Do Learning Legacies Work? The learning legacy survey says they do!

Summary

This article discusses the vital role that learning from experience can play in delivering efficiencies across major projects, the results from a learning legacy survey and the next steps to raising the bar in the construction industry through knowledge sharing.

The construction industry is a major part of the UK economy.  In 2014 construction output was £103 billion, 6.5% of GDP, and comprised 2.1 million jobs, 6.3% of the UK jobs total, according to the Government Construction Strategy published in 2016.

Over the past few years there has been a drive by Government to set out the future long term direction of the construction industry resulting in a number of strategies and plans such as the Government Construction Strategy, Construction 2025 and the National Infrastructure Delivery Plan.  These strategies set ambitious efficiency targets around cost, time and environment and improvement in UK exports with commitments and drivers of change which, as David Higgins said of the Construction 2025 strategy is “the first step in putting UK construction at the forefront of the global market”.    However all of these strategies fail to address one of the most obvious of inefficiencies on projects – a lack of learning from experience – projects starting from a blank sheet of paper each time, not learning lessons from past projects and doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

The construction industry is notoriously bad at delivering on time and on budget.  98% of mega-projects across the world are resulting in cost or schedule overruns according to McKinsey, whilst PMI reports that organisations waste US$122million for every US$1billion invested due to poor project performance, and further, a third of the UK Government’s £511bn Major Projects Portfolio is failing according to the NAO’s reportto the Public Accounts Committee in January 2016.  Time and again poor project performance is found to be due to common causes of failure – we do not learn from our mistakes.

Construction 2025 identified ‘lack of collaboration and knowledge sharing’ as a weakness stating that ‘learning points from projects are often team-based and lost when the team breaks up and project ends’.  Besides the very obvious logic that repeating the same mistakes does not make good business sense, there is some empirical evidence that knowledge sharing adds value.  Research by PMI found a 35% improvement in project outcomes by organisations that are most effective at knowledge transfer.   In 2004, the International Data Corp, a Framingham, Mass.-based market intelligence and advisory firm in the IT and telecommunications industries in the US estimated that $31.5bn is lost each year by Fortune 500 companies not sharing knowledge (Babcock, 2004).  Further research into the business case for learning from experience as it applies specifically to the UK  is needed in this area.

So how can the industry learn to learn from experience and share knowledge effectively?  Learning legacies are one approach taken by two mega projects – London 2012 and Crossrail, to collate and share lessons learned, innovation and good practice for the benefit of the industry, to raise the bar and show case UK PLC.  But have these learning legacies actually added value?

We know from the Google Analytics that the London 2012 Learning Legacy website published in October 2011 has been visited by over 163,000 visitors from 175 countries who’ve downloaded 500,000+ documents and the more recently published Crossrail Learning Legacy is following a similar trend, both sites continuing to receive around 200 hits a day.  But are these actually  ‘raising the bar’ in industry?

I ran a survey in May which was shared on LinkedIn and through MPA’s and APM’s newsletters/websites to answer that question.

Survey Results

230 people responded to the survey.    79% of respondents had heard of learning legacy before.  Of these:

• 74% had applied learning or resources from learning legacies into their own projects
• 59% said it resulted in time savings
• 50% said it resulted in cost savings
• 68% said it had influenced their approach to project initiation and development
• 62% said it helped improve project delivery
• 16% didn’t find learning legacy helpful

Whilst this survey doesn’t seek to quantify the value of savings made by projects, it does provide evidence that learning legacy is contributing to real cost and time savings on other projects.

50% of respondees were from the Infrastructure and Construction sector which suggests that learning legacy is relevant across sector.  The majority of respondees were from consultancy (44%) and client teams (37%) with 16% from contractors and the supply chain.

Next Steps

These survey results suggest that learning legacies have a role to play in supporting Construction 2025 to achieve its ambitions and improve project productivity so should this become standard practice for all major projects?   In my view, yes, all major projects, particularly those funded by Government, should be contributing to a body of knowledge on major projects and throughout the planning and delivery – not just at the end.  It is not acceptable to let these valuable knowledge assets drift away as the project closes down.  Transition planning and knowledge sharing is also a key part of the circular economy.

What needs to happen next?   My thoughts are:

• Construction Leadership Council are responsible for developing the action plan for Construction 2025.  They should take the lead in driving the industry to share knowledge (including failure) as a critical success factor in achieving the Construction 2025 ambitions.   Alternatively this could be a role for the Infrastructure Client Group?
• Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) to drive a ‘learning legacy’ requirement on government funded projects – learning before, during and after on all projects.  This could include a requirement for all major projects to have a knowledge management strategy at the beginning of the project integrating innovation, lessons learned and learning legacy
• Academic research on the business case behind learning legacy to be funded, perhaps led by the IPA
• A Knowledge hub for major projects is required that brings together the various learning legacies and experts but also provides a portal for project delivery organisations to share knowledge directly.

If UK PLC truly wishes to increase our share of the global construction market then we need to improve project productivity in the UK to make us more competitive and we need to showcase our capability at delivering major projects.  Construction 2025 is a good step in the right direction.  However learning from experience and learning legacies are an essential driver for improved project productivity on all major projects, a fact that Construction 2025 has failed to grasp.

@Learning_Legacy