Abstract: 

Assembling “lessons learned” in the aftermath of corporate initiatives, as part of project post-mortems, or as an element of business operations is a broad practice across industries and companies. “Lessons learned” is cited as the single most common method for identifying improvements in skills, methods and tools – the way business is done. And gaining experiential knowledge and skill through mechanisms such as “lessons learned” is the foundation for achieving high-maturity performance. Most companies have practices for gathering “lessons learned”. Some are useful. But all too often we encounter “lessons repeated”, not “lessons learned”. How often, for example, have you discovered that your own corporate life experience, knowledge and wisdom so painfully gained and diligently recorded is never actually used to make life better? Why aren’t lessons really learned? And what can you do about it? We will take a humorous and pragmatic view of the subject and, based on experience, provide you with effective tools to build your knowledge capital. We’ll begin with a humorous count down of the top 10 reasons why “lessons learned” aren’t actually learned and applied. Don’t be surprised to find some or perhaps many of these anecdotal reasons strike close to home! Next we’ll examine the essence of “lessons learned” with two questions: just what is a “lesson” and what, exactly, was I supposed to have “learned”? Together we’ll review and discuss the ten components of an effective system you can immediately apply to capture and use your empirical and experiential performance results. We’ll conclude with a review of ten common pitfalls that you can and should avoid in putting this solution into practice. Incorporate the elements of this presentation as one of your own “lessons learned”.

Bio: