Project Post-Mortem: What We'd Do Differently

Right, thanks for coming in, Tom.

This is a blame-free post-mortem, okay?

Is it, though? It doesn't feel like it.

I know. The relaunch was painful for everyone.

We're here to find the root cause, not a culprit.

So, let's start with the timeline.

We went live three weeks late. Why?

Well, the requirements kept changing, didn't they?

Marketing added new pages two weeks before launch!

That's fair. That's definitely one lesson learned.

And then... the site crashed on day one.

Yeah... I know. That one's partly on us.

Honestly, we cut the testing phase to save time.

So we didn't do any load testing at all?

Um, no. We planned it, but it got squeezed.

Okay. Thank you for being so honest.

And, well... there's something else, actually.

The handover from the old agency was a mess.

We got almost no documentation from them!

Really? Nobody told me that!

I did mention it in a stand-up, but...

But it never reached me. That's a communication breakdown.

So, what would you do differently next time?

First, freeze the requirements a month before launch.

And never, ever skip load testing again.

Ha, I'll hold you to that.

Oh, and a proper handover checklist would help too!

Great. Let's turn these into action points.

Each one gets an owner and a deadline.

I'm happy to write the handover checklist.

Brilliant! And I'll talk to marketing about the freeze.

You know, this was more useful than I expected.

That's the whole idea. Nobody's in trouble here.

Good. Then I'll bring the biscuits next time.