The Herschel mission is generally considered a success now, by the scientific community as well as by ESA and the national space agencies. The road to success has been quite rocky at times, though, and in full memory of this, in 2012 the Herschel Science Team has instigated an exercise by all involved parties to collect the “lessons” we (should) have learned from Herschel, both, how to do things right, and how to avoid unnecessary problems. This effort has culminated in a workshop last September with broad participation from industry to agencies. While the derived lessons are based on a collection of many details, the aim of the exercise was to draw conclusions of more general validity for future missions. I will give a summary of these lessons.
