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REASON ® Lessons Learned

Broadcasting Lessons Learned Knowledge

Broadcasting knowledge is all about getting the right information to the right person. The most valuable information to a maintenance mechanic may be of little professional value to a brain surgeon, and vice versa. Beyond the relevance of the information is the issue of access to and the availability of the data. In a lessons learned context, that information must also be immediately and conveniently available if it is to fill the role as an on-the-job resource. These fundamental considerations must be dealt with in order to efficiently and effectively broadcast lessons learned knowledge.

Relevancy of Lessons Learned Data

REASON Lessons Learned deals with the relevancy of information to individuals by enabling users to submit a personal information profile to the system of the issues and concerns that are relevant to their responsibilities, interests and authorities. These profiles serve as the targeting mechanism for REASON data. As operations problems are solved around the organization, information about the problem and the identified prevention solutions flows into the system. REASON is watching the incoming data. When a match to a profile is found, an alert is automatically sent only to the appropriate individual. Thus every broadcast is relevant to the receiving individual’s personal profile of requested information. In moments, the individuals can be accessing the full details of the problem and its solutions from the REASON Lessons Learned System in order to take the appropriate steps to head off or deal with a developing problem in their area of responsibility.

Submission of data profiles is a dynamic process enabling clients of the system to update their concerns and issues as their responsibilities change. The same mechanism serves as a managed broadcasting capability by which an executive can focus the attention of a pre-selected group upon a particular issue such as the increased incidence of counter-quality associated with a particular process or project.

Utility of Lessons Learned Data

Unless the knowledge contained within a lessons learned system is targeted to the user’s needs, a lessons learned system is no more than an archive for special records. Access and communication issues can cascade into problems that degrade the utility of the system until users become frustrated and discouraged from using the system. Various approaches to communicating information have been tried over the years by designers of lessons learned systems: some have bound specially prepared lessons into distributed booklets. Others have blanketed users with emails and newsletters. Still others post records into data bases and provide words search access to the data. While these approaches have attempted to broadcast and communicate the information, there are fundamental obstacles to effective communications that are inherent in these approaches and are best illustrated by the individual sitting at a table peering at us from behind a mountain of daily reports with glazed eyes and a smile of frustration. If the data are instead posted to a lessons learned data base, that same individual achieves glazed eyes when his words search finds dozens of possible reports that he must then read to determine if any are relevant to his problem. REASON overcomes and eliminates this frustration with its “situational search” engine. The REASON system seeks to find when factors combined at points in time to produce a causal step that led to a problem. In other words, every case found by the search is a direct hit that deals with the problem of the individual.

The REASON Lessons Learned System is termed a “push and pull” system. It automatically pushes out knowledge to targeted individuals and it pulls relevant data from the system to meet the immediate on-the-job needs of operations personnel.

For more information on REASON Lessons Learned, please call (903) 236-9973.