When it comes to lessons learned, having a growth mindset contributes to ongoing improvements, and ongoing improvements are all about taking action from what you’ve learned. Last week I posted a quote on LinkedIn that got a bit of attention because it is so applicable to work having just moved through a pandemic.
Here’s the quote:
“The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself.”
C. JoyBell C.
What is a lessons learned?
A company that wishes to take on a continuous improvement model, can not do so if they fail to bring their lessons forward making decisions and setting direction by applying actions from what they have learned in the past. One example would the continuous improvement model used by Microsoft where experimentation and ongoing lessons learned are applied and supported throughout the company. For many organizations, systematic lessons learned is a document that sits in a single person’s desk with little or no output. In others, it’s not often defined as a company effort, but follows a project yet still never reaches decision makers, sure a Knowledge-base article may be written, but does anyone refer to it?
The problem with these typical approaches is that they fail to move the company forward. Projects and transformations are, by their nature, exhausting, getting to the end and finalizing resourcing and budgets are the goal of the team, what happens next seems to be business as usual.
So how can a company get better at learning from what they are doing? We’ve created a canvas that we use to work with organizations in helping them both learn and move forward by improving as they go.
Step 1: Identify the defining impacts to your organization. What changes have they gone through significant to the organization?
Step 2: Prioritize defining areas of change. Narrowing down to the top 5 things that the change impacted and are significant to the effort.
Step 3+4: Facilitate engagement to understand what was beneficial and what was detrimental. This is where the magic begins, gaining knowledge from the stakeholders impacted to learn what worked and what did not work.
Step 5+6: Present and Recommend. After your facilitated events with key stakeholders (don’t forget customers), it is time to make those lessons work for you in a way that is presentable to the Executive with key recommendations. Using the Canvas separately for each facilitated group, you can end each meeting gathering recommendations leading to the executive presentation. Steps 5+6 are not necessarily linear, you will be bouncing between what is important to share with decision-makers and the recommendations made by the stakeholders.
Hints:
- Use someone great at facilitating groups using common language that invites collaboration and safety in sharing.
- Partner cross-functionally – with HR/IT/Marketing as the function fits the effort and impact to analyze and make recommendations.
- Ask your Executive Sponsor for assistance in how to present a meaningful set of recommendations to the Executive.
- We discourage you from asking the Executive Sponsor to present the recommendations, as questions will arise that will need the right context and background shared.
- Start making this a matter of habitual process for all major changes or experiments in product/process development resulting from testing. Making voices heard throughout the organization and acting on recommendations increases trust and performance.
- Use this as a starting point for defining your own systematic Lessons Learned process within your organization.
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GlobalSWAY provides CaaS (Consulting as a Service) devoted to Digital Leaders with hand-picked experts in Digital Leadership, Executive Coaching, Interim CIO, Organizational Design, and IT Governance.
