Postmortem Analysis
- 1. Post Mortem Analysis Final 10-1
- 2. Definition A project post-mortem is a process, usually performed at the conclusion of a project, to determine and analyze elements of the project that were successful or unsuccessful Project post-mortems are intended to inform process improvements which mitigate future risks and to promote iterative best practices.
- 3. What is a ‘postmortem’? • By a postmortem, we mean a collective learning activity which can be organized for projects either when they end a phase or are terminated. The main motivation is to reflect on what happened in the project in order to improve future practice—for the individuals that have participated in the project and for the organization as a whole. The physical outcome of a meeting is a postmortem report. This type of processes has also been referred to as ‘project retrospectives’, ‘post mortem analysis’,
- 4. Postmortem reviews in software engineering • There are several ways to perform Postmortem Reviews. • Apple has used a method which includes designing a project survey, collecting objective project information, conducting a debriefing meeting, a ‘project history day’ and finally publishing the results.
- 5. Cont…. • Microsoft they also put much effort into writing ‘Postmortem reports’. These contain discussion on ‘what worked well in the last project, what did not work well, and what the group should do to improve in the next project’.
- 6. Cont… • The size of the resulting document is quite large, ‘groups generally take 3–6 months to put a postmortem document together. The documents have ranged from under 10 to more than 100 pages, and have tended to grow in length’.
- 7. Reviews In Postmortem • In a book about team software development, • Watts Humphrey suggests a way to do postmortems to ‘learn what went right and wrong, and to see how to do the job better the next time. • A description of another lightweight approach which seeks to elicit experience using interviews, and not a group process, is described by Schneider. • Norman Kerth lists a total of 19 techniques to be used in postmortems , some focusing on creating an atmosphere for discussion in the project, some for reviewing the past project, some for helping a team identify and embrace change during their next project, and some for dealing with the unique effects of a failed project. Kerth recommends using three days in order to effect a lasting change in the company. • Tiedeman suggests three types of postmortems, related to a waterfall model of software development, one for ‘planning’, one for ‘design/verification’ and one ‘field postmortem’ to provide feedback after the developed system has been in use for some time.
- 8. Elements of a project post- mortem • Post-mortems can encompass both quantitative data and qualitative data. • Quantitative data include the variance between the hours estimated for a project and the actual hours incurred.
- 9. Cont…. • Qualitative data will often include stakeholder satisfaction, end-user satisfaction, team satisfaction, potential reusability and perceived quality of end-deliverables.
- 10. The postmortem meeting has following steps: • Introduction. First, the consultants introduced the agenda of the day and the purpose of the postmortem review. • KJ session 1. Consultants hand out post-it notes and ask people to write down what went well in the project, hear presentations, group the issues on the whiteboard, and give them priorities. • KJ session 2. Consultants hand out post-it notes and asked people to write down problems that appeared in the project, hear presentations, group the issues on the whiteboard, and give them priorities. • Root cause analysis. The process consultant leading the meeting draws fish-bone diagrams for the main issues, both from the things that went well and the things that were problematic.
- 11. •Thank You