On the Technological, Human, and Managerial Issues in Sharing Organizational Lessons

Abstract Lessons learned systems (LLS) are systems that support a lessons learned process (LLP) to collect, verify, store, disseminate, and reuse organizational lessons. In this pa -per we examine technological, human, and managerial problems that contribute to the limited reuse of lessons in deployed LLS. This analysis results in the identification of a set of requirements that when met tend to improve the reuse of lessons. These requirements are mainly re-lated to the identification and representation of a lesson’s reuse components, i.e., what in a lesson is essential to promote reuse. We present and demonst rate a standard-ized format for lessons and a lesson elicitation tool (LET) that uses this format to collect lessons from human users and addresses some of the requirements while contribut -ing to the satisfaction of other requirements. This tool il -lustrat es how technological solutions can impact human and managerial problems. Introduction Lessons learned systems (LLS) support a lessons learned process (LLP) to collect, verify, store, disseminate, and reuse organizational lessons. Existing systems support collection with textual input tools, store lessons in text databases, and support dissemination through standalone retrieval tools that offer variants of hierarchical browsing and keyword search. Verification and reuse are performed manually. Knowledge art ifacts (e.g., lessons learned, alerts, best practices) are knowledge structures that embed underlying concepts along with their conditions of applicability and rationale (Weber et al. 2001b). Organizational lessons (also called lessons learned, lessons identified ) are or-ganization -specific knowledge artifacts that (a) originate from both successful and unsuccessful experiences, (b) are validated, (c) are applicable to a work practice of an organizational process, and (d) generate a positive impact on the process when reused (Weber, Aha and Becerra-Fernandez 2001a). They embody a suggestion that em-beds relevant knowledge that has been learned through working experiences and can be reused to generate a pos i-tive impact on the process to which applied. Lesson s must include a set of reuse-oriented components: the sug -gestion , the applicable action (i.e., a work practice) it is intended to impact, the conditions for its applicability, and the originating event rationale. We suggest a standardized format for orga nizational lessons (Table 1) based on these components. In a recent survey on lessons learned systems, Weber, Aha and Becerra -Fernandez (2001a) identified two main problems in that prevent these systems from distributing knowledge. First, the knowledge in organizational lessons is typically collected and stored in textual form. Textual lessons are difficult to retrieve and have to be interpreted (i.e., assessed for relevance) before they can be reused. Secondly, lessons learned repositories are built as stand -alone tools and therefore are never disseminated in the context in which they are used. In this paper, we reexamine these technological prob -lems and analyze the corresponding human and manage -rial problems that obstruct knowledge sharing. When searchi ng for remedies and appropriate techniques to im -prove lesson reuse, we describe solutions that also address human and managerial aspects.