Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for organisational learning through projects

Article

Duffield, Stephen and Whitty, S. Jonathan. 2015. "Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for organisational learning through projects." International Journal of Project Management. 33 (2), pp. 311-324. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2014.07.004
Article Title

Developing a systemic lessons learned knowledge model for organisational learning through projects

ERA Journal ID3498
Article CategoryArticle
AuthorsDuffield, Stephen (Author) and Whitty, S. Jonathan (Author)
Journal TitleInternational Journal of Project Management
Journal Citation33 (2), pp. 311-324
Number of Pages14
Year2015
PublisherElsevier
Place of PublicationKidlington, OX. United Kingdom
ISSN0263-7863
1873-4634
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2014.07.004
Abstract

A significant challenge for government and business project organisations is to ensure that lessons are learned and that mistakes of the past are not repeated. Both knowledge and project management literature suggests that in practice lessons learned processes rarely happen, and when it does it is concerned with lessons identification rather than organisational learning. There are limited practical models for general management to use to conceptualise what organisational learning is and therefore how to enable it. However, aspects of health care, nuclear power, rail, and aviation organisations have successfully implemented organisational learning by way of the Swiss cheese model for safety and systemic failures. This paper proposes an adaptation of the Swiss cheese model to enable project organisations to conceptualise how they learn from past project experiences and distribute successful project know-how across an organisational network of elements such as individual learning, culture, social, technology, process and infrastructure.

Keywordsknowledge management; lessons learned; organisational learning; project management; Swiss cheese model
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020350302. Business information management (incl. records, knowledge and intelligence)
350711. Organisational planning and management
330202. Building construction management and project planning
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Byline AffiliationsSchool of Management and Enterprise
Institution of OriginUniversity of Southern Queensland
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