FEATURED PAPER
By Luca Costa
Università degli Studi di Bologna
Bologna Business School
Bologna, Italy
Abstract
Projects generate a large amount of knowledge[1]. As knowledge is an important and valuable asset for organizations, its preservation and its sharing are object of many investments ranging from the implementation of complex systems, to consulting initiatives aiming to properly shape the behaviors of people, to the creation of academies to generate a profit out of knowledge transfer. Lessons Learned are a process to capture the knowledge generated by projects and should be collected with a proper process and reused for future activities to improve the quality of deliverables and to enhance the performance of any project’s aspect. The implementation of a successful Lessons Learned process implies several changes for organizations and depends on several factors, among those, culture is the driver that facilitates or hinders the adoption. The analysis of the culture provides insights about the readiness for change and facilitates the setting of a solid plan. In the following notes we use the models from Edgar Schein for the analysis of culture and the two forces model from Kurt Lewin. Some examples of process will provide insights about the implementation strategy.
The Role of Lessons Learned in Project Oriented Organizations
A project, as part of a Portfolio or a Program, is a basic component to implement the strategies of companies and to achieve or maintain long term benefits. Projects generate knowledge and as they deliver outcomes and achieve the intended objectives, the people involved cooperate to find original solutions to problems, improve the existing processes and reuse current solutions in new ways. In one single expression, organizations learn from experience and create knowledge out of it.
Knowledge is an important asset of organizations, a significant part of the value of their brand, that we will see is an artifact of the culture of a company. The dispersion of knowledge is a source of economic losses[2] and has several sources, like lack of sharing culture and turnover of resources difficult to replace. Losing knowledge impacts an organization at different depths[3]: Human Capital, Social Capital, Structural Capital, Relational Capital. The turnover of key resources brings a loss of knowledge in a direct form as lost competences and in an indirect form as relationships and organizational memory. For this reason, preserving knowledge is essential for companies and is a major concern for their top management. Several processes and tools have been sorted out across time to preserve knowledge: PLM Systems, Knowledge Bases, Operating Manuals and User’s Tutorials and the list may be largely extended.
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How to cite this paper: Costa, L. (2024). Cultural Aspects of Lessons Learned; PM World Journal, Vol. XIII, Issue IX, September. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/pmwj145-Sep2024-Costa-Cultural-Aspects-of-Lessons-Learned.pdf
About the Author
Luca Costa
Bologna, Italy
Luca Costa, MSc in Physics, Executive MBA at Bologna Business School, certified Project Management Professional (PMP™) acts mainly as a consultant both as a freelancer and for consulting companies based in Italy. An adjunct lecturer at the School of Economics and Management of the University of Bologna, for Bologna Business School he is directing three Open Programs, several Custom Programs about Project Management, Risk Management, PMP Certification and Change Management.
His main areas of interest are, in addition to Project and Program Management, Change Management, and in particular the measurement of Change Readiness of business environments, for which he has developed an original approach. He has also been a speaker at several conferences on these topics, including the PMI global summit in 2022.
In his past he acted first as Project and Program Manager, then as Business Developer for multinational IT companies, developing PLM solutions, managing projects for configurators and advanced graphics for automotive companies, and organizing Academies in multicultural environments. These often multicultural and complex experiences were the main factors that sparked his interest in project management and change management. He is, finally, a volunteer for the Project Management Institute for which he has served as Branch Director and has organized numerous conferences. He has personal interests in traveling, photography, history and he’s a passionate fan of the Boston Red Sox. He can be contacted at luca.costa@bbs.unibo.it
[1] See for example Grant (Grant, 2021) and Nonaka (Nonaka I. , 1994)
[2] See the “Workplace Knowledge and productivity Report” (Panopto, 2023)
[3] See “Measuring the Impact of Knowledge Loss: More Than Ripples on a Pond?” by Peter Massingham (Massingham, 2008).
