Improving uptake of Lessons Learned through a Learning Diary

Master thesis (2021)

Authors

K. van der Welle Technology, Policy and Management

Contributors

M. Leijten Organisation & Governance - TPM (mentor)
R.M. Verburg Economics of Technology and Innovation - TPM (mentor)
Faculty
Technology, Policy and Management, Technology, Policy and Management
Copyright: © 2021 Kevin van der Welle
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Published Date

09-06-2021

Language

English

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Faculty

Technology, Policy and Management

Abstract

This thesis aims to provide a better understanding of how one can improve the uptake of lessons learned. So far, there has not been any study that examined the use of a learning diary for organizational learning purposes. A learning diary might be used to learn as a community when individuals use their personal diaries as input for the improvement of the organization.
To explore the use of a learning diary in a project setting, a pilot was done at a project called “De Groene Boog”. De Groene Boog is a large infrastructure project to extend the A16 highway in the Netherlands. The organization used to review a project only after it was completed. Which could be over a timespan of several years and a different set of people than at the beginning. In the pilot nine people from different departments of the organization were given the task to maintain a learning diary. The exercise with the learning diary was to maintain a daily reflection journal on what went well, what could have been better and what have they learned. The exercise should make the participants take time to think about improvements in the organization. At the end of the pilot, (online) interviews were conducted to assess whether this improved attitude was actually present.
The contents of the diary also did show that some topics, like time-management, were a much more frequent issue that people dealt with on a daily basis. The result of the pilot showed that maintaining a daily learning diary is too large a task for people to maintain. From the interviews it became apparent that the participants did start to think collectively on how the company should organize knowledge management on a company-wide level. However, the exact causal connection for this was not explicitly tested. During the interviews it also became clear that a monthly team reflection would have a smaller impact on the time management of people and have a larger weight to detect the lessons learned.
An exercise like the learning diary could prove to be a low-cost analysis tool to determine the biggest pains for the employees. This does however, require further research in more cases.