Learning Lessons & Managing KnowledgeLucy Shore & Lisa McGuinness

Lucy Shore - Risk & Value Manager, London North East

Introductions

Turner & Townsend 2006-2007

Faithful + Gould 2007 - 2010

Network Rail 2010 - now

Lisa McGuinness - Risk & Value Analyst

Introductions

8 years experience, Network Rail Risk & Value

12 years working in the railway industry

Aim

How Network Rail approach Lessons Learned; the big picture

• Why do Lessons Learned?

• What would a good Lessons Learned process look like?

• Network Rail Vision

• Network Rail Tools

• Does it work?

Why Lessons Learned?Section number to go here

Lessons Learned – why bother?

(John Powell)

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing."

“A Lesson will repeat itself until learned”

Lessons Learned Aims

• Identify improved ways of working for the future

• Undertake a critical examination and review of projects by project teams

• Promote fact-based decision making

• A learn before, during and after approach to project management

Network Rail History

• Similar projects and many years experience

• Lessons Learned reports capture good information, however, they vary widely in quality and coverage

• Ensuring that the right lesson is shared with the right people at the right time has proved difficult

• Using lessons to inform the development of new projects is a challenge

Activity 1

What would a good Lessons Learned process look like?

Systems vs. CultureSection number to go here

Lessons Learned Approach

1. Systems• How can we consolidate and condense the lessons into

meaningful, searchable chunks of information that are digestible?

2. Culture & Behaviour• How can we encourage the

workforce want to learn?

1. Systems

• Network Rail have an existing system with lots of historic lessons learned documents filed.

• We have been developing a system to make it easier to browse and find relevant reports.

1. Systems – the challenges

• Length of reports – how to find the “Knowledge nugget”

• How to order the information – project number / assets / key themes / dates

• How to include context if the “nugget” is concise

• No more than 2 or 3 clicks

• Assumes proactive approach to learning

“This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of

being read.”

2. Culture & Behaviour

“Attitude is a little thing that makes a big

difference.”

“I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.”

2. Culture & Behaviour

Different Attitudes• Naturally proactive

• Bitten by a bad experience

• Cover my own back - “tick the boxes”

• We’ve always done it this way, why change?

Challenge to accommodate and engage all of these people!

Activity

• Split into two groups.

Group 1: Systems

Group 2: Culture

• Brainstorm ideas to achieve each of the qualities originally identified.

• Have you got a relevant example that you have implemented that could be shared?

• Capture on flipcharts & nominate a speaker to feedback

Our vision

Section number to go here

Principles:

• Effective learning is about people first, and processes and systems second

• It is a strength to ask for help

• Help is best received from peers

• Make it easy to find the right people

• Establish networks and communities of practice

• Learn before, during and after key events and stages in a project

• Consistent, repeated lessons must inform corporate process/standards change

Vision:

Our Tools

Section number to go here

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Lessons Learned Tools

Retrospective review (VM4)

• VM4 (Value Management) is carried out towards the end of GRIP 6. It's purpose is to identify successes and problems and explore how they occurred, so that future projects may learn from these experiences.

After action review

• AAR is a short (circa 15 minutes), focused and structured review of an event or activity analysing what was planned, what actually happened and how it can be improved in the future.

Lessons Learned Tools

Peer assist

• "Someone has done it before". It is a strength to ask for help and drawing on the experience of others will help you to deliver ‘right first time’, faster and more efficiently.

Skills and experience

• Find out ‘who knows what’ and who can help make your project a greater success.

iKnow

• Your questions answered.

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Ow

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Peer Assist

Section number to go here

Peer Assist

• The purpose of the Peer Assist process is to review the direction of a project in the presence of peers who have already undertaken similar activities, to allow them to introduce their experience and to bring best practice into the project

• Peer Assist meetings can be undertaken at any time during the project lifecycle

at the beginning of a project (GRIP 1/2)

at the end of the Development phase (GRIP 4)

in the lead up to critical stageworks or commissionings (GRIP 5/6)

Consider the following:• Communicate the purpose

• Share your peer assist plans with others

• Identify a suitable facilitator for the meeting

• Schedule a date for the peer assist

• Invite potential participants

• Desired deliverables

• Create the right environment

• Listen for understanding

• Consider who else might benefit from this knowledge

• Commit to actions

Peer Assist

• No template – to encourage open discussion.

