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Chapter 17: Documenting Your Software Project 341 you and move down those venues instead. This is your opportunity to save others from a whack in the head by incorporating these successes and failures into your lessons learned document. Not everything works. It s the way of life. It s the way of projects. Thomas Edison patented 1,093 inventions that s 1,093 successes he had with projects. Now imagine how many things didn t work out. Each one of those failed projects represented an opportunity to learn and refine skills. Some of Edison s inventions even came as the result of trying to do one thing and ending up with a completely different result. This story is repeated time and time again in history. The invention of Sticky Notes came about as a result of trying to create glue. The invention backfired, and the glue only sort of stuck. What was tried and did not work is just as important as what was tried that did work. If you document, in your lessons learned documentation, the route that led to failure, you ll create a map that keeps someone else from going down that same road, wasting money and time racing to a dead end. Sometimes an entire project ends in failure. When that happens, the project truly becomes nothing more than a feasibility study. Documenting the causes of the failure can really help out in the long term. You can say whether you think future projects of this type can ever be feasible and offer specific recommendations that ultimately improve your company s strategic approach. Documenting the better approach It s a question we all hate: If you could change any one thing, what would it be? If you could go back in time, knowing then what you know now, what would you do differently? What would have been a better approach than the one you took? While the exercise may seem unoriginal, or even pass , it is judicious and more than just an exercise in analytical reasoning. Keep in mind that you are creating a document to be read for future projects. Telling a better approach to take, even if only in the theoretical sense, can give the next project a better starting place than the one you used. Offering advice for future project managers Having just completed a project, you know what worked and what didn t. You know what you would do differently, and you know what subtle changes you would make if you had the chance to do it all over again.
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340 Part V: Closing Your Software Project contributed to the document. Although you may like to believe that those two lists were identical, some people have the gift of writing and organization, and some don t. You may discover that pulling coherent, usable documentation from some team members is next to impossible. Some members are a part of the team because their skill and expertise is needed in an area other than documentation. As much as you may not want to, you ll have to accept the fact that the writing is not something they are good at. Of course, accepting this fact may be a whole lot easier if the team members are crack coders! Documenting the project s successes Success is sweet. It feels good to accomplish something and know that you pulled off a task that was very difficult. It makes you feel all warm inside and beam with pride. But you know this already, right? Many people tend to downplay success and pass it off with, Ah, shucks, it was nothing, or, Just got lucky. Inside we may know that we did the impossible, but are afraid that saying so out loud will sound like bravado. After all, no one likes a braggart. Regardless of how you feel inside, you cannot be afraid to commit the successes to paper as part of your lessons learned documentation. Be honest about what was accomplished and don t be afraid to toot your own horn if necessary. The success came because you figured out what worked and directed your team to get the job done, and that is something that someone else can benefit from on their next project. Commit it to paper, be honest about it, and feel good about it! Documenting the project s failures Along the path, you experienced failures as well as successes. You went in one direction believing that it was the best path to follow, then were blind- sided by an issue that you never gave much forethought to. This is natural with almost every project. These are the unknown unknowns that whack you in the head and wreck your project. That experience of failure needs to be a part of your lessons learned documentation. You document your failures so that future projects will not run the risk of being similarly blindsided and so that readers can see what worked for
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Chapter 17: Documenting Your Software Project 339 Many introductory sections also include acknowledgements and lists of those involved in the project. It helps to have this information readily available at the beginning of the document so that future readers can seek out you or another member of the team as questions arise. Organizing the meat of the document Following this introductory section is the actual documentation of lessons learned. You can take one of several approaches to writing this portion of the document from listing activities in chronological order to alphabetizing under topics. No matter which approach you take, we highly recommend that this material be divided into sections. One of the easiest divisions you can choose is to break the content down into lessons learned by various key stakeholders, with each group getting its own section. Prioritize the order of the groups based on who is most likely to need the information. For example: Lessons learned by developers (this should be the first section because developers have a higher chance of needing the information than others). Lessons learned by project managers (second in importance). Lessons learned by users (third in importance). Lessons learned for other participants. In every part, you list problems and solutions. You should be as specific as possible about the problems; problems have a tendency to follow patterns, so your specific description of a problem (and its coordinating solution) may mirror something a future reader is facing. The best thing you can do with a lessons learned document is give future readers an A-ha moment when they stumble across your text in the two-years-from-now time capsule and realize that you just helped them immensely. Organizing your references, contributors, and resources After the meat of the document, the lessons learned document should end with a section of references, resources, and contributors. The acknowledgements section at the beginning of the document tends to list everyone who worked on the project, while the contributors section often lists those who
