Title
Responsible Unit
Approver
Contributor(s)
Date approved
Contact
Document Location
LESSONS-LEARNED LOG - DELIVERABLE DESCRIPTION
Bureau for Development Policy – Capacity Development Group
Terence D. Jones
CBS Team, BDP/CDG, Management Practice Team
September 2007 dien.le@undp.org
patrick.gremillet@undp.org
Management Practice Document Repository
Project Management - Initiating - Deliverables
The purpose of the Lessons Learned Log is to be a repository of any insights and lessons based on good and bad experiences and behaviours. Throughout each project life cycle, lessons are learned and opportunities for improvement are discovered. As part of a continuous improvement process, documenting lessons learned helps the project management team discover the root causes of problems that occurred and avoid those problems in later project stages or future projects.
At the close of the project, key lessons learned should be extracted from the log and further elaborated in the Lessons Learned Report. The Log should be updated regularly, with any good or bad point that arises during the formulation and the implementation of the project. The lessons learned log and report will also be an integral component of UNDP’s knowledge sharing efforts and can be used to inform the development of other projects, programmes and policy work.
The completion of the log is based on good and bad experiences faced by the project management team. These experiences should cover substantive as well as operational issues and can derive from the following questions:
 What worked well either for this project or for the project management team? What factors supported this success?
 What challenges arose (anticipated or unanticipated)?
 What could have/needs to be done differently or better?
 Were the project results attained? If not, what changes need to be made to meet these results in the future?
Please also note that the final Lessons Learned Report will address issues of replicability of projects and good practices and lessons. Therefore, these issues should be kept in mind throughout the project cycle.
Click here for suggested MS Word format of the Lessons Learned Log.

UNDP User Guide – Project Management
Lessons Learned Log – Deliverable Description
 ID number
 Type: project management, project results, human factor
 Date identified
 Successes
 Shortcomings
 Recommended Solutions
 Submitted, updated by
The Lessons Learned Log is not supported by Atlas.
 Are all significant project lessons being documented?
 Does the Log provide sufficient information to properly assess the potential replication of the lessons learned to other projects?
 Is the Log properly filed?
 Is the standard template being used?
 The Project Assurance shall verify that the log is updated by the Project Manager on a regular basis, according to the criteria defined above.
 During the process “Initiating a Project”, it is the responsibility of the Project Developer to open the Lessons Learned Log and capture any initial project lessons or insights.
 Throughout the process “Running a Project”, it is the responsibility of the Project Manager to maintain and update the Lessons Learned Log.
 The Project Board shall review the log as part of the project annual reviews.
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