As the famous saying goes, those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Nowhere is this more true than in project management. To successfully manage a project, you must perform a complex juggling act of time, budget, and resources without dropping any of these elements. If something goes well — or fails outright — it's critical for you to record and build on that knowledge in order to improve your future results.

In the information that follows, certified Project Management Professional Bonnie Biafore explains the benefits of documenting project history: It can, for example, help you develop better estimates, and reduce hours invested in document creation by leveraging templates from past projects. She also recommends strategies that you can use to effectively obtain and record project information across your team.

Microsoft offers a number of tools that can help you create and maintain a library of your project performance history. By using Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, you can create a team site on which you can efficiently archive and share team performance history — no more sending files in e-mail. You can also use templates, including a project scorecard and a record of lessons learned, that will both save time in documenting your current project and serve as a comparison for future projects.

Make history work for you. Use the resources that follow to create a system to record, analyze, and apply the details of the project you manage for better results.

• Improve project performance using historical data (Article)
  Bonnie Biafore tells you why historical project data matters and the type of data you should record.
• Use SharePoint Services to create your team Web site (Article)
  Learn how to set up a team site, which is a great way to catalog and share historical project information.
• Project scorecard (Template)
  Record and compare project metrics across your projects by using this Excel 2003 template.
• Project status report (Template)
  Document and report project milestones by using this PowerPoint template, and compare your progress against archived status reports from prior projects.
• Lessons learned record (Template)
  To inform your future efforts, make a record of successes, shortcomings, and recommended best practices for each project by using Word 2003.