Category Archives: Process

Lessons Learned Process…another interesting discussion thread…

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PM Community (Linkedin) Wayne asked the question ‘Most of us know how to conduct Lessons Learned, but how many of us actually have an organizational process for conducting Lessons Learned. I’m looking for some examples of documented processes. It may seem like conducting LL is easy, just like falling off a bike, but in my experience I’ve seen some very effective methods and some that just allow the lessons to be observed and then re-experienced. Or the lesson may be handled through tribal knowledge with no artifact to fall back on. So if you’ve got a documented process that your organization uses and can share it, I’d be very interested in seeing what you’ve got.’

To date 37 responses, all very interesting and continues to suggest that the open public discussions highlight the significance of project management, knowledge management and the lessons learned practice. As you know my research to date supports the premise that the project management lessons learned processes today can largely be considered incomplete and misunderstood.

SLLCK_psml

I am focussed on exploring whether a systemic lessons learned and captured knowledge (SLLCK) model can influence the dissemination and application of project management lessons learned between the project team and the organisation. The study suggests that by reconceptualising lessons learned, the SLLCK model can influence the dissemination and application of project management lessons learned. I look forward to continuing with the study over the next few years and sharing the results with the Linkedin pm communities.

All the best, Stephen


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FEMA’s Lessons Learned

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Another example of an application of Lessons Learned….to the collection of public available reports.

FEMA’s Implementation of the Remedial Action Management Program report by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) 19 Jan 2011.
Executive Summary
 The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Remedial Action Management Program is intended to: (1) identify operational and programmatic issues, lessons learned, and best practices encountered during federal disaster response and recovery operations and exercises; (2) manage the subsequent remediation of issues; and (3) distribute lessons learned and best practices. Our audit objective was to determine to what extent FEMA has implemented the Program to identify and distribute lessons learned and best practices to improve its incident management operations. FEMA needs to improve its implementation of the Remedial Action Management Program to identify lessons learned and best practices. Specifically, FEMA officials should: (1) conduct an after-action review for every disaster to identify lessons learned and best practices; and (2) develop instructions or examples on how to develop clear and concise lesson learned and best practice statements. Program officials distributed lessons learned and best practices to more personnel than what was required by program policy. However, distribution was still limited to the program’s database users, averaging 70 users. Program officials told us that those users served as organizational points of contact and disseminated the information to others. In May 2010, FEMA lost access to program data, including lessons learned and best practices, when the server which housed the program’s database failed. In November 2010, program officials informed us that they were able to recover all of the data; however, the software necessary to read the data has not been restored. Therefore, historical data on lessons learned and best practices that was contained in the program’s database is not available to all FEMA personnel. We are making six recommendations that, when implemented, should improve FEMA’s efforts to identify and distribute lessons learned and best practices.

 


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(PMBOK® Guide) — Fifth Edition draft – Lesson Learned comment accepted

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A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) — Fifth Edition draft ‘lesson learned comment accepted with modification’.

The Draft ‘A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) — Fifth Edition’ is currently open for comments. I have made a couple of reccomendations (refer posted on ).

1) General comment for ‘lessons learned’. I am interested in understanding why Project Management methodologies and PM knowledge books seem to only use the term ‘lessons learned’? Perhaps the Project Management community needs to shift the focus to more knowledge management, which will open up the language we use in organisations. Lessons learned is only one particular element that can be used to share and use project knowledge.  …Your feedback would be most welcome.
2) Section: 9.1.1.4 Organizational Process Assets needs to also include ‘Lessons learned from previous projects’

Today feedback was received from PMI.
No. 1 was rejected as ”Recommendation is prescriptive rather than descriptive”…I am ok with this for the present moment. We need to continue working on finding a way to change PMBOK to reflect better Lessons Learned practice. Will leave this for my PhD challenge.

No. 2 was Accepted With Modification…We agree with your basic recommendation. We have modified the sentence and believe that the following re-write addresses your comment: “…Lessons learned on organizational structures that have worked in previous projects; and…”.   Happy with the outcome..one lessons learned improvement.

Until next time…

Regards, Stephen


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Lessons Learned 2.0 – When and how to capture lessons learned

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All, another good post on the apm site. Lessons Learned 2.0 – When and how to capture lessons learned. I have just made a few comments, hopefully this may encourage some more feedback :)

Owain: When and how to capture lessons learned (often known more as Lessons Identified) >>> There are many KM methods one can use…(peer assist, scoping, action learning, after action reviews, CoPs, Project reviews, LL ?, Learning diaries, group brainstorming, knowledge cafe, knowledge jam, retrospect’s, post project reviews, knowledge histories, storytelling, case studies, reflection….the list goes on)  and the timing should be from Day 1, then weekly, fortnightly or Monthly at regular meetings…

How and when to share lessons learned > http://www.invictaprojects.com.au/pmlessonslearnedblog/?p=299

Adoption – Issues, motivation and ways to gain adoption>>>These are the tricky ones…this is where culture, social and systems block the process.

patw: >>> Your on the mark with a KM solution… Not quite sure on the KM system front?… however my research to date in the KM space would say KM is broken in many aspects as much as Lessons Learned is broken. On the term ‘lessons Learned’ (I really don’t like this label – can we call it something else?) I do believe we should be looking at replacing the ‘Lessons Learned’ terms in PMBOK and PRINCE 2 etc with KM terms, as there are many other KM methods/ways we can share our learning’s.

james: >>> The behavioral issue you mention is very much from my perspective the social/culture factors that block the process.  I too have had an interesting background with best (good) practice, I have seen the best and worst of this approach…in summary many PMs do not want to follow others best practice? . why? We just like repeating the mistakes of others? More on this topic in the months to come on http://www.pmlessonslearned.info

Regards, Stephen

 

 


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A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) — Fifth Edition draft comments

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The Draft ‘A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide) — Fifth Edition’ is currently open for comments. I have made a couple of reccomendations.

