Post Mortem

Class Plan

A post mortem is a popular and beneficial process for concluding a project. Post mortems are not only effective methods for self and team improvement in software-focused projects, but in numerous other tasks as well. For example, they are often conducted after sporting events, constructions projects or even political campaigns. Studies have shown that post mortems are a frequent activity of successful individuals and projects. Some of the primary benefits of a post mortem include:

Identifying strengths, so you can continue to do them.
Identifying opportunities of improvement, so that you can remedy them for future projects and optimally turn a weakness into a strength.

The two primary questions you should be exploring during a post mortem are:

What went well and why?
What did not go well and why?

Recognizing and exploring what you individually and as a team did well is important for ensuring that you continue this good practices/habits and build upon them for future projects. Conversely, recognizing and exploring what you individually and as a team can improve upon is important for ensuring that you remedy these issues and improve upon them for future projects.

Post Mortem (Individual)

Individually, identify three things that:

What you did well (Individually).
What you can improve upon (Individually).

How can you improve upon this for future projects.

What you did well (Team).
What you can improve upon (Team).

How can you improve upon this for future projects.

Your responses to these questions should be well thought out, and offer an in depth examination of each of these items. Topical responses to these questions will not offer you and your team a sufficient opportunity of self improvement.

Post Mortem (Team)

Your team will have the opportunity to come together to explore what each member identified as areas of improvement and strengths. The objective of this component is to identify and elaborate upon three strengths (and why), and three areas of improvement (and how you would improve upon them).

Come together as a team and first identify a team scribe. Next give everyone an opportunity to discuss what they identified as items that were both strengths and areas that can be improved upon. The scribe should record these items.
As a team, select three strengths and three areas of improvement.
Identify practices to ensure that strengths are continued. Elaborate upon WHY you feel that they were strengths.
Identify improvement processes to ensure that areas of improvement are rectified. Elaborate upon WHY you feel that your team didn't do so well in these areas, and could improve in them.
Your team's ideas should be condensed to a well thought out report (at least 1-2 full single spaced pages).

In this activity, the key points to ensure are that you elaborate on strengths and weaknesses, along with explore WHY they were strengths and weaknesses.

Class Discussion

Each team will have the opportunity to discuss and present upon their identified strengths and areas of improvement. After each 1-3 minute team-led discussion, random members of audience members will be called upon to provide recommendations and their thoughts to the areas of strength and those that can be improved upon.

Submission Information

As a team, submit a pdf of your final report into the "final reflection" submission area in MyCourses.