How to run an incredibly effective post-mortem meeting

The end of a project is a wonderful time. But before you start popping corks, there’s just one tiny thing left to do: your project’s post-mortem analysis.

It doesn’t matter if you aced your latest project or barely scraped it through alive, assessing your project in a post-mortem (also known as a debrief or retrospective meeting) will help you do things better next time. And who doesn’t want that?

If the name sounds a bit morbid, don’t worry. In practice, it’s less about picking over a “dead” project and more about giving future ones a better shot at success. Here’s everything you need to know. 

What is a project postmortem meeting?

The end of a project can be a strange mix of relief and loose ends. You’ve delivered the work, ticked the last task off the list, and everyone’s already eyeing up the next thing. Before it all gets buried under fresh deadlines, it’s worth taking an hour to talk it through.

A project postmortem is exactly that: a conversation about how it all went. The good bits. The awkward bits. The things you only notice once you’ve stepped back.

It’s not about handing out blame. The point is to spot patterns, fix problems while they’re still fresh in your mind, and carry the wins into whatever comes next.

Who’s in the room? Anyone who had skin in the game — the people who planned it, built it, managed it, signed it off. Different perspectives matter; one person’s “smooth” can be another person’s “never again.”

In some workplaces (especially Agile ones), you’ll hear it called a retrospective or a debrief. Different name, same goal: to keep learning and improving with every project you run.

What are the benefits of a post-mortem meeting?

A post-mortem is basically a chance for everyone involved — your team, the client, the stakeholders — to take the project apart and see what’s what once the dust has settled.

Plenty of teams skip it. It can feel like a nice-to-have rather than part of the job, especially when the budget’s tight or everyone’s rushing into the next deadline. And if the project was bumpy, getting people in a room to talk about it might not be an easy sell. Some managers dodge the whole thing simply because they’re not sure how to run it in a way that’s useful. Without a clear reason for being there, it’s hard to get people to turn up, let alone open up.

That said, missing it is a mistake. A well-run post-mortem takes surprisingly little time and can pay back in spades — less wasted effort next time, fewer repeat mistakes, and a team that knows what’s working for them and what isn’t.

An effective post-mortem can help you:

• Work smarter next time. Looking back at how the project went makes it easier to spot the rough edges and figure out how to smooth them out for future work.
  
• Talk more, guess less. Open conversation pulls the team closer together and keeps everyone in the loop about what’s going on.
  
• Spot mistakes early. Picking apart what didn’t work helps make sure you don’t trip over the same thing twice.
  
• Draw a line under it. A post-mortem is a natural way to mark the end of a project and give everyone a last chance to speak up.
  
• Keep everyone in the picture. Sharing what came out of the meeting with the wider business builds trust and helps others learn from your wins and your missteps.
  
• Lift the mood. Ccelebrating the good bits gives the team a boost, while airing the tricky parts can clear the air before the next project kicks off.

Do you really need a project postmortem meeting?

In a word: yes. It’s tempting to swoop onto the next thing once you’ve hit a deadline and handed work over. Everyone’s done, and a meeting can feel like you’re raking over old ground. But hear us out on this one. 

A post-mortem gives you something a budget or happy stakeholder never will: distance. It lets the team look back on the whole journey — not just the end result — and see where things slowed down, sped up, or ground to a halt. That perspective helps you refine how you work and stop the same problems cropping up again.

Even when everything seems to have gone perfectly, there’s always a lesson hiding in there somewhere. Skip the review and you risk not just letting small issues slide by, but opportunities slip by too. 

Whether the job was a triumph or a slog, set aside the time to talk it through. It’s one of the simplest ways to make the next one better.

How to prepare for your post-mortem meeting

As with everything in the workplace, good organization goes a long way. So approach your post-mortem meeting the same way you would any other important meeting. Prepare, focus, and follow up.

Work out your talking points

Write out your key talking points beforehand, even if you don’t usually get stage fright or drift off topic. As well as keeping you on track, it gives you a sense of direction and an agenda. 

Ask the following: 

1. What went right that we can repeat next time?
2. What went wrong, and how can we avoid it?
3. What should we do differently?

Hold a pre-meeting standup

If you have no idea where to start, hold an informal pre-meeting meeting with your team about the three questions mentioned above. The goal is to gather a list of discussion points, rather than to have that in-depth discussion now.

Send out a survey

Another option is to send out a survey. This allows you to quickly gather everyone’s talking points without investing extra time in organizing a meeting. The only downside here is chasing people’s responses. To increase your chances of getting a response, make your survey short and clear with a range of questioning techniques to help you get full answers. And prepare a follow-up email to reign in the stragglers.

Use baselines to work out successes and problems

A baseline is simply your starting point — the standard you measure progress against. In project management, that usually means three things: schedule, cost, and scope (aka ‘triple constraint’). Setting these before you start gives you something solid to check back on, so you can see how you’re tracking and spot any drift early.

