Think about it — if the typical so-called lesson learned includes “should have had senior buy-in” that’s not much of a lesson learned. That to me is more of a “duh” because having senior buy-in is more of a core requirement than a lesson learned. So if critical projects are started without covering a basic issue such as senior buy-in….well, “duh.”

The other side of the issue I think is that few actually bother to look at previous lessons learned or such before beginning. It is (as pointed out above) part of that “not invented here” cultural issue that I think has most teams thinking that whatever they are about to do is by far a better thing, a better approach, not like anything done prior to this, etc. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you heard someone say, “Hey, wait — have we read through the last after action reviews yet?” In many cases people can’t even find the applicable lesson learned in time to do anything with them.

I have hope for knowledge management — its proven itself over and over to be value-adding. Lessons learned? Actual mileage may vary…but more times than not, I believe — not so useful.

I think it is because people who own KM initiatives are human beings, and as prone as other human beings to rush in without “learning before”. So they reinvent the wheel yet again. That’s why KM is needed in the first place – to influence people to access and reuse knowledge, because it’s not natural human behaviour.

Personally I think it is highly regrettable. Those of us who have been working with KM for over a decade (since ’92 in my case, with BP for 7 years, then consulting) have a very well developed understanding of how KM implementation should be done, and it is really frustrating seeing people jumping in a repeating the mistakes from the past. The worst thing about this is that partial KM implementations, which deliver minor results then fizzle out, devalue KM, and spread a feeling that “KM doesn’t work”

But it does work, and there is a body of experience to explain how it can be made to work.

Stephanie Barnes asks an interesting “Knowledge Management Question” at her new The Missing Piece blog. And I make the serendipitous connection to some KM poetry….