The PRACA system as an ‘incubator’ for lessons learned

Although NASA has an established process for documenting lessons learned from development and operation of its complex and challenging missions, a recent audit of the NASA lessons learned program found that most NASA Centers have made few contributions to the NASA lessons learned repository in recent years. Among the NASA Centers, the NASA/Caltech Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has a relatively mature lesson learned process. Based on his experience managing the JPL lessons learned process, the author suggests that organizations lacking sources of lessons learned content may find excellent pre-screened material in their equivalent of the Laboratory´s problem/failure reporting system. JPL confidence in the value and veracity of its lesson learned submissions is enhanced by an extensive periodic review of Problem Reporting and Corrective Action (PRACA) reports from JPL spaceflight projects. A standard practice of most engineering organizations throughout the system development life cycle, this formal anomaly reporting may reveal enterprise-wide process deficiencies or other issues worthy of documentation as lessons learned. Valid lesson learned topics are derived from various sources, including word-of-mouth. But when a lesson learned is supported by information from the PRACA system, it benefits from the rigorous PRACA vetting process that includes formal analysis of proximate cause and root cause. A “well-incubated” PRACA report- i.e., one that has benefitted from thousands of labor dollars worth of engineering analysis and reflection and has been signed off by the appropriate engineering authorities- may provide ample objective evidence of a lesson that needs to be learned.