowledge, reduce repeated mistakes, and strengthen the overall success of the initiative.”
WaTech available templates: Lessons Learned SOP, Lessons Learned XLS, Lessons Learned Register