Many people know they should review a finished project but do not know how to begin. They open a blank document, wait, and eventually write a few lines about better communication or better planning. Those statements sound reasonable, but they do not tell the next project what to change.
AI can organize project notes into a report. The result depends on how you provide the facts and how carefully you check the response. This tutorial walks through one fictional project from beginning to end. Replace the sample details with your own material to create a first postmortem.
The Example Project
Imagine that a three-person team planned a four-week website redesign. Every name, date, and number below is fictional and does not describe a real company or person.
The project started with these goals:
- Complete a home page and four content pages
- Make all five pages work on desktop and mobile screens
- Deliver the work within four weeks
- Resolve every item on the pre-launch review list
The project ended with these results:
- Four pages were complete and one remained unfinished
- Desktop checks passed, while mobile checks found three display problems
- Delivery was two days late
- Nine of twelve review items were complete, with three still open
That is enough information for a basic postmortem. A real project may contain more records, but the conversation follows the same pattern.
Prepare Three Types of Information
Open an AI chat tool that you are allowed to use. Gather:
- The goals agreed at the beginning
- The actual result at the end
- Important events that happened during the work
These details may come from a plan, task list, meeting note, acceptance record, or chat history. When something cannot be found, write “no record” instead of guessing.
Remove names, phone numbers, credentials, customer details, internal addresses, and contract material before uploading anything. Material that cannot be redacted should stay inside an environment approved by your organization.
Give the AI Its Working Rules
Start a new conversation and paste this message:
Act as my project postmortem assistant. Ask questions and help me produce a project postmortem report.
Follow these rules:
- Work on one stage at a time and wait for my confirmation before continuing.
- Use only the project information I provide. Do not invent numbers, events, or causes.
- Ask a question or mark an item "to confirm" when information is missing.
- Keep confirmed facts separate from possible explanations.
- Every improvement needs an owner, completion criteria, and a verification method.
- Use plain language and avoid unnecessary jargon.
Ask me about the project goals. Do not generate the full report yet.
The AI should ask about the project background, goals, and success criteria. If it immediately writes a complete report, reply: “Stop the report. Ask about the project goals and handle only one stage at a time.”
Enter the Project Goals
Send the fictional project details:
Project: Website redesign
Background: The current pages are difficult to use on mobile screens, so the layout and display need to be updated.
Duration: Four weeks
Goals:
- Complete a home page and four content pages, five pages in total.
- Make the pages work on desktop and mobile screens.
- Complete delivery within four weeks.
- Resolve every item on the pre-launch review list.
The AI may organize this into background, scope, schedule, and quality goals. Check the response before moving on:
- Did the number of pages change?
- Did “four weeks” become a date you never provided?
- Did “work on mobile” become a made-up performance or traffic metric?
When the summary is correct, reply: “The goals are confirmed. Continue with the project results.” If the AI adds unsupported information, identify it directly: “I did not provide page-load data. Remove that item.”
The AI organizes the material. You confirm it.
Enter the Actual Results
Continue with the end-of-project information:
Actual results:
- The home page and three content pages were complete. One content page was unfinished.
- Desktop checks passed.
- Mobile checks found three display problems that are still open.
- Delivery was two days later than planned.
- The review list contained twelve items. Nine were complete and three remained open.
Compare the results with each project goal. Write "cannot determine" when data is missing. Do not create a completion percentage.
The comparison should show that one page was unfinished, the mobile goal was not met, delivery was late, and the review list was incomplete.
An AI may convert four completed pages out of five into “80% complete.” The arithmetic is possible, but the plain result is more useful: four pages complete and one unfinished. It does not pretend that every page required the same amount of work.
After checking the comparison, reply: “The results are confirmed. Help me organize the important project events.”
Reconstruct What Happened
Results show where the project missed its goals, but they do not explain why. Add the events that occurred during the four weeks:
Important project events:
- During week one, the team confirmed the content for five pages.
- During week two, an extra round of copy changes took two days.
- Mobile display checks did not begin until week three.
- The team found three mobile display problems during week three.
- During week four, the team completed the home page and the three most-used content pages. One page was postponed.
Arrange these events by time. Keep confirmed events separate from possible causes. Do not blame an individual.
The AI may suggest that the additional copy work used available time and that mobile checks began late. Both statements point to recorded events. It may also say that “task planning needs improvement,” which is too vague.
Ask a more specific question:
"Task planning needs improvement" is too general. Identify the recorded event that affected the result. If the evidence is insufficient, mark the explanation "to confirm."
A useful response says that mobile checks began in week three, leaving less time to fix the problems, and that the extra copy changes used two working days. The records do not explain why mobile checks began in week three, so that question should remain open.
Turn Improvements Into Work Someone Can Complete
Ask for action items based on the confirmed information:
Propose improvements based on the confirmed events and explanations.
For every action, include:
- The problem it addresses
- The specific change
- The owner role
- Completion criteria
- A verification method
Do not use vague phrases such as "communicate better," "raise awareness," or "keep optimizing."
One action item for the example could be:
- Problem: Mobile checks began too late
- Change: Check desktop and mobile display on the day each page is completed
- Owner role: Page builder
- Completion criteria: Every page has both checks recorded
- Verification: Review the check records before delivery and confirm that no page is missing
Another action can address late changes: record the extra work when a new change arrives, then let the project owner choose whether to reduce scope or adjust the delivery date.
If the AI returns “improve testing” or “plan earlier,” ask: “Who does this? What proves it is complete? Where will the result be recorded?” Continue until another person could perform the action without guessing.
Generate the Complete Report
Generate the report only after the goals, results, events, explanations, and actions have been reviewed:
Create a project postmortem report using only the information we confirmed.
Include:
- Project background and goals
- Actual results and differences from the goals
- Important events
- What worked
- Problems and confirmed contributing causes
- Questions that still need confirmation
- Improvements and action items
Do not add numbers or events that did not appear in the conversation. Keep the language concise. Use the length needed to explain the project clearly.
Pay close attention to “what worked” and “contributing causes.” These sections often attract unsupported statements. The AI may write that the team collaborated well even though the example contains no evidence for that claim. Remove the sentence or add a record that supports it.
A useful report does not need a fixed minimum length. A reader who did not join the project should be able to understand what happened, and the next project should know what to do differently.
Check the Draft Before Using It
Review the report line by line:
- Every number can be found in the project material
- Dates and project names have not changed
- Each result is compared with the matching goal
- Each cause points to a recorded event
- Unproven explanations are marked “to confirm”
- Every action has an owner role and completion criteria
- Names, credentials, contact details, and internal material are removed
- Vague statements such as “communicate better” have been deleted
You can send this checklist to the AI and ask it to flag suspicious statements. The final decision still comes from the project records, not from the model.
Fix Common Problems
When the AI writes the whole report immediately, tell it to stop and begin with the goals.
When it invents a number, delete the number and repeat the rule that only supplied information may be used. Do not keep invented figures just because they make the report look complete.
When the causes are generic, ask the AI to attach a recorded event to each one. Anything without an event remains “to confirm.”
When an action has no owner, add an owner role and completion criteria. If the owner is not yet known, write “owner to be assigned” instead of pretending the work is scheduled.
When the project contains many files, provide them in groups: goals, results, important events, and issue records. Review each group before moving on.
Use the Workflow on Your Project
Replace the fictional details with your project information and start with the working-rules prompt. Even a goal, an actual result, and a few dated notes are enough for a first draft. Keep missing fields visible and add evidence when you find it.
If you want help checking an existing postmortem, prepare the project goals, actual results, important events, and current action items. Replace sensitive values with placeholders.