How to Reflect on Projects to Develop Skills

𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒉𝒊𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒂𝒍. 𝑪𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒃𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅. 𝑴𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒌𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒆𝒙𝒕 𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒋𝒆𝒄𝒕. Sound familiar? A team closed a major deal. Leadership congratulated them. Everyone moved on to the next quarter. No one asked: “What made this work? What would we do differently?” Three months later, they tried to replicate the success — couldn’t. Because no one had captured what actually drove the win. McKinsey found that organizations with structured learning processes are 2.5× more likely to sustain performance, yet most skip the debrief and wonder why progress doesn’t stick. 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴𝘯’t 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘳 — 𝘪𝘵’𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑳𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑳𝒐𝒐𝒑 High-performing teams don’t just execute. They learn, capture, and apply. 1. Execute → Deliver the outcome 2. Reflect → Ask: What worked (and why)? What didn’t (facts, not blame)? What will we do differently next time? 3. Capture → Store lessons where people actually use them (not slides no one opens) 4. Apply → Embed learnings into the next cycle Most teams stop at Step 1. The best close the loop. 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑹𝒉𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒎 𝒐𝒇 𝑰𝒎𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 Improvement isn’t a project. It’s a practice. Daily: 5-min huddles → “What’s working? What’s stuck?” Weekly: 15-min retros → “What did we learn this week?” Quarterly: Strategic debriefs → “What patterns are emerging?” If reflection only happens when things go wrong, you’re learning too late. 𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 ❌ Celebrating wins without decoding success ❌ Repeating mistakes because no one reflected ❌ Treating improvement as a one-off project ❌ No feedback loops — teams flying blind 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐃𝐨: ✓ Debrief every outcome — success and failure ✓ Make reflection part of weekly rhythm ✓ Capture insights in living systems, not cluttered docs ✓ Apply relentlessly 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒕𝒉: If you’re not getting better, you’re getting beaten. The fastest teams aren’t the busiest — they’re the most reflective. Reflect: → When did you last debrief a success to understand what made it work? → Do you have a weekly rhythm for learning — or only during crises? 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘶𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴𝘯’t 𝘢𝘯 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘦. P.S. To build this discipline into your leadership rhythm → 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑰𝒏𝒏𝒆𝒓 𝑬𝒅𝒈𝒆 https://lnkd.in/gi-u8ndJ #TheInnerEdge #ContinuousImprovement #ExecutionExcellence #LeadershipRhythm #StrategicLeadership

Reflection is one of the most powerful tools for growth. Yet, its so easy to overlook. I've always asked myself: What’s working? What isn’t? What can I do better? Make this happen: 1. Block Time: Put an hour on your calendar at the end of each month. Treat it as a non-negotiable meeting with yourself. 2. Ask the Right Questions: I use these prompts: • What were my biggest wins this month? • What challenges did I face, and how did I handle them? • What lessons did I learn? • Where did I spend my time, and was it aligned with my goals? • What do I want to do differently next month? 3. Write It Down: There’s something powerful about putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Documenting your thoughts helps clarify them and gives you something to review later. 4. Set Intentions: Based on your reflection, identify 2-3 priorities for the next month. Keep them actionable and specific. Reflection is about learning from your experiences. It’s about stepping back, recalibrating, and moving forward with intention.

After 15 years leading research teams and working with dozens of companies, I’ve learned that the most valuable leadership skill isn’t just on strategy or communication; a a leader, you should have structured reflection in your toolkit. Yet most leaders treat reflection like a luxury instead of a discipline and a need. Here are three concrete practices I use to make reflection actionable: 1. The Friday 3x3 (15 minutes) Every Friday at 6pm, I write down three things: ∙ One decision I’d make differently ∙ One assumption that proved wrong ∙ One thing I learned about someone on my team This isn’t about self-criticism. It’s about pattern recognition. Within a month, you’ll spot your blind spots. 2. The Quarterly Stakeholder Flip (30 minutes) Once per quarter, I review my major decisions from three perspectives: ∙ How my team experienced it ∙ How our industry partners viewed it ∙ How it looked from our funders’ position I literally write from their viewpoint: “Amrou made X decision, and from where I sit…” This practice has saved me from costly mistakes and rebuilt relationships I didn’t know needed repair. 3. The Project Post-Mortem—Before the Project Ends (1 hour) Most teams do retrospectives after a project wraps. We do them at the 75% mark. Questions we always ask: ∙ What’s working that we should protect? ∙ What are we avoiding that we need to address? ∙ What would we do differently if we started today? The goal isn’t perfection—it’s course correction while you still have time to act. The Real Value These practices have one thing in common: they create space between action and reaction. That space is where growth happens. Leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about building the systems that help you find better questions. What reflection practices have made you a better leader? Think about what you are planning to do for 2026 and how you set up your leadership skills for the next year.

