10 lessons from my business "lessons learned" journal
Throughout my twenty-year career, I have made mistakes and I have seen others make mistakes. I make it a point to jot down my observations and what I learned from them.
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- Do not react with anger. Give yourself time before you respond to it. Recognize that anger clouds rational thinking.
- Take a break and throw cold water on your face. You don't need to react right away.
1. When conducting an impact analysis be aware of downstream impacts to people, processes and technology
2. Reconcile your results using multiple data sources and subject matter experts. Don't assume you are right.
3. Anticipate tough questions ahead of a presentation
Talk to your peers and your boss about potential questions that might pop up. Check and recheck your numbers.
4. Choose quality over speed otherwise you might end up redoing your work
5. Keep your eye on the ball.
Don't give in to the urge to look into exciting but unrelated side topics. Focus.
6. Don't turn emails into flame wars
7. Don't make immediate assumptions about people's motives
Don't blame bad intentions for things that could have been caused by stupidity, poor planning, laziness, or a lack of knowledge.
8. Unrealized losses are illusions of the mind
Things often don't turn out as bad as you might imagine because things are generally negotiable.
9. Treat your team like engineers not soldiers
Your job is to tell them what to do, not how to do it. Why else did you hire them in the first place?
10. When updating your boss or stakeholders use PIAT
Problem, Impact, Assessment, and Timeline
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