So, everyone always talks about applying all the "Lessons Learned" from prior projects, quality spills, etc. to the next ones. Ensure you don't repeat the same mistakes over and over. So, what software is out there, that you've had direct experience with, that you really like the product and can recommend that I look into, to improve our ability to document, transfer, and search for prior lessons learned? Go... And, thanks, if there turn out to be any hits...
From an IT perspective - app dev mgt and operations : It is team knowledge and needs built culturally. Most times when forensics are done it is for assigning blame instead of group learning. Also most lessons learned typically stop at the illustration that a process that already exists wasn't followed. It doesn't dig into the culture that exists or direction given (explicit or implicit) that causes the defined process to not be followed. Likely indicates that not enough attention to process improvement is going on also. I prefer to turn them into positives - tenets - "we will always...." and ensure that I (as manager) am not the one preaching and proselytizing - the team members have to learn and understand and live and breath it and hold each other accountable. I help ensure the culture of learning and minimizing mistakes is the goal. So, your tool - PowerPoint presentation page - 1 to 3 pages max - you identify the lessons learned and show how they turn into (tenets) items that in your culture are positive things to do - to always do. Revisit it quarterly, ensure you are getting the teams feedback, not just your own. And don't lapse on process improvement.
Otherwise ITIL/ITSM software - e.g. ServiceNow. Gartner says http://www.bmc.com/blogs/gartner-magic-quadrant-itssm/ Again, how you use it (culture) drives value. Any of these tools will track, but how you get reductions/improvements is best driven from positive culture change.
OneNote is also a good tool to track stuff. Images with text can be searched and emails attached directly to the document.
We use and pay for Zoho and the CRM section. It helps track day to day activity, follow up with customers, etc.
Thanks guys. I agree with the culture aspect of it. True lessons learned sharing is difficult. Look to fix the problem, not the blame. That said, we launch 60+ programs globally every year, and for sure we repeat the same mistakes over and over and often don't even know it until we're deep in trouble. I'm looking for a tool, accessible by people in different regions, with wide applicability. We can create as many spreadsheets and powerpoints as we want, hold as many meetings as we want, but you still need an IT tool that houses the information for months and years later when we want to avoid repeat mistakes.
I look at it like this. Documentation is rarely (if ever) updated once it's written in most organizations. Even if it is, most people don't look at it to get the information if there is someone they can go to to ask the question. Having said all that, we keep a lot of our information (as I said above) in One Note on a shared corporate OneDrive account. That way it can be easily accessible by anyone that you share it with. One Note allows for all kinds of ways to organize and assimilate information. It's search functionality is pretty impressive.
