The lesson-learning workflow at Continental Automotive

Here is a link to a description of lesson-learning at Continental Automotive, including a well-developed lessons workflow. It is a good example of Level 2 lesson learning as described yesterday.

Image reproduced from here

The Lesson-learning workflow operates as follows:

• A user creates a draft lesson and submits it to the Lesson Management System.
• The draft lesson is checked by a lesson administrator
• If it passes the check, it is sent to one of the Continental Lesson Learned Specialists
• The specialist evaluates the lesson, deciding whether it is a valuable lesson, and whether the lesson can be embedded into processes and guidance
• If it is valuable, it is added to the Lesson Management System so others can find it
• If it can be embedded, it is sent to the Integration Department so the relevant processes and guidance can be updated
• The Integration department track lesson metrics

Note the use of different lesson-learning support resources, the push to embed lessons into guidance and processes, and the tracking system.

Lessons can reach the user in a number of ways

• The user can follow processes and guidance
• The user can set up alerts, to be informed of new lessons on specific topics
• The user can search the Lesson Management System
• The user can make use of checklists automatically generated by the Lesson Management System

This is a great system, and it’s not surprising that Continental employees believe the importance of lesson learning to the company is high or very high.  This counts as Level 2 lesson-learning, because of the effort to embed lessons into process, and the tracking step puts it at level 2c.

This is the sort of level all organisations should aspire to, if they are serious about lesson learning.