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Box 11.4
An example: NASA lessons learned information system (LLIS)

After a period of decreased budgets, a reduced work force, and some very public failures
such as the Mars Polar Lander, NASA (web site http://km.nasa.gov/) conducted a study in
2000 to identify actions to improve its approach to executing programs and projects). One
of the recommendations from this report dealt with the improvement of capturing and
applying lessons learned from projects and missions, to prevent NASA from having to
“ relearn ” lessons of the past. As a result of this study, NASA ’ s lessons learned program was
thoroughly evaluated by the Government Accountability Offi ce (GAO) in 2001 – 2002.
At the time of the study, NASA had an established, agency-wide lessons learned infor-
mation system (LLIS) that managers were required to review on an ongoing basis to gain
lessons from past programs and projects and to submit to in a timely manner about any
signifi cant lesson throughout the life of a project. NASA also used training, program
reviews, and periodic revisions to agency policies and guidelines to communicate lessons
learned. In addition, several NASA centers and programs maintained their own lessons
learned systems geared toward their own activities. However, this impeded agency-wide
sharing of lessons learned.
To improve the way it captured and shared information, NASA developed a strategic
plan, assembled a management team to coordinate knowledge management and activities
at NASA ’ s centers, and begun several information technology pilot projects. The LLIS was
revamped and its public interface can be found at the NASA Engineering Network (http://
www.nasa.gov/offi ces/oce/llis/home/). The new LLIS includes a multifaceted taxonomy to
improve searching and browsing, allowing navigation by year, mission directorate, NASA
center, collection, and topics. It also includes a new search engine.
NASA then conducted another survey to evaluate their lessons learned database. The
results showed that although failure reports were useful, users preferred a stronger focus
on positive lessons, as they were considered more helpful in many cases than negative
ones, providing more effi cient and effective solutions that could be emulated. Ideally, a
balance between positive and negative lessons should be maintained, as NASA explains:
“ if an organization focuses only on failures, its overall program ’ s effectiveness will be
reduced and it will miss opportunities to improve all its processes ” ( US GAO 2002 ).
There is another KM system for obtaining and sharing lessons learned from past mis-
sions — the NASA engineering network. Prior to the Columbia disaster, NASA had been
using a voluntary database to share lessons learned, but employees rarely checked the
database to get information. Now employees can search and browse forty-eight NASA
engineering repositories using semantic search technologies to search both structured and
unstructured data. Content is from only accredited data sources, not informal blogs or
notes. Next, NASA will deploy a CoP portal — part chat, part search — as an interactive
message board with online conversations recorded for future reference. They also plan on
implementing an expertise locator feature will allow users to fi nd experts by inputting a
keyword search. Finally, NASA has created an agency-wide lessons learned steering com-
mittee with members from each of the NASA centers. So far, people are getting a lot more
information easier and quicker than before.