Fundamentals of Lessons Learned

podcast episode with speaker Fred Schenkelberg

Within an organization or a team, we collectively know a lot. We, again collectively, have a wealth of information. And, if you follow my Mom’s advice, we learn something new every day. We also forget a lot every day. When we forget something that we learned by making a mistake or error (learning the hard way), we are prone to repeat that mistake or error.

Organizations and teams also learn the hard way at times. Or someone recognizes a better way to accomplish something. Organizations also forget what they have learned. Either collectively, the organization’s members ‘forget’ the lesson learned, or the folks that do remember the lesson move on to a new role elsewhere. For an organization, there is significant value in avoiding repeating previous mistakes or in continuing to benefit from a better way.

Let’s discuss the idea and basics of a lessons-learned system. Plus, a few examples of how such systems go wrong. We will examine how FRACAS and CAPA systems are different. And finally, we will outline the best lesson-learned system I’ve seen in action.

This Accendo Reliability webinar was originally broadcast on 13 February 2024.