Endeavor Debrief Report

Definition

An endeavor debrief report (a.k.a., project postmortum report) is the quality engineering work product that documents the analysis and lessons learned resulting from the end-of-endeavor “post mortem” walkthrough.

Objectives

The typical objectives of an endeavor debrief report are to:

• Document lessons learned during the endeavor.
• Improve the development process.

Benefits

The typical benefits of an endeavor debrief report include:

• Creation and use of project analyses enables future projects to avoid repeating mistakes.
• The lessons learned can be used to improve the delivery process and staff training.

Contents

An endeavor debrief report typically has the following contents:

• Endeavor Overview
• Endeavor Analysis:
  • Customer Feedback
  • Project Management
  • Configuration Management
  • Risk Management
  • Process Engineering
  • Quality Engineering
  • Environments Engineering
  • Requirements Engineering
  • Architecting
  • Design
  • Implementation
  • Integration
  • Testing
  • Deployment
  • Content Management
• Lessons Learned:
  • Process Lessons
  • Management Lessons
  • Strategy Lessons
  • Technology Lessons
  • User Experience Lessons
• Action Items
• Conclusion
• Appendices:
  • Major Issues
  • TBDs
  • Assumptions

Stakeholders

An endeavor debrief report typically has the following stakeholders:

• Producers:
  • Endeavor Debrief Team
• Evaluators:
  • Program Manager or Project Manager
  • Technical Leader
• Approvers:
  • Program Manager or Project Manager
  • Technical Leader
• Maintainers:
  • None. Archived.
• Users:
  • Program Management Team
  • Project Management Team
  • Process Team

Phases

An endeavor debrief report is typically produced and maintained during the following phases:

• Business Strategy: Completed If Applicable
• Business Optimization: Completed If Applicable
• Initiation: Completed If Applicable
• Construction: Completed If Applicable
• Delivery: Completed If Applicable
• Usage: Completed If Applicable
• Retirement: Completed If Applicable

Preconditions

An endeavor debrief report can typically be started if the following preconditions hold:

• The endeavor has completed.
• The endeavor staff is available to attend the project post-mortem walkthrough.

Inputs

An endeavor debrief report typically has the following inputs:

• Work Products:
  • All endeavor work products, which varies by endeavor.
• Stakeholders:
  • All endeavor team members, which varies by endeavor.

Guidelines

• This document should report what goes poorly as well as what goes well.
• This document should not be used to place blame for failure on people.
• Use the procedure in the associated work flow to produce this work product.
• If you tailor this work product, then tailor its associated standard, template, and inspection checklist.

Conventions

The project analysis is typically constrained by the following conventions:

• Work Flow
• Content and Format Standard
• MS Word Template
• XML Template
• Inspection Checklist

Examples

• Example Endeavor Debrief Report