Most leaders I work with are busy. Genuinely, relentlessly busy. And because they are busy, they move fast. From one decision to the next, one meeting to the next, one crisis to the next. There is rarely time to stop and ask the question that would actually make them better: what just happened, and what can I learn from it? This is not a character flaw; in fact it's a systemic problem. Organizations reward action much more than they reward reflection. And so reflection, the thing that turns experience into learning, so often gets squeezed out. For that reason, when working with leaders, I am a strong advocate for both reflection and journaling as practical development tools. One of my favourite tools to help that process is Gibbs Reflective Cycle. Graham Gibbs developed his Reflective Cycle in 1988 as a structured way to slow that process down. It's simple. Six stages: describe what happened, examine what you were thinking and feeling, evaluate what went well and what didn't, analyze what sense you can make of it, conclude what you could have done differently, and plan what you will do next time. It takes less time than most leaders think (less than 5 minutes). And it produces something that moving fast never can: genuine learning from experience rather than just accumulation of it. This is especially true if you get into a consistent practice of doing the reflection as you’ll start to see patterns and signals so subtle that they often go unnoticed. I use it with coaching clients working through 360 feedback. I reference it in my book. And I come back to it constantly in my own practice — because experience without reflection is just time passing. If you lead people and you are not building some kind of reflective practice into your week, you are leaving development on the table. Not because you lack the capability. Because you haven't created the conditions for it. The leaders who grow fastest are not the ones who have the most experiences. They are the ones who learn the most from the experiences they have. #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #reflection #coachingtools #executivecoaching

Don’t move on after you have solved a problem! What? Why is that? Well, when you solve a problem, you typically move on to the next challenge. But when you do that, the effort you spent figuring out the solution often gets lost, leaving little benefit for future learning. Instead, if you take just a minute or two to reflect on the problem, the challenges you faced, how you solved it, and what beliefs or assumptions you updated about the problem space, you can create lasting value and deeper understanding. This simple reflection process can significantly improve your ability to tackle similar challenges in the future. I’ve applied this technique to math problems, coding issues, and even people-related challenges, and the results have been transformative. Recently, I spoke with a client who kept encountering the same coding issues repeatedly. This reminded me of my own experience preparing for coding interviews. Over six to eight weeks, I made tremendous progress simply by reflecting on each solution after solving a problem. Where in your life could you add a minute or two of reflection after achieving success? This small habit could make a big difference.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵 As we come to the end of the year, we're seeing a lot of "My Year in Review" type posts, and that made me think about the power of Reflection. As I was sharing with my friend Alex Law the other day: 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗛𝘆𝗽𝗲𝗿-𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗚𝗿𝗼𝘄𝘁𝗵. Today... Information is abundant. We are busy collecting experiences. Anybody can sound smart and give you advice. But we don't grow as quickly. Why? Because 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝘂𝘀. 𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝗳𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀. Some people go through 100 experiences, but never pause to ask what they've learnt. They didn’t grow 100 times. They've repeated the same experience 100 times. Now imagine if you go through just 10 experiences, but after each one, you reflect, extract insight, and improve by just 𝟭𝟬%. And something magical happens! By the 10th experience, you’ve become 𝟮.𝟯𝟲𝘅 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿, not because you worked harder, but because you 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿. Reflection is not passive. It's: • 𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗮𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 – thinking about how you think • A 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 – testing assumptions and listening to feedback • The shift from being the 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸𝗲𝗿 𝗶𝗻 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗹𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗶𝘁 • The courage to 𝘂𝗽𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗳𝘀 instead of defending identity It's also how people turn painful experiences into passion and purpose. ➡️ Without reflection, 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘴𝘶𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨. ➡️ With reflection, 𝘱𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴. In a world where execution is automated by AI, 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲. And reflection is what makes learning compound. We should stop glorifying "years of experience" on resumes, but instead ask the sharper question "𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘰𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘴𝘥𝘰𝘮 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘴?" To help you in reflecting better, here are some reflection questions I've found useful: 1️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗻𝘀 • What was I trying to do? • What went well? What didn't? And why? • What assumptions proved wrong? • What will I try differently next time? • What support would help me improve faster? 2️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗲𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗲𝗿’𝘀 𝗟𝗲𝗻𝘀 • Why is this important to me? • What system or process produced this outcome? • What is the real bottleneck holding me back? • Is this a one-off, or a recurring pattern? • What needs redesigning so this doesn’t repeat? 3️⃣ 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗻𝘀 • What evidence would change my mind? • How do I know I’m right, really? • Am I learning or defending an identity? How are you Reflecting on Your Year? #WholeHearted