How to keep your post-mortem meeting on track

People will air out their issues and concerns, so rule number one: keep the atmosphere positive. There are several ways to make sure your meeting doesn’t turn into a big moan session and ends with your team feeling encouraged and inspired.

1. Bring in a moderator

It’s tough to stay completely neutral when it’s your own project on the table. That’s where a moderator comes in. Pick someone who wasn’t involved at all — they can keep the conversation fair, focused, and moving.

For bigger teams, you might borrow a facilitator from another department. In smaller setups, a team lead who wasn’t in the day-to-day work can do the job. A good moderator makes sure everyone gets heard and stops the discussion from drifting off course.

2. Keep it fun

Even if the project had its bumps, there’s nearly always a bright spot or two. Put those front and centre. You might start by asking each person to share one highlight, or try the “rose-thorn-bud” trick — a win, a challenge, and something with potential.

Small rituals like this can shift the tone and remind everyone their work mattered. Some teams sweeten the mood with snacks, add a playful touch to the slides, or hand out tongue-in-cheek awards like “Most Unexpected Fix” to end on a smile.

3. Be constructive

Make sure you identify a solution to every issue raised. This helps keep things positive and gives your team something to work toward, rather than something to ruminate over.

A useful tool here is the Start/Stop/Continue method:

• Start: What new approaches should we try?
• Stop: What didn’t work and should be retired?
• Continue: What should we carry forward to future projects?

4. Don’t let it get personal

Make sure people don’t attack one specific person. Even if an issue did arise due to an individual’s performance, keep the discussion high-level. Then, if necessary, discuss issues with that team member separately. Remember: the meeting should be a safe space where everyone can share their opinion.

To keep things broad, encourage the team to focus on processes and systems rather than individuals. Phrases like “The handover process was unclear” are far more constructive than “You were useless at explaining this.”

5. Let everyone have their say

Make sure the conversation isn’t dominated by the same few people. Some will naturally speak up, others will hang back, so draw out the quieter voices.

If putting someone on the spot feels awkward, send out your discussion questions ahead of time so they can prepare. You could also use a shared board or document where people can add thoughts privately or in their own time. Another simple approach is a “round robin” — go around the table one by one so everyone gets an uninterrupted turn.

6. Follow the agenda and take minutes

Go in with a short agenda so you don’t drift off course. Ask one person to keep notes so you’ve got a clear record to revisit later.

The agenda doesn’t have to be long — a few prompts like “What worked?”, “What didn’t?” and “What should we change next time?” will usually do the job. Keep each topic to a set time and park anything extra for later.

Record the minutes in a shared workspace like Backlog so they’re easy to find later.

7. Follow up on the meeting

Don’t let the good ideas vanish as soon as the meeting ends. Decide who’s doing what, and make sure every action point has a clear owner.

If the team agrees that, say, the documentation needs an overhaul, hand that task to someone specific, set a deadline, and put it in your project tracker so it’s impossible to forget.

In larger teams, make sure the results don’t stay in one corner. Share them in the next team meeting or post them in the shared workspace. Keep the key takeaways somewhere obvious and easy to access so they’re actually used when the next project rolls around.

Use a post-mortem template to help you on your way 

Take these tips to the next level by creating a post-mortem meeting template to keep your analyses easy to track and compare from one project to the next. Of course, you can customize your plan to whatever fits your team and your project best. But here’s a good place to start:

1. Intro

• Project name:
• Project dates:
• Meeting date:
• Facilitator/Moderator:
• Note-taker:
• Attendees:

2. Agenda

• What worked well?
• What didn’t work?
• What should we change next time?
• Action points and next steps

3. Project overview

• Goals:
• Outcome summary:

4. Wins and strengths

(List positive outcomes, processes, or decisions worth repeating)

5. Challenges and issues

(List problems, bottlenecks, or missed opportunities)

6. Lessons learned

(Insights the team can carry forward)

7. Action points

Action Item	Owner	Deadline

8. Data and metrics

(Include relevant performance metrics — deadlines met, budget variance, quality scores, etc.)

9. Sharing the outcomes

(How and where this summary will be shared — e.g., internal wiki, email, next team meeting)

Optional discussion prompts

• Did we meet the project goals?
• What went better than expected?
• Where did we hit roadblocks?
• Were tools, timelines, and resources a good fit?
• How well did we communicate and hand over work?
• What should we start, stop, and continue next time?

Better records, better reviews

A post-mortem is only as good as the information you bring to it. If you’ve been keeping tabs on progress as you go, the review will be sharper and more useful. But let’s face it — keeping tabs on stats is a pain.

That’s where a solid project management tool comes in. When tasks and team discussions are stored in one place, you can walk into the meeting with the whole picture in front of you — from delivery dates to the points where things slipped.

No digging through inboxes. No guessing which spreadsheet is the latest. Just clear, organised records so you can spend your time on the real work: figuring out how to do things better next time. Ready to take Backlog for a spin? 

This post was originally published on June 25, 2020, and updated most recently on September 12, 2025.