"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result."—Attributed to Albert Einstein, German-American physicist. If the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the term "post mortem" is a medical examiner or the novel by Patricia Cornwell, then you're in good company. But the term is useful for more than describing autopsies; it also has a long history of use as a business term, at least when applied to recently finished projects. The idea here is to examine the entire venture, from beginning to end, and identify two categories of actions: things you and your team did right, and things you did wrong. That said, don't treat a project post mortem as a blame game. Use the process as a teachable moment so you can move forward confidently, having … [Read more...]
