Section 3.1 Developing a Lesson Learned

Lessons Learned Handbook:

DOE-HDBK-7502-95

Section 3.1

Developing a Lesson Learned

"Developing" a lessons learned refers to the process of identifying, documenting, and

validating a lesson learned. The goals of lessons learned development are to conduct

initial filtering to make sure that the information is relevant and worthy of

documentation, to put the information in a format that is concise and can be shared

with others, to ensure that the information included is technically correct, and to

ensure that the information does not have any security or other restrictions that

prohibit its release. Each site should develop a process that is clear and as

streamlined as possible. For example, see Figure 3, below.

Identifying a Lessons Learned Experience

Anyone who knows about an experience, activity, event or good work practice that is

of value to others can originate a lesson learned. There are many potential sources of

lessons learned. Typical sources include:

Daily activities and experiences

Occurrence and incident reports

Assessment activities

Operational Readiness Reviews

Management reviews

Performance or process improvement initiatives

Government and industry experiences

Technical periodicals and bulletins

Project completion evaluations

(See also list of sources in DOE Lessons Learned Standard)

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