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Project Management vocabulary · Closing a Project

Lessons learned

Meaning in project management, with examples

/ˌlesənz ˈlɜːrnd/nounCommon term

In project management, lessons learned means: The useful knowledge a team gains from a project, both from what went well and from what went wrong, recorded so future projects can benefit.

In Turkish: öğrenilen dersler, çıkarılan dersler, edinilen tecrübeler

How it is used

Collected in a lessons-learned session or workshop, usually at the end of a phase or project, and stored in a lessons-learned log or report. Used as a plural noun and as an adjective before another noun.

Example sentences

  1. One of the lessons learned was that we should involve the legal team much earlier.

  2. Let's book a lessons-learned session for the week after go-live.

Common collocations

  • lessons-learned session
  • capture lessons learned
  • lessons-learned report
  • share lessons learned
  • retrospectiveA regular team meeting at the end of a sprint or project to discuss what went well, what did not and what to change in the next cycle.
  • post-mortemA meeting or review held after a project or a serious problem has ended, to understand what happened, why, and what should be done differently next time.
  • project closureThe final phase of a project, when the work is formally completed: deliverables are accepted, contracts are closed, the team is released and documents and lessons are archived.
  • handoverThe formal transfer of a finished product, a system or a piece of work, along with the knowledge and documents needed, from the project team to the people who will use or support it.

More terms: Closing a Project

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