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338 Part V: Closing Your Software Project Organizing Your Lessons Learned Document While you may want to impress others with a long discourse, only professors love long essays. Future project managers your audience value lists of practical tips. You should record only the vital information that ll likely be needed later for reference. A quick online search will yield dozens of lessons learned document templates. Every organization has its own methods and includes different information. Also, some info is of greater or lesser importance depending on the type of software project. That said, every lessons learned document should include the following information: A summary or foreword section Lessons learned by major stakeholders involved in the development of the software Acknowledgments, references, and resources Every lessons learned document should evaluate the overall project successes and failures, as well offer an assessment on what the better approach should be. The document should not just be a list of problems that lacks evidence of reflection and discovery. Organizing the summary of your document The lessons learned document should begin with a summary section identifying why it exists, what type of project this was, and what the timeframe for completion was. For example, you might write something like this: The Corona project was a project in which we built a Web-based program that allowed the residents of Corona, California, to pay traffic tickets online. Originally expected to last six months, the project lasted roughly eight months, between January 2 and August 15, 2006. This section can be called the Foreword, the Summary, or any similar title, but its purpose is to allow the reader to quickly identify whether the rest of the document is worth reading. The foreword should not be more than one page and may include a specific list of functions the software was originally contracted to include.
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Chapter 17: Documenting Your Software Project 337 product the lessons learned documentation is a great historical document that shows the cumulative results of their contributions. Look at the example of a lessons learned spreadsheet in Table 17-1 to inspire you about how to use this valuable tool in your own software projects. Remember, the column headings should vary depending on the particular type of software project that you re managing. You ll be amazed at how quickly this spreadsheet becomes a regularly expected part of your regularly scheduled project team meetings, and your team will take pride in making contributions to it. Table 17-1 Lessons Learned Spreadsheet for Future Documentation Topic Project Lesson Team Area Learned Owner Testing Workflow Prior to starting the testing Testing Testing phase, we need to set the Manager expectation that testers don t stop to resolve issues they just need to document each issue. Testing Workflow During workflow testing, Testing Testing we need to encourage Manager end users to perform their normal job functions. Training End-User During the planning phase, Client Training we need to set the expectation that 90% of end users must be trained in order to ensure successful system implementation. Reports End-User Start gathering information Client Reports on needed end-user reports at the beginning of the project to compensate for the learning curve for stored procedures. Print Testing Testing Ensure that all appropriate Project project team members Manager understand the complexities of testing the print capabilities of the project.
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336 Part V: Closing Your Software Project The lessons learned document is the written history that the project existed and the story of how it came to be and what you learned from the project. Without this document, the project runs the risk of being forgotten over time. Although the project may or may not prove to be important in the long run, the lessons learned from it will always have immeasurable value. You should document lessons learned for every project even if the project is cancelled at an early stage because every project can teach you something. Getting your historical information together at the beginning of a project Whenever you start a new project, you should always seek out all existing lessons learned documents from similar projects that have come before and use them to help prepare for your upcoming venture. And when you write your own lessons learned document, you should bear in mind that others will be reading this document in the future, so you should write to that audience. Your best input for project planning is historical information, which can include Lessons learned documents Past project files Procurement information Interviews with previous project team members Rumors, gossip, and hearsay kidding! (This kind of data is never reliable.) See Chapters 2 and 3 and all of Part II if you re not sure how to go about planning your project. Creating a lessons learned spreadsheet at the beginning of the project At the very beginning of your project, before you can even imagine an ending, you ought to create a spreadsheet to document mistakes and successes. Better yet, why not create a template for the spreadsheet so that major project areas are covered. Share the template with your team and make documenting lessons learned a regular agenda item for your team meetings, asking the question, What did we learn from this? If you enforce this level of critical thinking, team members will take ownership of this process, and they will be as proud of their successes as they are glad they learned from their mistakes. The final
