Lessons Learned - Managing the Lesson Life Cycle
- Amit Starikovsky
- Oct 1, 2008
- 8 min read
Many organizations implement processes for lessons learned.
In previous reviews, we discussed various methods for extracting lessons, the most central being the classic debriefing and After Action Review (AAR).
However, as we have argued more than once, extracting lessons, that is, creating them, is just one stage in the lessons learned process.
The main challenge regarding any lessons learned is using lessons that have already been learned. We discussed this topic in earlier reviews (see review: Using Lessons and Insights, 2Know, July 07).
This review presents an integrative approach to managing organizational lessons and insights as a complete and comprehensive process.
This approach includes implementing a comprehensive organizational view regarding the creation, management, and use of lessons in the organization. According to this approach, there are three main stages in the life of a lesson: creating it, managing it, and using it.
This topic is broad and can be explored in depth, but we will present the central emphases in its implementation and management due to space limitations. Some of the topics have been presented previously in this monthly publication, and to not tire readers, we will mention them as relevant and provide relevant links for your use.
The model we will present here can be summarized using the following diagram:
Stage A - Creating the Lesson
Most of us perceive stage A in the proposed model as conducting an investigation and formulating lessons.
However, experience teaches that investigation is not the only way to identify and formulate lessons.
Creating lessons is based on many processes that take place in the organization. In some cases, lessons are created explicitly and consciously. In contrast, the lessons are implicit in other processes and require proactive activity to collect them.
Methodologically, we divide lesson creation into two main parts: The first part is proactive lesson extraction, generally through investigations and other learning generators, and the second part emphasizes passive knowledge creation processes.
Lesson extraction includes the investigations conducted in the organization - each according to the chosen method and model and which is most suitable for it.
The principle distinguishing investigation is that it systematically clarifies the causes of a desired or undesired outcome. As such, it includes directed learning activity.
As mentioned, there are many methods for extracting lessons, and in our approach, it is permissible and appropriate to adopt more than one method for extracting lessons. Any method chosen by the organization is appropriate as long as it includes delimitation to our responsibility (not advice to others), essentials (not superficial), and lessons that are also recommendations and emphases, not just yes/no. Additionally, care should be taken to collect information that does not reach the bottom line of the lessons but can still serve as worthy and good learning material.
However, investigation is only one of the learning processes in the organization, as there are also passive knowledge creation processes that are not necessarily directed. In organizational reality, there are many good "learning generators." Learning generators are all those processes in the organization that serve as triggers for organizational learning. Examples are plentiful: quality improvement teams, brainstorming teams, internal/external quality audits, service and satisfaction surveys, malfunction reports, management meeting summaries, project summaries, activity analysis, etc.
Each of these learning generators includes many lessons and recommendations, even if they don't appear as such at first glance.
A thinking team examining and analyzing a specific work process may offer many recommendations and emphases which, even if they don't find their way to the bottom line of the recommendation document, have important educational value and may perhaps be implemented in similar/parallel processes.
Experience shows a relatively high correlation between the lessons existing (even if not explicitly) in those learning generators and the lessons obtained at the end of a dedicated investigation on a certain topic/event.
An integral part of lesson management is to collect the knowledge created within the framework of organizational learning generators.
In summary, this part of stage A includes reference to explicit and proactive collection of lessons based on planned learning processes such as investigations and existing learning generators.
The second part of this stage refers to collecting lessons based on experience.
Experience is an especially significant value; knowledge exists in people's minds and is valid as it is, regardless of a specific event. Collecting lessons derived from experience is particularly suitable for organizations where experience is the factor causing gaps between employee performances: for example, a credit officer in a financial organization or a researcher in an R&D department – generally, the more experienced they are, the more they know and the better they perform their job. In such organizations, the significant added value will come from documenting this knowledge.
As part of the stages of lesson creation, it is important to ensure documentation of this knowledge, which mainly includes recommendations and emphases for consideration.
This knowledge is of great importance in several ways. First, it includes knowledge about events that have not yet occurred, and we may be able to prevent them by using this knowledge. Additionally, using this knowledge may save considerable time searching for critical knowledge for performing the work.
It is important to remember that even in performing lesson extraction processes and using learning generators, we are limited to the content worlds that arise within the framework of their operation (for example, if the production process was not examined in the context of an investigation or audit, then there are no lessons related to it). Expanding the scope to the world of experience allows us to expand the repository of lessons to content worlds not addressed in the framework of routine work processes and routine investigations.
