Are lessons learned actually… learned?

Back in 2017, on the PM Debate Podcast, we tackled a question that still makes people uncomfortable:

“Documenting lessons learned on projects is a waste of time.”

At the time, it felt provocative and eight years later it feels current.

In this episode, Mary Elizabeth and I took opposite sides of the argument.

I argued for the motion, not because lessons don’t matter, but because most organizations confuse documentation with learning. We create reports, archive them, check the box… and then launch the next project as if none of it ever happened.

Mary Elizabeth argued against the motion, rightly pointing out that lessons learned do matter when they’re accessible, contextual, and built into how projects actually start, plan, and execute.

Here’s where we landed:

📌 The biggest failure isn’t that we don’t capture lessons learned📌 It’s that organizations aren’t designed to use them

People move on, teams dissolve, context disappears, and leadership often already knows the risks, but chooses to proceed anyway.

One of the stories I share in this episode still sticks with me:A project that failed repeatedly over 15 years… with the same scope, same structure, and many of the same people involved. The lessons were written down, management just didn’t listen.

So maybe the real question isn’t when we document lessons learned.

Maybe it’s:

* Who is accountable for acting on them?

* Where do they show up in decision-making?

* And what happens when they’re ignored?

🎧 Throwback episodes like this remind me that tools haven’t failed us. behavior has.

Curious where you land on this debate today?I’d love to hear it.

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