The company I work for is growing, and when we do projects, the knowledge is with a small pool of people. In order to capture learnings and to help with knowledge share, we are considering implementing a Lessons Learned Repository to save learnings from projects completed. Does any one use Lessons Learned repositories in their organisations? If so, is it effectively/ successfully utilised? do you think there is much value in having a department wide lessons learned repository? Saving Changes...
Lessons learned should facilitate the organization's processes and procedures review with the involvement of the top manager by continuously asking the 3WAH questions; WHAT happened, HOW was it resolved, WHICH project phase was impacted, ANY lesson learned and WHERE can we apply such a lesson?
Any lesson that meets the five criteria should open a discussion for organizational processes or procedure improvement, mitigating or eliminating such impact on the next project. Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Marius,
Housam mentions a good reference with NASA. I personally benefitted from IBM's knowledge management system. Overall there is a concept of knowledge management system, of which lessons learned is a component.
As PMBoK Guide ed6 states, knowledge management is a core process of integrating knowledge across a project life cycle (not just at the end). PMBoK also makes an important distinction between tacit and codified knowledge. The latter can be documented and shared and lessons learned may be a part of this, as continuous improvement.
But the first, tacit knowledge, can only (or best) be preserved by human to human interaction (try to learn how to kiss from a book). For this, you need to enable people to exchange knowledge, like with a mentorship program, brown bag meetings, shadowing, hand-on exercises etc.
Latha Thamma reddiSr Product and Portfolio Management (Automation Innovation)| DXC TechnologyMckinney, Tx, United States
Thanks for sharing. Saving Changes...
Laura HolderAVP of Project Management Consulting| EPMA Inc.Houston, Tx, United States
We've found Lessons Learned databases are worth it if people use them, but building these habits may take a while. As a best practice in applying what you have learned, incorporate the learnings into your methodology's processes, procedures, templates and then have a quarterly PM meeting to discuss what was learned, updated, and ready to use! Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
1) How actionable and applicable is the gained knowledge from past and current projects?
2) Can you create a repository that creates the least amount of friction (i.e. using a tool that everyone in the company has access to)
3) Do you work in a culture that has continuous improvement and learning at its core (this is a big one!)
With my PMO, lessons learned are a central repository of data that only the PMO has access to. With this repository, we create all sorts of useful assets to share across our company, such as case studies, trends and interactive courses. I feel this is the best way lessons learned can drive real value. Saving Changes...
In our application:
1. you should not wait till the end of a project to open a file: The file is open and accessible before people forget; or worse in some cases people may even have left by that time.
2.Lessons are only Lessons until they are actioned upon, making them LL ( as described in many of the responses here)
3. It should be easy to file. In our case they are "auto-filed" in the correct "repository", part of the PM tool
4. The repository is integrated with a search engine by project and by (company pre-set) topics Saving Changes...
"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore."
