Moving the Ball Down the Field

The US Air Force's (USAF) Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) has an effective approach to turning observations of problems into accomplished actions and mission improvements. This common-sense approach relies on 1) motivated buy-in and participation from the Chief Stakeholder (i.e., CEO, Commander, the Boss); 2) a standard assessment framework; 3) experienced, enduring, corporate memory-equipped assessors; 4) Chief Stakeholder's confidence in his assessors; 5) mid-managers empowered to fix their own problems; 6) access for the assessors to the Chief Stakeholder; and 7) an empowered ramrod to enforce the process and ensure follow-through. This chapter relates the steps of PACAF's process, which Headquarters (HQ) US Air Force called in 2012 “the Air Force's Best Practice at turning observations into progress” and illustrates these steps with PACAF's very positive experiences.

Proactive Review

The aim of this chapter is to provide a theoretically based and proven educational design for learning from experience in the context of a work. This chapter includes some of the theoretical considerations as well as the final educational design for Proactive Reviews, as exemplified in a case study from a worldclass IT company based in more than 60 countries across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. From 2005 to 2012, Proactive Review was developed and implemented in more than 40 countries. The chapter describes the four roles involved in a Proactive Review: the participant, the sponsor, the top management, and the facilitator. The results of a Proactive Review can be both tangible and intangible and have an impact on the participants, their teams, and the organization's products, services, and ways of working. Finally, the chapter provides recommendations for successful Proactive Reviews.

Common Pitfalls and Shortcomings of Lessons Learned Programs

While many organizations attempt to implement a Lessons Learned program, very few reach a state of becoming a “Learning Organization.” Surveys conducted by Knoco show that when asked how effective the program was, the average self-assessed score is 48%. Much of the problem is a lack of sufficient skilled and appropriate people, assessment and implementation processes, technology and governance; but even when these are in place, the single most common problem is that lessons are treated as observations and rarely used to drive lasting change. In addition, we find issues such as a lack of governance around the lesson-learning process, the lessons database is seen as a repository not a lessons management system, quality control is needed at the input stage, and ensuring sufficient evaluation. This chapter describes these problems and outlines some mitigation strategies to shift observations and knowledge capture to a more applied implementation level.

A Lessons Learned Assessment Approach

The approach taken in this chapter is to identify the role of technology to support the lessons learned (LL) process through the presentation of an organization's optimal LL assessment approach. The objective is to identify which user requirements are specifically defining the LL System (LLS) in an organizational context, rather than to list random technologies and their attributes, as is common practice. These requirements will cover the objects of interest on which lessons are gathered, the knowledge objects that support the collection approaches and analyses, the dissemination strategies that need to be implemented, the actions to be taken following the analysis and the necessary actions to exploit that knowledge. A framework is presented to support the execution of the LL assessment approach. The LL framework consists of a structure to categorize all types of information gathered during the assessment, the list of requirements, the models, and the tools.

Operationalization of the Lessons Learned Process

An essential step on the road to solving the lessons learned challenge is for organizations to “operationalize” the process for lessons learned such that the important lessons are not just observed but are learned over time to improve organizational behaviour. There are seven key findings: the engagement and integration of leadership into the lessons learned process; the development of spheres of influence and the corresponding organizational “loops”; the selection of a limited number of “rolled-up” observations to pursue – “five (good ones) are much better than 500”; the use of symposia to ensure education and collective “buy-in”; the development of action plans to engage the leadership and provide a practical direction on the way ahead; the triggering, packaging, dispatching, and recreation of lessons identified such that they are attainable and welcomed by the receiving stakeholders; and the development of logical, distinct steps in creating a database.

A Lessons Framework for Civil-Military-Police Conflict and Disaster Management

International conflict and disaster response operations incorporate a diverse, multi-layered series of activities and actors working in the same space, and in contested environments. Differences in organizational culture, language, processes, and behavior can either inhibit or enhance understanding and cooperation. This chapter looks at how the Australian Civil-Military Centre (ACMC) has developed, facilitated, and tested education and training programs, preparedness exercises, and targeted research to enhance understanding and cooperation. These activities provide the foundation for a holistic civil-military-police lessons framework that is being developed. They provide Australian government agencies, military, police, and the aid community with a guide to successfully maintain and contribute their technical expertise and perspectives to respond to conflict and disaster management. Through the continued refinement of training programs, preparedness exercises, and targeted research, this framework looks not only at lessons collection but also at implementation of these lessons in future practice.

Using Stories to Institutionalize Lessons Learned

One of the major challenges of any lessons learned system is how to ensure that this content is actually implemented: by individual employees, by work teams, and by the organization as a whole. While we are guided by a number of theories on how newly acquired knowledge can become institutionalized such that it becomes “the way things are done,” there is very little theory or evidence-based practice to guide us on specific implementation strategies. This chapter presents specific strategies that were used to ensure that lessons learned became embedded in the organization including storytelling, narrative databases, simulation games, employee orientation, training, and professional development strategies. The role of technologies and the role of culture in the success or failure of these strategies are discussed together with recommendations on how to best ensure lessons learned result in learning and, ultimately, how they create changes in individual, group, and organizational behavior.

Conclusion and Future Directions

The contributors to this collection have identified the critical success factors, obstacles, and future opportunities for ensuring that lessons learned processes contribute to the attainment of organizational goals. The critical success factors are categorized as: 1) conducive culture, 2) effective leadership, 3) robust lessons learned cycle, and 4) action plans. Obstacles to success are: 1) cultural barriers, 2) resource limitations, 3) lack of governance, and 4) insufficient analysis for credible results. Future directions to explore include the roles of culture and leadership, the need for standardized approaches that can be used by all types of organizations, improved technological infrastructure, and implementation of effective measurement systems. Opportunities for future research are: determining why organizations either choose to or cannot learn; the role of trust in learning lessons; optimization of technological approaches; and how lessons learned approaches could integrate processes and procedures from other organizational improvement.

A Proposed Analytical Framework for Canadian Whole-of-Government Lessons Learned

Meta-organizational approaches involving multiple government agencies or levels of government, military-civilian combinations, multi-sector or international coalitions are becoming increasingly standard practice for addressing complex operations. One of the challenges in the post-event lessons learned period has been the lack of an adequate analytical framework, which has led to the re-identification of key issues in similar lessons learned processes and documents each time. The objective of this chapter is to build upon the existing knowledge base of identified lessons and reduce the learning curve for future analysts. By developing a framework for the collection and analysis of whole-of-government lessons learned, future practitioners will have a consistent set of parameters upon which to develop their core collection plans, a structure for analysis, and be able to identify known risks to mission success. Drawing upon Canadian and international experiences from whole-of-government and comprehensive approaches, the chapter provides two considerations for issues analysis: a derived critical topics list for meta-organizational approaches and a capabilities framework that could be applied to lessons learned approaches in these kinds of complex initiatives.

Lessons Learned

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the meaning of lessons learned and use of the concept for organizational innovation and change. This literature review situates lessons learned within the broader field of organizational learning, especially experiential learning, where the source of learning is either personal experience or the experience of others. The chapter begins with a review and definition of key concepts. This is followed by a discussion of organizational learning theories for guidance on the concept of lessons learned. Next, the lessons learning process is explored and various methods for conducting lessons learned are reviewed. The chapter continues with a discussion on the prevalence and effectiveness of lessons learned processes. Finally, challenges to conducting effective lessons learned and possible solutions or success factors for effective lessons learned are presented.