When capturing a lesson learnt, it’s important to tag it with the right category so others can easily understand and apply it in future decisions. Both positive and negative lessons should be document as they are equally important to learn from.

Here’s a quick guide:

Alignment – Use when the lesson learnt was about the decision's alignment with matters such as strategy, objectives, or stakeholder expectations.

Communication – Choose this when the lesson is about how information was shared, clarity of messaging, how the decision was communicated to stakeholders and volume of detail in updates.

Comprehension – Select this category when the lesson was centred around people's understanding or lack there of, of the problem, decision solution, or key requirements.

Engagement – Use when the lesson was about how high levels of engagement or disengagement impacted the decision, the process or its outcomes. Where key people or groups involved early enough or meaningfully throughout the process.

Management – Choose this category to register lessons where management of the decision itself was the problem, or if it pertains to leadership issues / strengths, decision authority, or process oversight.

Blind Spot – Use this category to recognise a blind spot in hindsight. For a example a risk, stakeholder or impact was missed or overlooked entirely.

Consensus – Select when the group struggled to agree, or decisions were made without shared commitment.

Capability – Use when gaps in skills, knowledge, or experience impacted the quality or success of the decision.

Resources – Choose this when issues arose due to time, budget, staffing, or tool constraints.

Uncontrollable – Use for external factors or events outside the organisation’s control (e.g. regulatory change, natural events) that impacted the decision.