Cutting the Costs of Not Knowing: Lessons Learned Systems People Really Use

1. Cutting the Costs of Not Knowing:Lessons Learned Systems People Really Use Darcy Lemons Senior Project Manager APQC dlemons@apqc.org

2. Today’s Agenda • Welcome and Stage Setting • Findings and Best Practices: A Roadmap to Successful Lessons Learned Approaches • Adjourn

3. The APQC Project Team • Subject Matter Experts: • Dr. Carla O’Dell, president, APQC • Jim Lee, PMP, senior KM adviser and KM practice lead • Project Team: • Darcy Lemons, senior project manager • Angelica Wurth, project manager

4. Research Sponsors • Baker Hughes • BP • Bush Brothers • CEMEX • ExxonMobil • IBM • Inter-American Development Bank • Johnson & Johnson • NASA Johnson Space Center • Petrobras • Procter & Gamble • Raytheon • US Navy

5. Best-Practice Partners • Credit Suisse • Center for Army Lessons Learned • US Army ARDEC (Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center)

6. Stage Setting

7. Common Challenges to Lessons Learned Management doesn’t support LLs Documenting mistakes could lead to legal problems “The process is too complicated & takes too much time” People are afraid to admit they made a mistake “They are extra work and never help my projects anyway.” Information shared is too general & there are no solutions Lessons are captured, but not learned Information in the LL database is outdated, not validated, and disorganized It’s difficult to assess the value associated with LLs

8. Findings and Best Practices:A Roadmap to Successful Lessons Learned Approaches

9. Seven Elements of a Roadmap to Successful Lessons Learned Approaches • Determine the strategic objectives for the Lessons Learned process • Support current project and process teams: adapt and apply • Foster reuse in other projects/domains where sources and recipient are not the same • Create governance and roles • Design the Lessons Learned process • Ensure participation • Measure the impact of the Lessons Learned process

10. 1. Determine the Strategic Objectives for the Lessons Learned Process • The two paths Path A: Support a specific process, project, or program Path B: Capture and disseminate for future re-use

11. 2. Support Current Project and Process Teams (Path A) Adapt and apply • The primary customer benefits immediately • Use AAR at key milestones along the project • Allows the team to adapt and apply lessons • Becomes a natural part of project methodology • Enhances ease of reuse • Builds advocates and credibility for reuse

12. 3. Foster Reuse in Other Projects/Domains Where Sources and Recipients Are Not the Same • Why Path B? • The biggest long term opportunity • Design from the beginning • Be very clear on who are the most likely future users. • Requires Transfer of Best Practice enablers • Motivation • Sufficient detail and context • Time to access and apply • Ability to talk to source • Design and access issues

13. 4. Create Governance and Roles • Governance • A single group or office should be accountable for the lessons learned process itself. • Provides a well-defined structure for oversight • Facilitates the execution of a common approach to lessons learned • Enables the coordination of resources and ability manage lessons learned activities within/across the organization • Defined roles • Roles in the lessons learned process should be well-defined with clear expectations. • 3 common roles: • Lessons Learned Process Manager • Facilitators or Moderators • Process or Project Representatives

14. LL Facilitators/Moderators • Skills and Capabilities • Neutrality • Not from the business unit, process area, or project team conducting the lessons learned activity • Lessons learned process experts, not business process experts • Need strong facilitation skills and knowledge of/experience with various facilitation tools The skills and capabilities of this individual are so critical to a successful lessons learned event that the best-practice partners provide training for them.

15. 5. Design the Lessons Learned Process • Critical requirements • Speed is important • Lessons learned about lessons learned

16. Critical Requirement #1: Lessons Learned Are Part of a Quality Framework

17. Critical Requirement #2: Embed Lessons Learned Process Into the Work

18. Critical Requirement #3: Ease of Lessons Learned Access and Education

19. 5. Design the Lessons Learned Process • Critical requirements • Speed is important • Lessons learned about lessons learned

20. 6. Ensure Participation • Participation Enablers • Provide process training. • Set expectations. • Recognize the opportunity (for reuse). • Build lessons learned into performance review objectives. • Make access easy.