1) General comment for ‘lessons learned’. I am interested in understanding why Project Management methodologies and PM knowledge books seem to only use the term ‘lessons learned’? Perhaps the Project Management community needs to shift the focus to more knowledge management, which will open up the language we use in organisations. Lessons learned is only one particular element that can be used to share and use project knowledge.  …Your feedback would be most welcome.

2) Section: 9.1.1.4 Organizational Process Assets needs to also include ‘Lessons learned from previous projects’

As I read more over the next few weeks, more feedback will be provided.

Regards, Stephen


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Lessons learned debate turns to competitive advantage. Have your say… (from a Linkedin post) Part 1

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Lessons learned debate has provided an interesting set of views, all focused in the right direction.

My latest comments are:  …Agree with Andrew, great to see the thread alive and thanks to Chris, Judfor their feedback. Chris, I am all for innovation, just that we need to be careful with the change process approach in learning lessons, as I have seen a couple of times that the leaning of a process may come back and bite you in the future, if you’re not careful. (A lesson learned for me). Judy, culture looks to be the key cause of failure in the lessons learned process, which is why I am looking for alignment to other culture experiences that may be able to add value to the project management lessons learned process. The just culture work of Sidney Dekker may also be of interest. On the question ‘lessons Learned’ (I really don’t like this label – can we call it something else? ) sends me down the path to why in am researching about lessons learned. For some reason, Project Management methodologies and PM knowledge books seem to only use the term ‘lessons learned’? Perhaps the Project Management community needs to shift the focus to more knowledge management, which will open up the language we use?  I like the work of Milton and Krammer in the KM space for projects. On the PMO front, having managed a functional PMO with 130 project managers, the trouble I see is you can lead a PM to best practice (…that has incorporated lessons learned) but you cannot make them follow it…hmm culture…people?  We as a PM community need to learn lessons and not repeat mistakes of the past.

Thanks for sharing, Stephen


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PM Lessons Learned is broken

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A recent report from the Victorian Ombudsman (Brouwer 2011), finds that despite all the research, previous Ombudsman and Auditor-General reports, ‘…there are few signs that any lessons have been learnt in the public sector. …A new and more disciplined approach is required if the government is to avoid being faced with continuing cost overruns and failures to deliver.’ The report highlights the difficulties and inconsistencies in ICT procurement with the Victorian Government Solicitor’s Office stating ‘…Government agencies tend to operate independently and there is difficulty in capturing and implementing learnings from ICT projects.’ What we see here is not un-common across the public and private sectors; it is just that the reporting of the public sector problems is open to the public via government reports.

Source: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com reports.

The Project Management Institute (2008) Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) guide identifies the importance in collecting and documenting lessons learned, and implementing process improvements. The PMBOK knowledge areas reference the lessons learned process. However in practice it rarely happens and does not work well (Atkinson, Crawford & Ward 2006; Keegan & Turner 2001; Kerzner 2009; Milton 2010; Schindler & Eppler. 2003; Williams 2008; Wysocki 2004, 2009).

Milton (2010) has found that 80 per cent of 74 organisations that attempt lessons learned, 60 per cent are dissatisfied. Williams (2007) found that 62.4 per cent of 522 project practitioner responses had a process for learning lessons and of those only 11.7 per cent followed the process.

The project management PM World Today recently posted an editorial on Lessons Learned but Knowledge Lost (Pells 2011). In response Wideman (2011, p.1) a recognised project management global expert stated: ‘…in spite of all the technology that is available to us today, we have not yet found a presentation format that captures the essence of this wisdom in a way that is relevant to future usage, readily searchable and easy to store. …we have a serious cultural problem. …we are probably condemned to continue to throw away the valuable resources.’ This open discussion again highlights the significance of project management, knowledge management and the lessons learned process and the impact that technology, learning, process and people factors have on the problem.

So is the PM Lessons Learned process broken?

For another understanding of what is broken, you may enjoy the Seth Godin talk on ‘This is broken’


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PM Lessons Learned Study

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To the PM and KM world, I am currently close to completing (June 2012) my Masters Project Management (research). I have a strong interest in PM Lessons Learned. Over the last 12 months I have enjoyed learning about the KM World.

My final project/thesis will be ‘Exploring factors that impact knowledge management dissemination of project management lessons learned’.

The focus of this study will be to understand why the majority of projects do not disseminate lessons learned to organisations. Knowledge and project management literature suggests that the lessons learned process in practice rarely happens and does not work well and fails to deliver the intended results. The study will address the significant factors that impact the dissemination of project management lessons between the project team and the organisation. The literature review will focus on the areas of: knowledge; knowledge management; knowledge conversion; learning; organisational learning; lessons learned practices; and culture. So far, the literature review suggests there is limited research on how knowledge management, learning and culture impacts project management and project temporary organisations.

A review of the literature highlights project management literature gaps around people, learning, technology and process. The people factor is the most likely to negatively influence the dissemination of lessons learned in organisations. A conceptual lessons learned model has been derived and based on a swiss cheese model where the variables people, learning, technology and process need to align and be effective to disseminate lessons learned.

By undertaking this study it is expected that a better understanding of the significant project technology, learning, process and people factors will be established. This will assist in the dissemination of the Project Management lessons learned practice being improved. The findings will also contribute to the project management literature and provide an opportunity to improve project knowledge sharing ensuring projects achieve success.

I would be interested to know some of your thoughts on the Project Management world around ‘lessons learned’?

Stephen


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