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Chapter 17: Documenting Your Software Project 335 Three factors to consider when you write Whenever you write anything, whether it s operation of a site, you need to document lessons learned documentation, training mate-exactly what was done. Needless to say, rials, or system test plans, there are always you should also only make one major change three factors that you should take into account: at a time to fully realize the ramifications of that change before making any others. The method of documentation (printed or electronic): If it is electronic, can the docu- The target audience: Is the document to be ment exist within another document, or used to jog your memory six months from must it be a stand-alone document? If it is now, or is it something to distribute to all printed, is it a subset of a large document or users? If it is only for you, you can get by a stand-alone entity? with a few lines of terse notes. If it is for distribution to users, you need to be specific The scope of the documentation: Should and offer as much background information the document only address a change that as necessary without going overboard. was made, or should it be all-inclusive? Any time you make a major change to the Completing the Lessons Learned Documentation The input to any project should be the lessons learned document from previous projects. The output from any project should be the lessons learned document for future projects. In other words, you use previous lessons learned documents when you start your project. When your project is complete, you should be able to produce a lessons learned document as one of your deliverables. You should always start your lessons learned document at the beginning of your project to ensure you capture lessons learned right from the start. See Chapter 2 for information about initiating, planning, and beginning a project. Arguably, the lessons learned document can become the single most important document that a software project manager is ever involved in. It is your chance to pass on information to other project managers and to maintain records for yourself. Lessons learned can save untold time and money. Maintaining the lessons learned documentation throughout the entire project helps to keep things in perspective; you can show your software project team that it s acceptable to make mistakes (everyone does it) as long as you learn from mistakes and use the knowledge you gained to make better project decisions in the future. You can empower your staff to take calculated risks if they know that all mistakes offer opportunities to learn.
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334 Part V: Closing Your Software Project Using Teamwork When Writing Documentation The project was not a solo project; if it was, you couldn t really call yourself a manager. Because many hands worked on the project, many hands should also work on the documentation. Developers can write sections about development lessons learned, to be read by future developers, far better than you can. Your focus should be on the project manager s section, as well as rounding up the whole document to make sure it has as consistent a look and feel as possible. Some project managers add a technical writer to the team from the beginning with the purpose of them heading up the creation of a look-and-feel document (to direct the formatting and tone of written work from a corporate perspective) or style guide (to handle standards for spelling, grammar, and other particulars), as well as accompanying documentation for your project. In fact, many companies have set procedures for formatting and writing important documents. If your budget allows you to hire a technical writer, you ll find that this is money well spent. Here are a couple of important tips to keep in mind: Have meetings: When you finish the lessons learned document, the document should be something that everyone on the team is familiar and comfortable with. That does not mean they have to agree with all of it many times we would like to not see specific problems put in writing in the hopes that they will be more quickly forgotten but it does mean that you should hold meetings to discuss issues and work through them. Set milestones: Just as timelines exist for other parts of the project, they should exist for the documentation as well. You will find yourself needing to provide motivation to keep it moving along. Treat this part of the project as if it is as important as the creation of any module or component (it is as important!), and make sure that it gets done. You may meet resistance from your team when it comes to documenting lessons learned. Reluctance to create this documentation can often be a result of fear. A developer may wonder, If everyone else knows what I know, I won t be needed. When you encounter this belief, you need to confront it head on and assure the individual that this document can serve to illustrate to everyone just how much they do know and make them even more relevant and valuable not the reverse.
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Chapter 17 Documenting Your Software Project In This Chapter Writing the lessons learned document Documenting a project Documenting your documentation Creating the help manual All too often, project managers look at writing the documentation for their projects with the same vim and vigor with which they used to apply to writing thank you cards to their grandmothers. But the truth is, a project worth doing is a project worth documenting. Documenting your plans for a project is essential, but it s just as important to document what actually happened during the project. This documentation is future historical information: What you write today will help you and others tomorrow. Documentation makes a historical record of the experiences mistakes and successes from which you ve learned in your software project. What seems crystal clear in your mind now may not be so clear two years later when it is time to update the software and start the project anew. Think of how much information will be lost if members of your team quit, retire, or transfer to other departments.
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332 Part V: Closing Your Software Project
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