Lessons Learned

For several years I have wondered about how we learn as individuals and as corporations. An individual relies on experience which is contained in two forms - tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is information, facts and figures contained within each person. It is communicated verbally through conversation, storytelling, etc. When that information is written or presented visually it becomes explicit knowledge.

In my own career I am in a constant state of learning. I plan work, schedule it, and execute it only to learn I have missed some detail I had not considered. On the next job I plan work, schedule, include the item I missed last time, execute it and learn something new again. In a nutshell that is how I build experience in my position and add value to our organization.

Take an individual, such as myself, who is learning. Now add three hundred other workers who are all collecting data through mistakes, mishaps, or other events. It turns out everyone is in a constant state of learning, but the learning remains mostly tacit. When a worker leaves a company you don't just lose someone in a specific role at the company. You are losing a great deal of knowledge specific to that organization. Lose enough people and the damage results in the failure to pass on knowledge to the next generation of employees.

So how can an organization capture the experiences of the employees to pass along to current employees and future ones? I hope to use this post to begin the discussion.

Just yesterday I sat through a presentation of 'lessons learned' from several projects. Each presenter had different points, but a pattern seemed to emerge after a while to where the lessons learned filtered in to the following categories: Scopes, Materials, and Sequencing/Scheduling, and change documents.

Scopes
The scope of work is like the Rosetta Stone of the project (Not the language learning software, but the original Rosetta Stone). The scope takes the drawings, and specifications, and makes them trade & site specific. Drawings tell you what, how many, and where. The Specifications tell you the quality of those items. Neither drawings or specifications tell you who should be doing this work. A properly written scope is used to bid the job correctly and maintain clear lines of responsibility during construction.

And still there my be gaps. These in turn should serve as lessons learned for the next project. For example - Drywall point up. At the end of every project, as the paint crews come in, there are usually scratches or areas that need some drywall touch-up. Written in to a drywall subs scope this will mean the superintendent has more leverage at the end of a project to maintain the quality and complete the project while avoiding ticket work.

Materials
When a set of drawings include a new material, like a custom fire place, it is not cause for concern, but an opportunity to learn! Delve in to the details, develop a checklist, and see if it works. If not, why not? Learn the issues and share it with a designer so that the next project is that much better.

Sequencing
All the steps that must be done to accomplish work can be overwhelming. The drawings show two lines to indicate partitions and Virtual Construction only models certain items. What about the 3/4" conduit that has to be run from A-to-B, or the refrigerant lines that are run at the end of the job, or the security and data vendors that come in after the space is complete? How do we plan for these items, account for them, to ensure the work is able to be completed. These sequencing items are critical for a project and cannot be captured in a Primavera or MS Project schedule which deals in days and weeks.

Change Documents
Change documents include drawing issuance, RFIs, submittals & shop drawings, change orders, and subcontractor changes. A project begins with a set of drawings and specifications. Once a project is complete there is a trail of documents that combine to form the Project Documents. This set of documents is wealth of information that usually gets boxed up and set aside. Alternately we should task every project with a Project Closeout Report to capture the lessons learned, like a post-mortem or an after-action review.

• Did we write RFIs about missing dimensions? If so, how much time did our layout engineers lose in the field?
• Did we write RFIs about missing or incomplete details? If so, what are the parts to look for?
• Did we have to issue a change order for backfilling that was not accounted for? How much did that cost us and how do we avoid it in the future?

All of these items cost someone money and time. Little by little a questions will delay progress by half an hour. Half and hour here and there add up in lost time for production, wasted time resolving gaps, and fire drills. How can we analyze a set of drawings early to avoid this?

And better still what is the best way to capture and disseminate lessons learned. The main goal is to get work in place. It is not easy to say, let's stop and think about what just happened, and how we can learn from it on this job, avoid it in the future, and share it with the other teams?

To be continued....