History and Learned Lessons – different sources for Risk Management

By Eugenio, on August 20th, 2009

Learning lessons

“Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age.”

Experience is the most intimate element of our personalities. It could be defined as the mortar linking the brinks – to be intended as every single situation happened to us.
In the same time it is the basis of our knowledge. The well from we draw on, every time a decision shall be taken.

Education, on the other hand, should help us in the process of increasing the ability to form our knowledge until we can distinguish the different and grade the reliability of our sources.

Experience and education are the two legs that help us to walk outside the boundaries set by our predecessors.

History, in western culture, has at least two fathers: Thucydides and Herodotus.
Thucydides was the inventor of the history based on a strict standard of chronology, and then he collected and reported all available documents. The result is an essential tool, however difficult to read.
Herodotus was a marvelous storyteller, who taught us the importance of environment – both natural and cultural – for catching the whole scenario and then using it for finding the pleasure and energy for further (more rigorous) analysis.

An unavoidable process

In our projects, the importance of recording fact is limited by the following factors:

Cost of retrieving, tracking and storing (reliable) data
Standardizing the measurement units for evaluating the results (what done means)
Capability of understand the hierarchy of events and then find the root of the problem.
Distinguishing facts, figures and making an unbiased association between them and the persons who were involved.

Collecting (objective) data about the ongoing production is the only way to evaluate the single outputs in order to maintain the support needed for delivering the agreed outcome.
Risk management is about increase the chances that all known causes that could hamper the delivery can be reduced if not eliminated.

Risk Management as ancillary technique

Projects are made by people. Bringing this wonderful and confused mix of hearts and minds to the target requires the just blend of leadership and management.

Risk Management belongs to the second part of the recipe. Partly, this is due to its “mathematical” nature.
Making the future more foreseeable requires to distillate the past for obtaining “sterilized” figures that will be also used for estimations.
The very same information – in its integral version, which includes the personal expectations and biases – is used for managing and leading the whole project.

During the project’s life, the decision taken, also on the Risk Management Plan, are recorded for creating the “Learned Lessons”, the history that will be used for understanding what has occurred thereof the root of the events.

The importance of “Learned Lessons”

There is an interesting post from Ron Rosenhead about the steps that form the process of learning. In essence, the knowledge recovered is valid only when it is actionable and measurable. It is the main tool for improving both our experience and education.
“Learned Lessons” contain references to many elements that can be unique. It is desirable that professional people grow up; this means that some problems manifested in the past (under different conditions) can be avoided. Furthermore, some problem’s roots, for example those related to – implementing new – regulations, are almost impossible to be repeated.

Using two techniques for one history

“Lesson Learned” provide the whole scenario. Avoiding carefully the “blame game”, people and situations shall be analyzed in view of the results, which shall be framed into the existing conditions.
Risk management needs a “scientific” approach. It has to supply reliable facts and figures highlighting the logic that produced them. These elements come from the “Learned Lessons”.

Conclusion

“Who owns the past, shapes the future” is the message coming from 1984.
The idea of tracking every relevant activity for making a tool for increasing the capability of our judgment, can be a source of worrying. It can be viewed as a subtle way for re-introducing Taylorism, with the implicit risk of nullifying each producer’s creativity.
Lean Management is an excellent example about how the analysis of the past (e.g. JIT) can be used for improving the present and increasing the chances for the future.

A PM's workshop