Learn from Project Mistakes

What's the biggest project mistake you've ever made?

I've been doing projects long enough to have made some big ones. But sometimes it's the little ones that cause the most grief. Little mistakes like forgetting to thank people for their work. Little mistakes like assuming that customer will be delighted by the brand new process or product my project is delivering. Little mistakes like failing to track expenses until they exceed the budget.

On second thought, those aren't small mistakes after all, are they? And yet, in each case there were valuable lessons learned that transferred directly into better projects later on. Learning from my mistakes (not that I'm done making them) has powered my projects into more creative areas and kept me on my toes.

When it seems obvious, it's probably not. When it seems too good to be true, there's probably a problem lurking under the surface. When everything is on schedule and under budget how can we be sure that our performance quality is up to the needed standards?

We can be more sure by paying attention, by owning up to our mistakes, and learning from them.

Your project's imperfections may provide the biggest longterm value -- when you learn from them.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Front Range Leadership:

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High Performance Leadership

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