Learning from Experience (LfE)

Basics

What is it?
Handbook on how teams can learn from experience. A method of facilitating interviews and/or discussions in which a team (with others as necessary), learns from their experience in a positive and non-confrontational manner.

Useful where?
At any time, in particular:

• Foresight reviews, before starting on a project.
• Insight reviews, while undertaking a project.
• Hindsight reviews, when a project is over.

What else does it do?
It is a general purpose technique anyway.

Related activities
The Higher Education Design Quality Forum's (HEDQF's) technique for facilitated "Fora" for post-project appraisal.

In what sectors?
Any, provided there is a willingness to learn and share experience. Ideally there should be a culture of mutual trust, but the LfE process can itself help to create this.

Relevance
Very relevant principles for getting people together and talking positively and creatively in situations which might otherwise be delicate and potentially confrontational.

Development status

Who developed it?
A PII team, led by David Bartholomew Associates, has combined two techniques used in other sectors and adapted them for use in the construction industry. They are:

• The after-action review, developed by the US Army and successfully adapted for other sectors by BP Exploration and others.
• The learning history, developed by the Sloan School of Management at MIT with input from various corporations.

Stage of development
Developed and pilot tested in a PII which ran from 2001 to March 2003

Examples of its use
Examples are discussed in ‘Building on knowledge’ (see references). Six pilots were undertaken in the PII.

Further development happening?
Encouraging results from the pilots confirms that the techniques work and are suitable for immediate implementation. A new PII proposal - ‘Spreading the Word’ - on knowledge management in design offices was developed from 2003-2005. The study produced the Knowledge Sharing toolkit which was researched by David Bartholomew Associates and nine collaborative partners. The toolkit examines how knowledge in general is assimilated and how best to pass it on to others in a construction based workplace. It describes methods such as workshops, interviews, Wikis, databases of expertise, communities of practice and mentoring and using case studies to demonstrate. Its relevance in this context is that it aims to give design teams the tools to effectively take on board POE feedback and transfer it to others in the field.

Development contacts
Dr David Bartholomew, David Bartholomew Associates,
db@dba-insight.co.uk

How it works

Brief description
The Learning From Experience Manual describes techniques for resourcing, setting-up, running, leading and reporting on one or more feedback workshops and/or interviews to learn from the experience of a team.

Typically there are five phases to an exercise:

1. planning,
2. gathering information
3. creating knowledge
4. sharing knowledge
5. applying knowledge.

LfE exercises can be worthwhile in themselves, but only the participants - in the sense of the individual people who take part - benefit directly. For a design practice or a client to get the best out of LfE, the knowledge that emerges from it needs to diffuse throughout the organisation; that multiplies its value enormously. This is why the natural progression of LfE moved towards developing the Knowledge Sharing toolkit, to facilitate the transfer of information. In that sense LfE can be seen as just one part of a wider process.

Is there software?
No. This is applicable to the technique itself, but the results of the learning exercises will be most effectively disseminated in the larger organisations which have operational knowledge management systems and software.

How long does it take?
Depends on what is required. It could be a single one-off seminar or become a departmental or organisational routine.

Can I do it myself?
Yes, using the Manual. Most of the pilot projects used it successfully by themselves and found that they did not require independent facilitation, even though this was on offer.
It is designed to be carried out at various levels of formality to suit the situation.

Can someone else do it for me?
Possibly but it is more of a do-it-yourself method.

User comments
“It is simple, and it works.” - TRANSCO

References
BARTHOLOMEW, D. (2008) Building on knowledge: developing expertise, creativity and intellectual capital in the construction professions, Oxford, Wiley-Blackwell.

Is the technique in the public domain?
Yes.

Are the methods open to inspection with technical support papers?
Yes.

Are the results in the public domain?
No, apart from the case studies and those in ‘Building on knowledge’.

Are there stable benchmarks?
Not applicable.

Is there an accreditation system?
No

Organisations offering
David Bartholomew,
Contact name: David Bartholomew.