Nuclear energy conversation “Hidden learnings” in decision-making Thursday 24 November 2022 a joint The Nuclear Institute: Project Management SIG and APM's three part Nuclear webinar series Presented by: John Hovell The link to the write up page and resources of this webinar: https://www.apm.org.uk/news/nuclear-energy-conversation-hidden-learnings-in-decision-making-webinar/ Content description: How can we increase the speed of informal knowledge to improve project predictability, decision-making, and investor confidence? the nuclear institute. As we know from our recent The Nuclear Institute: Project Management SIG report, the nuclear industry suffers from a lack-of-predictability in projects, which often results in projects that are late and over-budget. Further, these repeated challenges have resulted in low investor confidence. Now, add in the current challenges to move toward low and zero carbon projects alongside the perceived slow decision-making culture. We have a major problem that is larger than any one individual, we have a systems challenge that requires transformational change. Knowledge Management (KM) is one major aspect of a complex systems approach to decision-making, innovation, and systemic change. KM officially began in 1995 and has matured along the way. KM augmented traditional Information Management (IM) approaches such as lessons learned, and traditional training approaches such as individual productivity improvement. KM now practices and enhances organisational learning and cross-industry partnership performance. In this webinar on Thursday 24 November, we discussed specific examples of how to shift from lessons learned to shared collaborative learning, from structured to unstructured collective decisions, and especially from formal to informal optimal flow of knowledge. Notice the word “discussed” because this was a group discussion as opposed to a traditional watch-and-listen webinar. Attendees came prepared to deeply listen and contribute to the conversations. John Hovell, PMP, CKM offered a short provocation, then there were two rounds of small group conversations. It closed with a group text-based sharing to collective realise and document the key learnings. The core question for consideration, and our discussion was, “how can we increase the speed of informal knowledge to improve project predictability, decision-making, and investor confidence?”.

1. Nuclear energy conversation: “Hidden
learnings” in decision-making
John Hovell
24 November 2022

2. Hidden Learnings in Decision Making
1. Provocation (15 minutes)
I. Conversational Leadership
II. Knowledge Retention
III. 4 Levels of Lessons Learned
2. Small Group Discussions (15 minutes)
3. Full Group Conversation (15 minutes)
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3. Provocation: Conversational Leadership
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“Appreciating the under-realised power of
conversations and convening conversations
that otherwise wouldn’t have happened.”
1. What is the conversation we need to
be having right now?
2. In what way do we need to have that
conversation?
3. How is this conversation forming
community?

4. Provocation: Knowledge Retention
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5. Provocation: 4 Levels of Lessons Learned
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01
02
03
04
Lessons Documented
Lessons Shared
Lessons Practiced
Lessons Applied
Lessons are documented through a template in a searchable database and website.
Unique and critical lessons are shared and communicated as broadly as appropriate.
“Case Based Learning” (CBL) is applied to the top 1% of unique and critical lessons.
Expertise teams are mobilized for real-time projects and organizational needs.

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