21. 7. Measure the Impact of the Lessons Learned Process • Measurement Factors: • The measures for the source of the lesson are different than those of the process to transfer lessons to other recipients. • Process measures are important to understand the effectiveness of the process. • Business impact measures are critical to show the value to the organization. • Measuring for individual as well as organizational reuse is critical for measuring reuse as a whole.

22. Source and Recipient Measures Sample Source Measures • Number of lessons learned events attended • Satisfaction with the event • Satisfaction with the process • Value of participation • Number of lessons captured • Value of applying the lessons Sample Recipient Measures • Awareness of availability of lessons • Ability to find relevant lessons (ease of use of tool) • Value of information about the lesson • Number of lessons reused/adapted • Value or impact of reuse

23. Why Process Measures? • Process measures are necessary. • Understand the effectiveness of the process • Recognize progress toward program objectives • Sample process measures include: • number of lessons identified, • number of lessons submitted, • percent of submitted lessons validated and published, • number of lessons downloaded or accessed, • number of active participants, and • number of lessons reused/applied.

24. Measuring for Business Impact Is Also Necessary • Business impact measures provide balance to the process measures. • They should illustrate the benefits gained from the reuse or application of lessons learned. • Sample business impact measures • time saved • cost savings • process improvements • reduction of errors/mistakes • standardization of best practices • treasure

25. What do you see? Now, what do you see?

26. Individual and Organizational Reuse • It is important to consider individual as well as organizationalreuse in order to have a complete picture of the reuse of lessons learned as a whole. • Provide information on how individuals are reusing lessons learned in their daily work and the resulting perceived benefits • Show how the organization, as a whole, benefits from the reuse of lessons learned

27. 15th Annual Knowledge Management Conference Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa, Houston, TX April 29-30, 2010 – Conference April 26-28, 2010 – Training/Workshops Applying Benchmarking Skills Building & Sustaining CoPs KM Strategies & Tactics Knowledge Mapping Measuring the Impact of KM

28. APQC Highlights

29. Who We Are • APQC is a member-based, non-profit organization • Founded in 1977 • Started with donations from 100 corporations • Non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) • Serves more than 500 organizations around the world • 32-year reputation founded on integrity and the support of rapid innovation through • Process improvement and measurement • Best practice research and implementation • Knowledge capture, transfer, and reuse • Quick facts: • Board of Directors: 45 senior executives from corporations, education, and government • Staff of 80

30. 2009 North America MAKE Award Winner • Apple • APQC • ConocoPhillips • Fluor • Google • Hewlett-Packard • IBM • IDEO • Microsoft • MITRE

31. What We Do:APQC’s Mission To work with people in organizations around the world to improve productivity and quality by: • discovering effective methods of improvement, • broadly disseminating our findings, and • connecting individuals with one another and with the knowledge they need to improve.

32. APQC Provides Three Types of Research • Open Standards Benchmarking—global metric research and benchmarking based on Open Standards • Consortium Benchmarking—multi-company best-practice collaboration around a common set of issues or processes • Custom benchmarking– for unique needs

33. APQC’s Process Classification FrameworkSM

34. APQC’s Previous KM Consortium Studies • Sustaining Effective Communities of Practice (In Progress) • Cutting the Costs of Not Knowing: Lessons Learned Systems People Really Use (2009) • Expertise Location and Social Networking (2008) • The Role of Evolving Technologies: Accelerating Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer (2007) • Retaining Today’s Knowledge for Tomorrow’s Workforce (2007) • Leveraging Knowledge Across the Value Chain (2006) • Using Communities of Practice to Drive Organizational Performance and Innovation (2005) • Integrating KM and Organizational Learning (2004) • Transfer of Best Practices (2004) • Virtual Collaboration (2003-2004) • Expertise Locator Systems (2003) • Measuring the Impact of Knowledge Management (2003) • Using Knowledge Management to Drive Innovation (2002) • Retaining Valuable Knowledge (2001) • Managing Content and Knowledge (2001) • Building and Sustaining Communities of Practice (2000) • Successfully Implementing KM (1999-2000) • Creating a Knowledge Sharing Culture (1998-99) • Expanding Knowledge Externally (1998) • Europe - The Learning Organisation & KM (1997) • Using Information Technology for KM (1997) • Emerging Best Practices in KM (1996)