Stage B - Lesson Management
Lesson management is a critical stage, as it enables us to transition from a random process of lesson creation to a managed and planned process of intelligent use of lessons. The recommendation is to manage lessons through a lesson repository.
Repository management is expressed in several central aspects (as we presented in the profile of a lesson and insights repository manager):
First, ensuring that each lesson is managed as an independent knowledge item is important. In most cases, lessons are documented in the context of investigations. To locate a relevant lesson, users must review a long investigation document, which may be mostly irrelevant to them. In this way, we save valuable time and allow the presentation of focused knowledge.
Second, it is particularly important to pay attention to the content of the lesson or insight, where the content issue receives two-sided consideration:
On one hand, content management of lessons means processing them to select and distill the relevant knowledge so that they do not include trivial, unusable content or content that contradicts work procedures and guidelines.
On the other hand, creating a uniform and standardized formulation of lessons is recommended, meaning each lesson transferred to the repository undergoes a process of formulation and adaptation to a template for lesson formulation. Using a template allows users to navigate within the lesson itself, scan it, and reduce the time to knowledge.
Needless to say, a substantial aspect of content management is validating it with the relevant content expert in the relevant content world.
Third, it is important to attach metadata to each lesson, which will allow the surfacing of lessons according to keywords. This is especially important in cases where lessons may be relevant to cases not directly mentioned in the lesson itself.
Finally, in this context, attributes are important —this refers to dividing lessons and insights into categories and subcategories, which will enable focused thematic searching. Of course, it is important to ensure that these are adapted to the usage and search characteristics of users and work processes. In addition to retrieval, attributes also help generalize lessons and insights beyond the context in which they were created to additional future contexts.
Stage 3 - Using Lessons Learned
In this part of the model, we will discuss the tip about "Using Lessons Learned and Insights."
However, our proposed model addresses two levels of using lessons learned from two aspects: push and pull.
Regarding pull, we mentioned that during the lessons management stage, we must establish an infrastructure to facilitate easier repository use. We especially emphasized the use of keywords and defining characteristics.
As for push, the main emphasis is on integrating the use of the repository into work processes.
The intention is to identify a core work process that requires managerial involvement (for example, project planning by a project manager and approval by a supervising manager, planning customer credit and its approval by the appropriate business authority, planning a laboratory experiment and its approval by a supervising manager, etc.) and integrate the repository into the work process itself.
A good way to do this is to create a match between the repository itself, meaning the categories and subcategories in it, and the work process.
For example, assuming that project management includes the following stages: initiation, planning, specification, implementation, and deployment, we would ensure that these topics are the main categories in the repository intended for project managers and match subcategories to them.
The next stage is to integrate each category into the project management stages, so the project manager must include references to several lessons from the repository in each topic. The reference will include mention of the lesson from the repository and how it affects the project planning. For example: assuming that in the repository there is a lesson stating that "in projects carried out during summer months, an additional two weeks should be added to the schedule," the project manager should note, assuming they have read this lesson, that "two weeks were added to the schedule because the project will be carried out during summer months."
Approval for project execution will not be granted without reference to the lessons themselves, just as if an unreasonable schedule or budget was planned.
The last line is likely to create a sense of discomfort for some of us when reading it, as at first glance, it appears to complicate and delay ongoing activities, for which there is never enough time anyway.
However, we believe that what seems to be a complication at first glance will enable performance improvement. First, it ensures proper planning based on experience, with specific reference to the characteristics of the project. Second, it allows for shortening approval processes since the managerial entity supposed to approve the project may demand corrections based on their experience. In the proposed situation, these corrections will be included in advance in the proposal, not only based on the approving manager's experience (who also does not always remember everything that needs to be addressed, being short on time), but also based on the experience of other experienced managers and employees.
To summarize the discussion of the proposed model, we have presented above a model that refers to the lesson's life cycle: its creation, management, and use.
The special emphases brought above are designed to create a proactive process that enables the organization to generate learning and, on the other hand, allows users to consume it and use it at moments of truth.
A significant advantage in implementing this type of process is visibility. As we mentioned in the tip about " Lessons Learned—Where to Begin?", the model ultimately allows for a physical product in the form of a repository of lessons and insights, the use of which becomes routine and enables the implementation of the principles of a learning organization. It becomes an organizational asset and, in practice, the most important knowledge repository in the organization.
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