Why aren’t we learning from lessons learned?
When lessons learned aren’t captured properly, we’re more likely to do the same things over and over. And, chances are, we aren’t repeating the parts that went well – our best practices.
At its simplest, lessons learned can be discussed in an informal After Action Review (AAR) with a small work group. First used by the U.S. Army, the AAR captures three essential elements: what was planned, what actually took place and why.
A more formal review is usually run by a facilitator and covers a wider scope of work. And that’s the only difference! Capturing lessons learned doesn’t require a procedure, detailed instructions or electronic databases. Some of this may be necessary to fit into your organization’s toolbox, but the process itself is simple.
The single act of documenting why our work didn’t go according to our plans is essential. But we aren’t going to learn from our lessons unless we assign measurable actions to specific individuals with realistic due dates. Like any meeting, if the actions don’t get assigned they aren’t going to get done.
Following are 10 things you can do to help your team learn from lessons learned:
- Determine the scope of review. Is it realistic for the time allocated?
- Invite the right individuals to the review. Who is essential and who doesn’t need to be there?
- Do your homework. Get more out of your session by writing the “what was planned” and “what actually happened” statements in advance.
- Allocate specific time for each section and reinforce the agenda as the structure of the meeting.
- Stay on track. Nothing is worse than communicating to 25% of your participants that their scope is less important.
- Capture learnings from all participants. Different perspectives on why something didn’t go according to plan can help paint a complete picture.
- Don’t work the issues or go down rat holes. Keep a parking lot for issues to be addressed later.
- Keep it simple. You may want to develop a detailed report offline but that isn’t the deliverable for your lessons learned workshop.
- Assign actions. Who is going to do what, by when?
- Use a facilitator. As a leader you need to be focused on identifying learnings, not running the workshop.
Anything you can do to make lessons learned more effective will be favorably received. Feel free to share my tips. And I’d love to hear about some of the methods you’ve used to learn from lessons learned … what are your best tips?
Michael, thanks for this article. We use AAR (aka Hot Wash) often in our squadron with varying degrees of success throughout the years. I appreciate the outline that you provided...I will pass along to our team for future efforts. Also, I agree that the assignment of action items is critical!
Super article!
Mike, I know most of these folks; Kevin Neylon, Alan Dunn etc. This was over a USD 20Bil (Drillex/Capex/Opex) Development and very very successfully delivered and the thanks goes to Cush Snr and Cush Jnr.............................who managed the workshops and strategy directives, so we all focused and delivered. Well Done
Reflection, PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) and A3's are powerful. "Understanding A3 Thinking" by Sobek and Smalley and "Getting the Right Things Done" by Pascal offer valuable insight.
Actually I believe, we are learning from lessons learned - but it is individuals that take the learning with them rather than the organization i.e. the company. Knowledge management - in contrast to Information Management - implies you need to involve people to generate knowledge. If companies pay little attention to which people (and knowledge) they keep, they will end up with information only stored in folders, discs etc.