• All the above information is available on the Lessons Learned Connect Webpage:

• http://connect/delivery/MajorProjectsandInvestment/LessonsLearned/LearningFromYourPeers.aspx

Skills and ExperienceSection number to go here

Skills & Experience

• Each discipline has identified relevant areas of expertise and mapped these against people who have those skills. The result is a skills and experience matrix.

• These can be found through the Skills & Experience Lessons Learned Connect Page

Skills & Experience

Retrospective Review (VM4)Section number to go here

VM4

• Lessons Learned should be about project successes as well as problems encountered

• A VM4 Study can be applied at any stage of the programme/ project (e.g. a significant commissioning). It may then inform the next stage of the project/ programme of works

VM4 Template & Guidance

• Can be found on Lessons Learned Connect Page and also through the GRIP Project Management Index.

Lessons Learned Connect Page

GRIP Product Index

Further Information in the VM Work Instructions

After Action ReviewSection number to go here

What is AAR?

• An AAR is a short (about 15 minutes), focused and structured review of an event or activity (e.g. placing a contract, or completion of work in a possession)

what was planned?

what actually happened?

recommendations for the future?

• An AAR should be undertaken as soon after the event or activity as feasible i.e. while memories are fresh!

• A facilitator should be nominated to focus the AAR, structuring the thinking and articulating the learning clearly. This facilitator may be a member of the group or an independent facilitator, e.g. local Risk & Value team

AAR Template & Guide

• Available on the After Action Review Part of the Lessons Learned page on connect

After Action Review

• Template includes an auto-email function to send it to relevant discipline experts.

• These are filed in the same place as the VM4 reports.

iKnow

Section number to go here

iKnow

• iKnow is a knowledge sharing platform that has been developed to give people the ability to ask and answer work-related questions

• Users can rate answers via a voting system, thereby highlightingthe most useful information and helping best practice to be shared

• It is simple:

Anyone can ask questions

Anyone can answer those questions

Everyone ranks the answers, depending on how useful they think they are

iKnows within Investment Projects

• Construction management

• Cross-discipline project engineering

• Programme management & controls

• Systems Engineering

• Buildings & Civils

• HSEA

• Contracts

iKnow

• iKnow is a knowledge sharing platform that has been developed to give people the ability to ask and answer work-related questions

• Users can rate answers via a voting system, thereby highlightingthe most useful information and helping best practice to be shared

• It is simple:

Anyone can ask questions

Anyone can answer those questions

Everyone ranks the answers, depending on how useful they think they are

Does it work?Section number to go here

Benefits of our system

• Varied approach to deal with different people, topics and enthusiasm.

• Promotes active engagement with people; meetings / blog / discussions

• Good volume of information captured

• Quality information filtered by Subject Matter Experts / Rankingsystem in iKnow.

• Feedback of lessons learned into Network Rail processes, standards and regulations

Learning lessons, not storing lessons!

Weaknesses of our system

• Information is captured in various formats – where to find what you want!

• The search functionality in the software used to find documents could be better

• Critical mass needed to reap benefits of iknow

• Significant work for Subject Matter Exports to keep on top of information

• Emphasis of ownership lies on project teams which are often in process of disbanding

Aspirations / Work in Progress

• Review of software to improve search function. Use of “filtering toolkit” to interface between intranet and file system.

• A marketing campaign to be launched internally to educate, encourage and engage.

–Local Briefings / Emails / Stories on Intranet / Posters etc.

–Ensure once everything working well – don’t want to lose audience.

• Considering changing the ownership of capturing lessons from project teams, to “knowledge champions”.

–Research key themes, to build data on a focussed topic.

Thank you, any questions?