{"id":111,"date":"2016-01-10T00:18:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-10T00:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/i3works.bluetree.uk\/news\/?p=111"},"modified":"2019-12-08T21:45:37","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T21:45:37","slug":"lessons-learned-databases-is-it-time-to-move-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/2016\/01\/lessons-learned-databases-is-it-time-to-move-on\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned Databases Is it Time to Move On?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Weve all been involved in lessons\n learned workshops its an intrinsic and very important part of the world\n of project management. But how many of these sessions really get under \nthe surface of the project? They can often be box ticking exercises that\n capture the obvious and rarely get translated into organisational \nlearning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Author: Martin Paver Director at i3Works<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Entering a lesson onto a database or spreadsheet may be compliant \nwith process, but it doesn\u2019t mean that anyone will read it again, \nunderstand its context or apply it elsewhere. Databases and spreadsheets\n are a great way of storing knowledge, but the majority of the project \nmanagement community don\u2019t appear to find them very helpful. So is it \ntime to try something new?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Probably. But it is important to differentiate between the different elements of how we learn from lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The database is a very important component of this. It allows us to \ncapture, structure and manage lessons in an efficient way. But it\u2019s a \npoor tool for consuming knowledge. Our ability to interpret and consume \nlessons is driven by our own particular learning styles, desire to learn\n and the way in which the lessons are presented to us. But without the \nright foundations, the list of lessons can become a list of rambling, \nunqualified assertions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So how do we build the right foundations?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The right information needs to be harvested from the outset. Liz \nHobbs at Transport for London is a strong advocate of ensuring that \nlessons identified workshops are professionally facilitated; her \napproach is delivering demonstrable results. It helps the organisation \nto get under the skin of the lesson and bring consistency to \norganisational learning.<\/li><li>Consider what was done well. Identify good practice and what made \nit work. This can be the cornerstone of a targeted knowledge management \ncampaign.<\/li><li>Consider areas for improvement and how the organisation may adapt to respond to the learning opportunity.<\/li><li>Consider the context. How has the project environment influenced \nthe project outcome. Champions, resourcing, interfaces, parallel \npriorities, there are a wide range of factors that influence project \nsuccess.<\/li><li>Connect people. Add contact details of the team, its easier to engage and ask questions than rely on documents.<\/li><li>Codify the knowledge. Many organisations have hundreds of thousands\n of documents and it can be difficult to see the wood for the trees. It \ncan help to add tags and structure the ontology to support semantic \nsearches.<\/li><li>Rate the lesson at source and develop this rating through your \nknowledge base, using a trip advisor type rating system. Is the lesson a\n statement of the obvious or a lesson that will inspire others? This can\n help with the consumption of knowledge.<\/li><li>Think through how the lesson will be exploited and consumed. Is it \nlikely to result in a change to processes? if so, how much information \nneeds to be captured now to support this activity? Is it a good \ncandidate for including within e-learning material? Should it be \ncodified within the organisation\u2019s wiki?<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Having a firm eye on exploitation on the lesson can influence how the\n lesson is captured. Its certainly not a one size fits all exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Organisations invest a considerable amount of money in delivering \nprojects but many suffer from project amnesia (Schindler &amp; Eppler) \nand fail to learn from the past. By establishing the right foundations \nfor learning, combined with a multi attribute approach to capturing, \ncodifying, storing and consuming lessons, businesses have an opportunity\n to transform how they leverage the investments of the past and learn \nfor the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weve all been involved in lessons learned workshops its an intrinsic and very important part of the world of project management. But how many of these sessions really get under the surface of the project? They can often be box ticking exercises that capture the obvious and rarely get translated into organisational learning. Author: Martin [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions\/207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i3works.co.uk\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}