The most valuable skill in project management? It isn't planning. It's pattern recognition. AI can build you a project plan. Effective project managers see the storm before it hits. Do you see the patterns? → Tone shifts before a stakeholder pulls out of alignment → "Just a quick change" that spirals into full blown scope creep → Silence in meetings that mean people aren't on board Pattern recognition = experience + intuition The good news? You can build it faster than you think. Start here: ✅ Track your pain points Every time a project goes sideways, document WHY. Over time, you'll see common threads. Communication gaps, missed inputs, unclear ownership, etc. Those patterns are not only early warnings, they're repeated areas to build in mitigation for every new project. ✅ Pay attention to team behavior Patterns show up in people before you'll see them in metrics. Listen to + watch for what's NOT being said. Resistance and burnout have tells that you can catch early and navigate through. If you know what to look for. ✅ Reflect after delivery Don't just close your project. Study it. What signals did you miss? What could've been flagged earlier? Pattern recognition is best built from intentional reflection. Tip: build this into your project regularly (weekly/monthly) to harness lessons learned DURING the project. Good planning in a project predicts progress. But great pattern recognition will help ID problems. And allow you to outline responses to prevent them (even before they start). 🤙

I've noticed over the years that the people I admire—the ones I consider effective and empathetic leaders—do something not everyone does... They reflect. 🪞 Not just at year-end (though that's important too). Regularly. After projects. After difficult situations. After wins. They ask: What worked? What didn't? What would I do differently next time? This is how experience becomes wisdom. Without reflection, we repeat the same patterns—good and bad—without really learning from them. So now, I try to build reflection into everything I do: 📝 After facilitating a training, I debrief with myself (and sometimes my team): What landed? What fell flat? What surprised me? 📝 After a tough conversation, I think about: How did I show up? What could I have done better? What worked well? 📝 After completing a project, I ask: What did we learn? What processes should we keep? What should we change? And it doesn't have to take long—even 5-10 minutes of journaling helps! Set a timer. ⏲️ This is part of what makes adult learning so powerful—we learn best when we integrate experiences with reflection. So here are some reflection questions for YOU: 🤔 What's one thing you're proud of recently? 🤔 What's one thing you'd do differently if you could? 🤔 What's one lesson you're taking into the next chapter (whatever that is for you)? Growth isn't just about doing more. It's about learning from what you've already done. 💡 ➡️ What's one thing you've learned recently (about yourself, leadership, work, life)? Or a question you ask yourself when reflecting? Share in the comments—I want to hear about it! #reflection #yearend #growthmindset #leadershipdevelopment #adultlearning

TIP 5: Look Back in Order to Move Forward In our advancement world, we’re so busy moving on to the next thing that we don’t always pause to reflect on what we’ve done, celebrate what went well, and consider what we’ll do differently in the future. To help build learning into your event and project process, build in time for a retrospective review. A retrospective review (also called an after action review) is a learning method to reflect on performance, using guided questions for group discussion. When I lead executive leadership teams through a retrospective review, we spend time evaluating and learning—so we can continue to improve the organization. It doesn’t have to take a long time for the discussion and it can help inform the organization’s future plans. I get that your time as leaders as limited. Here’s the thing: People determine the success of a project with or without a retrospective review. They’re just having the conversation in the hallway or with a few people, rather than the full group. Use a retrospective review as a space for learning and building community. Here’s how to put it into practice: Build a 30-minute retrospective review into a project timeline, or schedule time for the review after a challenging situation at work. Treat the meeting like a professional development session where everyone can contribute. Ask questions such as: 💡 What went better than expected? 💡 What didn’t go as hoped or planned? 💡 What do we want to replicate (or not) for next time? Then, maintain the meeting notes in a repository where they can be referred back to again—so history only repeats itself in the best ways. After all, an organization is only as good as how they apply what they’ve learned going forward. ___ This is the final tip in a series I’m sharing all this week on how to build learning into your workday and grow your team’s skills—without adding more work to your plate. Reach out to learn more about how I can help your advancement team build a learning mindset and strengthen your company’s organizational culture—to build the foundation for your fundraising success.

Experience alone doesn’t teach. Reflection is what makes it useful. John Dewey said it best:  “We do not learn from experience...  we learn from reflecting on experience.” Harvard research confirmed it. Those who reflected daily improved performance by 𝟮𝟮.𝟴%, even while working fewer hours. When reflection is missing, we:  → Repeat the same decisions  → Miss early signs of friction  → React instead of adjusting  → Lose sight of what’s working 💡 Use the ERA Model to build reflection into work: 1️⃣ EXPERIENCE – What actually happened?  → Note one win and one blocker this week → Bring one real example into your next 1:1 2️⃣ REFLECTION – Why did it happen that way? → Ask: What helped things go well?  → Or: What slowed things down and why? 3️⃣ ACTION – What will I try differently? → “Next time, I’ll clarify the ask upfront” → “I’ll raise the concern before it drags on” Reflection isn’t extra work.  It’s how you stop wasting effort. What makes reflection hard for you to practice? ♻️ Repost to help your team grow with insight 🔔 Follow Justin Hills for practical growth strategies