knowledge management and lessons learnt

Question 1

what does knowledge allow us to do

Answer 1

• improved planning and delivery of projects with all key issues taken into consideration
• development of project schedules and cost estimates that are more likely to be achievable
• improved understanding and management of risks and uncertainties that might impact on projects
• improved quality and supply chain management
• greater project control and understanding of EVM data
• improved engagement with project stakeholders

Question 2

define knowledge management

Answer 2

an effective means of learning from experience from projects, that combines explicit knowledge with tacit knowledge in a way that encourages people to learn and embed that learning into continuous improvement

Question 3

what is knowledge management based on?

Answer 3

an organisation’s most valuable resource is the knowledge of its people

Question 4

describe the effectiveness of knowledge management

Answer 4

depends on industry sector
* highly competitive, mass production: likely to be well done
* non-competitive, low volume, high-complex projects: less likely to be well done

Question 5

what drives knowledge management?

Answer 5

competition

Question 5

what are the two different types of knowledge?

Answer 5

explicit and tacit

Question 6

what is explicit knowledge?

Answer 6

• easily shared
• can be captured and written down in documents/databases (instruction manuals, written procedures and processes, performance/benchmarking data)

Question 7

how can we categorise explicit knowledge?

Answer 7

• structured = referenced for future retrieval (documents, databases etc.)
• unstructured = not referenced for retrieval (e-mails etc.)

Question 8

what is tacit knowledge?

Answer 8

• carried in people’s heads
• more of an ‘unspoken understanding’ about something, knowledge that is more difficult to write down, e.g. Lessons learned reviews, anecdotal information, experience
• difficult to access as it is often not known to others: most people are not aware of the knowledge they possess or of its value to others
• considered more valuable than explicit because it provides context for people, ideas, and experiences
• has been described as ‘know-how’ rather than ‘know-what’, ‘know-why’, or ‘know-who’
• involves learning and skill but is difficult to articulate

Question 9

why is it good to convert from tacit to explicit?

Answer 9

• help reduce risk and uncertainty
• better understanding (through experience gained) of issues
• better understanding of how to manage these issues
• helps us see the signs of approaching problems, allowing for effective management
• difficult to achieve this

Question 10

what problems can we encounter converting from tacit to explicit?

Answer 10

• people are a scarce resource and so are required on other projects; as a result, there is little time or appetite to conduct lessons learned exercises
• organisations are under pressure to keep delivering projects as they are typically in the business of making money
• people fail to see its value or lack motivation to do it
• it is not company policy/practice
• it takes time and discipline
• people get tired and just want to move on to the next project or decide to leave the organization
• lack of necessary organisational KM facilitation skills
• people see projects as being standard day job and so there is nothing original to learn from them
• management lacks debriefing/communication skills required to capture people’s experience and know-how
• people only see the downside of projects they have been involved in
• even where lesson gathering takes place, results are poorly documented or archived, are described too generically or are not accepted by the supposed beneficiaries
• company size: small companies might not be able to spare the resources while people can ‘become lost’ in large companies

Question 11

what is the importance of conducting lessons learned?

Answer 11

• lessons learned: project evaluation
• force organisations to state explicitly what they are trying to achieve on their projects, i.e. identify core project objectives
• provide information on project performance, enabling project members to take corrective action if project is not on track (EVM)
• enable organisations to learn what does and does not work so that processes can be altered if required (‘good’ and ‘bad’ practice)
• sessions should be run throughout a project rather than just at the end (parallels with ‘continuous
• improvement’)

Question 12

describe the project evaluation process

Answer 12

pre-project evaluation, mid-project evaluation(s), post-project evaluation

Question 13

what happens in pre-project evaluation?

Answer 13

• identifies criteria against which potential projects should be assessed
• selects projects that should be carried out

Question 14

what happens during the mid-project evaluation?

Answer 14

• identifies extent to which project performance criteria are being met
• determines actions that might be taken: bring projects in line with objectives; kill projects; do nothing

Question 15

what happens during the post-project evaluation?

Answer 15

• determines extent to which project achieved its performance criteria
• identifies what went right and what went wrong
• captures and promulgates

Question 16

discuss the 1986 NASA space shuttle challenger fail

Answer 16

• broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all 7 crew members
• disintegration began after an O-ring seal in the right solid rocket booster (SRB) failed at lift off
• other unlinked events, including cold weather and very high winds at a specific altitude, resulted in the shuttle exploding
• NASA opposed any delays to the launch
• NASA and Thiokol failed to redesign the O-ring seal and defined the problem as an acceptable flight risk
• commission highlighted flawed decision-making process: …failures in communication… resulted in a decision to launch based on incomplete and sometimes misleading information, a conflict between engineering data and management judgments, and a NASA management structure that permitted
• internal flight safety problems to bypass key Shuttle managers
• flaws in NASA’s ‘safety culture’ with public relations taking precedence over technology
• although changes were made by NASA after the accident, many commentators argued that the changes in its management structure and organisational culture were neither deep nor long-lasting

Question 17

discuss the 2003 NASA columbia space shuttle fail

Answer 17

• disintegrated shortly before concluding its mission, killing all 7 crew members
• during launch, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the external tank and struck the left wing
• most previous shuttle launches had seen similar, if more minor, damage from foam shedding but NASA deemed the risks acceptable
• when the Shuttle re-entered the atmosphere, the damage caused the shuttle to break up
• CAIB criticised NASA’s decision-making and risk-assessment processes
• organisational structure and processes were flawed
• e.g. Shuttle Programme Manager was responsible for achieving safe, timely launches and acceptable costs, which are often conflicting goals
• CAIB concluded NASA had failed to learn many of the lessons of Challenger
• the same ‘flawed decision making process’ that resulted in the Challenger accident was responsible for Columbia’s destruction 17 years later

Question 18

what are deep smarts?

Answer 18

• Those who have deep smarts can see the whole picture but zoom in on a specific problem others are unable to diagnose.
• Almost intuitively, they make the right decision, at the right level, with the right people…their insight is based more on know-how than on facts
• Deep smarts are the engine of any organisation and the essential value that individuals build throughout their careers.
• The focus of ‘deep smarts’ lies in practical wisdom, accumulated knowledge, know-how, and intuition gained through extensive experience.

Question 19

what do Leonard & Swap argue about deep smarts?

Answer 19

few organisations manage their ‘deep smarts’ assets well, especially when it comes to ‘succession planning’

Question 20

what are the consequences of bad knowledge management?

Answer 20

• loss of experience and know-how: once this is lost it can never be re-gained or certainly not in the same way
• organisations might have to downgrade the type of work they can take on because they no longer have the required skills and experience to do what they could do previously

Question 21

what are the barriers to effective knowledge management?

Answer 21

• inability to ask experts the ‘right’ questions
• cost and time
• absence of added value
• cultural, policy and practice issues (need to avoid ‘knowledge is power’ syndrome)
• politics (Some people just seem to go out of their way to stop improvements being implemented)